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Ooo... suspense!
Suspence? Is Spence is getting involved, now? ;^p
Gog dammit hortan, if this cliffhanger ends with a "nothing happened" ending, I'm callin the cliche police on you.
Chapter 17
...saw a dark shadow in the shape of a Valkyrie move across her vision, explosions outlining the ship that had appeared as if by magic in front of her. The Valkyrie twisted and fired a long burst of neutrons into the Atlas, following with a string of positrons, forcing the Atlas to back off. The fighter followed, aggressively like a pit bull, always snapping at the pirate with neutrons and positrons. Cat forced herself to breathe again; she hadn't noticed that she had held it in anticipation of the impact but her brainpal informed her of the oxygen deficiency.
Almost every alarm in her ship was blinking red or had simply stopped alerting her to impending doom. Not that she really noticed, if she had ever been in doubt that her ship was smashed she only needed to look past any of the many yellow decompression foam patches that pockmarked the canopy like measles, out onto the yellow, blue and red cabling that showed where her top armour should have been. The left engine had fused completely and the right stuttered, its control circuit switching between absolute failure and impending catastrophic shutdown. Only the ventral right attitude thruster responded to her system controls, with nothing but a torn and battered twisted piece of xithricite where her weapons used to be. She checked her cargo hold but came up blank; all sensors inside had been toasted. Her head, or at least her brainpal, had been badly mauled as well and she felt the unwelcome onset of a massive migraine-like headache arriving like a stampeding herd of Wildebeest, unstoppable, unavoidable, unwelcome. The nausea arrived close on the heels of the headache and she felt the bile rise as her stomach churned. She managed to keep the bile down, but only barely.
Ignoring the action between the pirates and the Viper QRF flight, she managed to stutter along towards the 3k mark while trickling power into her jump engine. Atice had forced the Atlas to disengage and run towards open space, positrons and neutrons painting streamers of energy around the ship from his intense fire. Ishathis was under a lot more pressure with two fighters engaging his own small fighter. He was conducting a delaying action, waiting for the second flight of Viper fighters to arrive and decide the outcome. His ship had only suffered slight damage and he held his own against the pirates. The remaining pirate was intercepting the Valent cargo module, scooping it into his cargo hold with insulting ease and started boosting for open space as well. Cat sent a silent prayer to the Lady Serco and engaged the jump drive. The exotic matter buried deep inside its protective cowling pulsed as the energy from her battery poured into it and converted the energy into a perfectly circular rift in space that sucked her ship through.
###
Atice cursed as the Atlas jumped out mere 1200 metres in front of him. Another string of neuts and it would have been so much scrap instead. He twisted violently, forcing the Valkyrie into an 18 G turn that would have killed un-augmented pilots but was merely a nuisance for his hardened and heavily modified crèche-borne body. He was perfectly capable of sustaining 20+ G for hours on end and had a theoretical upper limit of around 40 G. Not that any ship had been designed for that kind of punishing treatment but maybe one day the Serco military would build something that could outmanoeuvre a Valkyrie. The two pirates were focused on trapping Ish and with a sly grin Atice boosted for the Corvult and fired a long burst of mixed positrons and greatly accelerated neutrons at the rear of the flattened fighter. Explosions where the positrons hit were mingled with punch-holes of the neutrons, smashing the armour on the Corvult. Unfortunately, the pirate pilot was too experienced to try and evade to the sides and instead flipped ass over head and fired a string of neutrons in return, forcing Atice to break his aim and dodge the incoming fire. His radar softly chimed and he immediately hit his ventral thrusters to avoid the incoming flares from the other pirate's heavy bomber. Passing beneath his ship without detonating, they disappeared into the nothing but they had achieved their goal. The two pirate ships had turned and boosted for open space. Atice turned and followed with Ish on his side. A quick scan showed that Cat's Vulture had disappeared from his scanners and he sent an ID query towards her last known position. No reply, that meant she was either pod killed or had jumped away from the sector. No matter, he would find out when the pirates had been killed. Two more exit rings appeared and Strat's Valkyrie appeared along with Niut's heavily modified Centaur, immediately boosting for the two fleeing pirates. The battle was over; the only remainder was damage control and paperwork. Atice opened a connection to Ish.
"Buddy, I'll swing by Sedina and check out if the rats are gathering there. Could you check up on Cat and file the required paperwork?"
"Sneaky bastard. Yeah, I'll file it. You owe one."
Atice clicked twice for confirmation and turned for the wormhole. He hated paperwork with a vengeance and would do just about anything to avoid it. Even if it would cost him a box of frosted Sedina Chocolate-glazed double jelly donuts from the Latos Mining Nova Cafe.
###
John and Gramps followed Buzz down the unlit corridor, only the work light from Buzz’ lantern and the twin helmet lights illuminating the way ahead. Not that it mattered, only dust motes were appeared in their lights and the limited illumination hid what they were stepping in. Something that would no doubt have been slippery if not for the extreme cold. John had cranked his suit's heater up and donned the nomex hood to keep warm but still felt the cold bite his cheeks and nose.
"Mwahf bmmmf hmmf?"
John grinned.
"Buzz, you need to remove the cloth from your mouth buddy. You aren't making any sense at all."
With great care Buzz removed the heavy cloth and brought the flask to his mouth for another drink. "What brings you here?" he asked.
"We are looking for Hortie buddy."
Buzz stopped and turned, a great plume of fog coming from his mouth as he snorted in disbelief and asked, "What do you mean you are looking for Hortan. This isn't Helios."
He covered his mouth again as John replied.
"A mix-up. Somehow Hortan was involved in a convoy shooting in Latos and he has been lost since. No pod-ing, no clone vat activation so he is still alive."
"How did he end up in Latos? I thought he was restricted to those, what seven?, sectors in Helios."
Gramps replied before John, "long story. Suffice to say that there was a mix-up and Hortan ended up as part of a convoy that was attacked."
Buzz snorted in displeasure.
"Well, doesn't sound right is all. Arright, it is just up here. Now, we haven't had power for a bit so the hospitality may be... less than the usual. Do you have more mists?"
John grinned and nodded, pointing to his Bergan.
"Plenty to go around buddy."
"That'll make you welcome at least."
They rounded a bend and came to a riveted emergency airlock door. The usual signal lights that indicated pressure on either side of the door were dull, unlit. A large wheel, metal bar thick enough to be used with heavily gloved hands, was set in the middle of the door. The gloves were essential at this time; if someone grasped the gun-grey metal with unprotected hands, he would leave his skin on the wheel. Buzz grasped it and twisted half a turn counter-clockwise, and pushed the door open. Dull yellow light streamed out along with a cloud of vapour. They hurried into the room behind, to another door. Buzz closed the outer door before opening the inner door. Yet more vapour streamed out, this time painted by bright yellow light. A smell of unwashed bodies, cooking oil and burned plastic smothered their noses in a broth of nauseating proportions; Buzz didn't seem to notice but John and Gramps put their nose filters on. Buzz turned theatrically and grinned.
"Welcome to my humble abode gents."
###
Asteroth chuckled as Pinhead delivered his report. They were standing next to a large Xithricite framed container that had been secured for deep space conditions, the opening firmly shut with a punch-pad displayed in the middle, indicator lamp glowing red. There were scratch marks on the frame of the door from something that could have been claws. That is, if a beast could tear rends in armour-grade xithricite.
"Good enough. We will ignore them and their pathetic mewling even as we abuse their gullibility. I'll sign you up for three hours of pleasure dome when you have the time for it, aye?"
"Thanks Ast. That will be just what I need once I delivered this brute. Where do you want him?"
"Lower bay D-4 berth 429. Remember to connect the power lead to the box."
"I won't forget that. The power conduit to the cargo bay is faulty on my ship so I had to run on batteries. I nearly ran out of power since I had to take the detour around the TGFT ships and all. I was expecting him to punch through to the cockpit at any second to be honest."
Asteroth smiled and nodded, clapped the Itani on the shoulder and pushed away from the crate. The transport-chutes glowed a soft orange and Asteroth jumped into one of the chutes with an arrow pointing up. The slight airstream grabbed him and he propelled himself expertly in the zero-g by his fingertips and twists of his body up two levels and exited on the busy main deck of Bractus Stronghold. The main deck was an Escherian nightmare of jumbled squares that seemed to protrude from every surface like a cubist's version of cancerous growth, door-openings facing in apparently random directions. The inhabitants of Bractus were the only fully space adapted humans, calling themselves Homo Stellat Habitus. The adaption was apparent in their extreme body proportions. Anywhere else you would have called them high and thin. But when you spend your entire life in zero-g where direction is irrelevant like the Bracturans, height didn't mean anything. They were still much... larger than Asteroth, despite his Serco frame. Another give-away was their complete disregard for up and down, with groups of them gathering with their feet sticking in all directions, one of the feet secured to a fixture by a gecko'd stocking and their faces near each other.
Asteroth was a stranger here but the amount of law enforcement officers, or rather the complete lack of it, allowed him to go about his business with few questions. He spotted another stranger across the cavernous space and jumped across, aided by his hand and ankle air thrusters. He landed softly next to the blue-clad figure and activated one gecko-stocking. The stranger pushed a nippled plastic bottle over to him and grunted in greeting. Asteroth grasped it and sipped from the liquid; Dark Lady laced with Helio Mists, perfectly chilled as well.
"That was sorely needed William. I hope you are in good health?"
Another grunt seemed to affirm the statement, closely followed by the sound of a bottle being emptied. Another full nippled bottle was standing on the velcro covered bar desk and William Cutting swapped it for the empty one. Asteroth noticed that the long slender hands, the hands that would be cared for and was the trademark of an elite Itani pilot, was heavily callused on the knuckles. So much for the state of his mental health.
"I have a job for you, involves a fair amount of shooting. You up for it?"
William nodded slowly so as not to interfere with his drinking. The barkeep put another bottle on the velcro before removing the empty bottle, an inquisitive glance at Asteroth's bottle the only indication that he acknowledged the newcomer. One thing you were certain to get at a Corvus bar was privacy. And if you were that inclined, a venereal disease.
"Right, this is what I need you to do..."
...saw a dark shadow in the shape of a Valkyrie move across her vision, explosions outlining the ship that had appeared as if by magic in front of her. The Valkyrie twisted and fired a long burst of neutrons into the Atlas, following with a string of positrons, forcing the Atlas to back off. The fighter followed, aggressively like a pit bull, always snapping at the pirate with neutrons and positrons. Cat forced herself to breathe again; she hadn't noticed that she had held it in anticipation of the impact but her brainpal informed her of the oxygen deficiency.
Almost every alarm in her ship was blinking red or had simply stopped alerting her to impending doom. Not that she really noticed, if she had ever been in doubt that her ship was smashed she only needed to look past any of the many yellow decompression foam patches that pockmarked the canopy like measles, out onto the yellow, blue and red cabling that showed where her top armour should have been. The left engine had fused completely and the right stuttered, its control circuit switching between absolute failure and impending catastrophic shutdown. Only the ventral right attitude thruster responded to her system controls, with nothing but a torn and battered twisted piece of xithricite where her weapons used to be. She checked her cargo hold but came up blank; all sensors inside had been toasted. Her head, or at least her brainpal, had been badly mauled as well and she felt the unwelcome onset of a massive migraine-like headache arriving like a stampeding herd of Wildebeest, unstoppable, unavoidable, unwelcome. The nausea arrived close on the heels of the headache and she felt the bile rise as her stomach churned. She managed to keep the bile down, but only barely.
Ignoring the action between the pirates and the Viper QRF flight, she managed to stutter along towards the 3k mark while trickling power into her jump engine. Atice had forced the Atlas to disengage and run towards open space, positrons and neutrons painting streamers of energy around the ship from his intense fire. Ishathis was under a lot more pressure with two fighters engaging his own small fighter. He was conducting a delaying action, waiting for the second flight of Viper fighters to arrive and decide the outcome. His ship had only suffered slight damage and he held his own against the pirates. The remaining pirate was intercepting the Valent cargo module, scooping it into his cargo hold with insulting ease and started boosting for open space as well. Cat sent a silent prayer to the Lady Serco and engaged the jump drive. The exotic matter buried deep inside its protective cowling pulsed as the energy from her battery poured into it and converted the energy into a perfectly circular rift in space that sucked her ship through.
###
Atice cursed as the Atlas jumped out mere 1200 metres in front of him. Another string of neuts and it would have been so much scrap instead. He twisted violently, forcing the Valkyrie into an 18 G turn that would have killed un-augmented pilots but was merely a nuisance for his hardened and heavily modified crèche-borne body. He was perfectly capable of sustaining 20+ G for hours on end and had a theoretical upper limit of around 40 G. Not that any ship had been designed for that kind of punishing treatment but maybe one day the Serco military would build something that could outmanoeuvre a Valkyrie. The two pirates were focused on trapping Ish and with a sly grin Atice boosted for the Corvult and fired a long burst of mixed positrons and greatly accelerated neutrons at the rear of the flattened fighter. Explosions where the positrons hit were mingled with punch-holes of the neutrons, smashing the armour on the Corvult. Unfortunately, the pirate pilot was too experienced to try and evade to the sides and instead flipped ass over head and fired a string of neutrons in return, forcing Atice to break his aim and dodge the incoming fire. His radar softly chimed and he immediately hit his ventral thrusters to avoid the incoming flares from the other pirate's heavy bomber. Passing beneath his ship without detonating, they disappeared into the nothing but they had achieved their goal. The two pirate ships had turned and boosted for open space. Atice turned and followed with Ish on his side. A quick scan showed that Cat's Vulture had disappeared from his scanners and he sent an ID query towards her last known position. No reply, that meant she was either pod killed or had jumped away from the sector. No matter, he would find out when the pirates had been killed. Two more exit rings appeared and Strat's Valkyrie appeared along with Niut's heavily modified Centaur, immediately boosting for the two fleeing pirates. The battle was over; the only remainder was damage control and paperwork. Atice opened a connection to Ish.
"Buddy, I'll swing by Sedina and check out if the rats are gathering there. Could you check up on Cat and file the required paperwork?"
"Sneaky bastard. Yeah, I'll file it. You owe one."
Atice clicked twice for confirmation and turned for the wormhole. He hated paperwork with a vengeance and would do just about anything to avoid it. Even if it would cost him a box of frosted Sedina Chocolate-glazed double jelly donuts from the Latos Mining Nova Cafe.
###
John and Gramps followed Buzz down the unlit corridor, only the work light from Buzz’ lantern and the twin helmet lights illuminating the way ahead. Not that it mattered, only dust motes were appeared in their lights and the limited illumination hid what they were stepping in. Something that would no doubt have been slippery if not for the extreme cold. John had cranked his suit's heater up and donned the nomex hood to keep warm but still felt the cold bite his cheeks and nose.
"Mwahf bmmmf hmmf?"
John grinned.
"Buzz, you need to remove the cloth from your mouth buddy. You aren't making any sense at all."
With great care Buzz removed the heavy cloth and brought the flask to his mouth for another drink. "What brings you here?" he asked.
"We are looking for Hortie buddy."
Buzz stopped and turned, a great plume of fog coming from his mouth as he snorted in disbelief and asked, "What do you mean you are looking for Hortan. This isn't Helios."
He covered his mouth again as John replied.
"A mix-up. Somehow Hortan was involved in a convoy shooting in Latos and he has been lost since. No pod-ing, no clone vat activation so he is still alive."
"How did he end up in Latos? I thought he was restricted to those, what seven?, sectors in Helios."
Gramps replied before John, "long story. Suffice to say that there was a mix-up and Hortan ended up as part of a convoy that was attacked."
Buzz snorted in displeasure.
"Well, doesn't sound right is all. Arright, it is just up here. Now, we haven't had power for a bit so the hospitality may be... less than the usual. Do you have more mists?"
John grinned and nodded, pointing to his Bergan.
"Plenty to go around buddy."
"That'll make you welcome at least."
They rounded a bend and came to a riveted emergency airlock door. The usual signal lights that indicated pressure on either side of the door were dull, unlit. A large wheel, metal bar thick enough to be used with heavily gloved hands, was set in the middle of the door. The gloves were essential at this time; if someone grasped the gun-grey metal with unprotected hands, he would leave his skin on the wheel. Buzz grasped it and twisted half a turn counter-clockwise, and pushed the door open. Dull yellow light streamed out along with a cloud of vapour. They hurried into the room behind, to another door. Buzz closed the outer door before opening the inner door. Yet more vapour streamed out, this time painted by bright yellow light. A smell of unwashed bodies, cooking oil and burned plastic smothered their noses in a broth of nauseating proportions; Buzz didn't seem to notice but John and Gramps put their nose filters on. Buzz turned theatrically and grinned.
"Welcome to my humble abode gents."
###
Asteroth chuckled as Pinhead delivered his report. They were standing next to a large Xithricite framed container that had been secured for deep space conditions, the opening firmly shut with a punch-pad displayed in the middle, indicator lamp glowing red. There were scratch marks on the frame of the door from something that could have been claws. That is, if a beast could tear rends in armour-grade xithricite.
"Good enough. We will ignore them and their pathetic mewling even as we abuse their gullibility. I'll sign you up for three hours of pleasure dome when you have the time for it, aye?"
"Thanks Ast. That will be just what I need once I delivered this brute. Where do you want him?"
"Lower bay D-4 berth 429. Remember to connect the power lead to the box."
"I won't forget that. The power conduit to the cargo bay is faulty on my ship so I had to run on batteries. I nearly ran out of power since I had to take the detour around the TGFT ships and all. I was expecting him to punch through to the cockpit at any second to be honest."
Asteroth smiled and nodded, clapped the Itani on the shoulder and pushed away from the crate. The transport-chutes glowed a soft orange and Asteroth jumped into one of the chutes with an arrow pointing up. The slight airstream grabbed him and he propelled himself expertly in the zero-g by his fingertips and twists of his body up two levels and exited on the busy main deck of Bractus Stronghold. The main deck was an Escherian nightmare of jumbled squares that seemed to protrude from every surface like a cubist's version of cancerous growth, door-openings facing in apparently random directions. The inhabitants of Bractus were the only fully space adapted humans, calling themselves Homo Stellat Habitus. The adaption was apparent in their extreme body proportions. Anywhere else you would have called them high and thin. But when you spend your entire life in zero-g where direction is irrelevant like the Bracturans, height didn't mean anything. They were still much... larger than Asteroth, despite his Serco frame. Another give-away was their complete disregard for up and down, with groups of them gathering with their feet sticking in all directions, one of the feet secured to a fixture by a gecko'd stocking and their faces near each other.
Asteroth was a stranger here but the amount of law enforcement officers, or rather the complete lack of it, allowed him to go about his business with few questions. He spotted another stranger across the cavernous space and jumped across, aided by his hand and ankle air thrusters. He landed softly next to the blue-clad figure and activated one gecko-stocking. The stranger pushed a nippled plastic bottle over to him and grunted in greeting. Asteroth grasped it and sipped from the liquid; Dark Lady laced with Helio Mists, perfectly chilled as well.
"That was sorely needed William. I hope you are in good health?"
Another grunt seemed to affirm the statement, closely followed by the sound of a bottle being emptied. Another full nippled bottle was standing on the velcro covered bar desk and William Cutting swapped it for the empty one. Asteroth noticed that the long slender hands, the hands that would be cared for and was the trademark of an elite Itani pilot, was heavily callused on the knuckles. So much for the state of his mental health.
"I have a job for you, involves a fair amount of shooting. You up for it?"
William nodded slowly so as not to interfere with his drinking. The barkeep put another bottle on the velcro before removing the empty bottle, an inquisitive glance at Asteroth's bottle the only indication that he acknowledged the newcomer. One thing you were certain to get at a Corvus bar was privacy. And if you were that inclined, a venereal disease.
"Right, this is what I need you to do..."
Atice to the rescue!
Right, that's it...
*starts dialing numbers*
btw great chapter as always, hortie.
*starts dialing numbers*
btw great chapter as always, hortie.
Chapter 18
Riddik tossed the heavy duffel bag into a corner. He was supposed to meet up and liaise with the official ONE liaison officer to TGFT but figured that it would be easier to skip the diplomacy and go straight for the main boss. It was easier by far for him at least, since the head of ONE was his wife, Keria. He sent the brainpal version of a "Honey, I'm home" shout and received a location data squirt in reply. Typical, she was in the bathroom. Riddik walked over to the ancient refrigerator and grabbed himself a litre bottle of Lady of Night dark ale, twisted the top off and poured half of it into his throat in one long pull. Keria walked into the room, wearing full dress uniform and positively beaming a smile at him.
"Hi baby, what are you doing here? I thought you were off with Aelius."
Riddik grinned, walked over and scooped Keria up with his right arm and planted a kiss on her lips. He wanted to squeeze her tight and feel her against him but didn't want to be impaled on all her medals.
"I decided to speak to the boss directly instead love."
"Well, you need to speak to Aelius. I resigned two hours ago."
Riddik frowned and let go of Keria.
"You did what? I mean, why would you do that? Did someone force you, who was it that…"
Keria put a single finger on Riddik's lips, silencing his torrent of words. She still smiled up at him as she removed her finger again.
"Remember the time we spent on Helios Outpost?"
Riddik's face split in a wide grin that was enhanced by the appearing mischief in his eyes.
"Do I ever. That was wild."
"Yeah, that was fun. But try and engage your brain for something else for once and see if you remember what we talked about after it."
"I don't know. My mind kinda wandered at that time. Something with ensuring that the race would prosper I think."
Keria nodded and disentangled herself from Riddik's arm. She stole his ale and sipped from it, glancing over to the banner that adorned their wall opposite the entrance.
"Well, I gave it some more thought. And I figured how I could help the race most. I decided to apply for creche, and today I was accepted before the board of Eugenics masters. "
The pride and joy in her voice matched the appearing glow of her cheeks.
"I asked to be appointed to raise one creche myself and I humbly requested that you would be my co-founder. Rid, we have a chance to be the progenitors for 15.000 Serco warriors! That is why I resigned from the leadership of ONE. Seragyn has it now. I know I am asking a lot of you, will you join me?"
Riddik's face changed from wide grin to astonishment and ended in pride and concern. He scooped Keria up in both his arms and held her close to him for the longest time.
"I'll walk with you to the end of the universe Keria, as well you know. Progenitors eh? Just imagine how much havoc 15.000 Riddiks and Kerias will create."
They both laughed at that. And then relived the times at Helios Outpost.
###
The exit end of the wormhole spewed the Vulture forth and, in accordance with the general rules of the universe, ceased to exist. Only the rings of exotic particles remained and even these degraded to normal quarks within seconds. The Vulture remained however, slowly tumbling, leaking atmosphere and shining like a miniature sun in the infrared parts of the spectrum with immense heat from the faulty engine. Cat's conscience flickered on and off at intervals, obvious signs that her brainpal had taken damage from the excess heat she had allowed it to dump into her brain. The damage itself had manifested itself as a massive hang-over, the like of fables and horror movies, the pain waxing and waning with each pulse from her heart, the total pain growing like a tumour until her consciousness shut her off for a small period, allowed her to wake up again and started a new cycle.
She used the “awake” periods to reduce the tumble with the two thrusters that still worked, well the one that worked and the one she could coax around 10% power out of. She had no idea where she was, she had no idea how much time had passed, all she knew was that for every period of unconsciousness, she had slightly less cabin pressure and the tumble had been reduced by even less. The collection of red and orange lights across her readiness board backlit the frosted, cracked and crashfoam-dotted chainglass visor of the canopy, hiding the blackness of the universe. The pain intensified with another beat and Cat wished it would go away, wished she would go away, wished she wouldn't come back. Consciousness faded and suddenly she panicked, remembered her cargo and didn't want to...
She didn't feel the hard bump when the docking cradle engaged her ship; she never noticed the gentle but strong hands that lifted her out of the cockpit after the paramedic had dissolved the molecular bonds of the canopy chainglass, and strapped her onto the emergency stretcher. The medic that treated her inserted a nano-probe into the standard interface port behind her right ear and disabled the damaged brainpal but kept her unconscious. It was easier this way, at least until they reached the station. Besides, they had another patient that was more needing.
###
Chi docked her Warthog, grabbed her backpack and strolled over to the entry portal to the station and the blocking customs officials. She had her papers in order; they were the best quality that the Phoenix Alliance diplomatic service could provide. She sought out the very official that looked to be most likely to be a sorry excuse for a human being, the reasons two-fold. Normally she could charm her way in if the papers were somehow discovered as being false; if that didn't work, she could always cough up with a small bribe. The line consisted of only four people and the going was fairly swift. When it was almost her turn, a young man, immaculately clad in a grey and brown suit with a small pin in bright yellow and red on the left side, walked up to the official and bent low to whisper something in his ear. Chi had noticed him coming out from a door next to a large, she suspected, one-way mirrored glass window behind the customs department. The young man took over and allowed the person in front of Chi to go through. Chi steeled herself and walked up to the desk and handed over her papers. The young man took the papers and scanned them, disappointment obvious on his face.
"It says here that you are a UIT national. You don't look very much like a born UIT to me miss.... Kosterlein?"
It was an old trick. Fortunately for Chi, it was also a very common trick and one she had anticipated. The official intentionally mispronounced her name to see if she was using a cover name, which she was, that she wasn't used to. She feigned slight annoyance and responded.
"It is Kosterschein. And I was born and raised in Verasi, second generation UIT, first generation Valentar. My parents were exiles from Eo. As it says on your screen no doubt."
The official smiled slightly but kept his eyes on the screen, busying himself with the input field before looking Chi directly into her eyes while handing her the papers back.
"Can't be too careful these days. The Itani and Serco menace is stirring everywhere and we like to keep track on where they are. For their own protection off course. Can I enquire of whether you still have contact with your Itani relatives?"
He managed to say Itani and make it sound like an infectious disease and it took all of her training to keep a straight face in front of the naked hatred that was presented so innocently.
"No, my parents are both dead and I was an only child. There is one at work but I rarely speak to him."
The official handed her a small contact card and smiled without it reaching his eyes, the eyes that stayed cold and dead, calculating.
"Please, if the person acts in any way suspiciously, report it to any number here. If you are in doubt, report it. Have a nice day."
Chi put the card in her pocket and walked past the official. Something was wrong, very wrong. She needed to look into this as soon as she had finished the current mission. And as soon as she had helped John find Hortan.
###
The Xang Xi official opened the mail that had been trying to catch his attention for the last day or so but had been too busy for. He had not believed it possible that the station would have descended to such a level of chaos in so little time. Entire decks were now off-limit to the Xang Xi auxiliary police and hand-to-hand combat had been fought around the commercial hub. Only the heavy use of teargas, stingnets and tasers had allowed his peacekeepers to disengage without fatalities. He had tried to reason with the troublemakers, rebels really, and was rewarded with a can to the face that had smashed itself against his highly sculpted brow and would no doubt leave a scar. He believed he had even gained some grey hair from the stress as well. Right now Xang Xi, in the form of his peacekeepers, only had control with the manufacturing deck, much good that did them without power he thought, three of the nineteen habitat levels and fortunately, the prison. He shuddered with the thought of what would happen if the prisoners were freed. He needed to come up with a plan for re-taking the occupied parts of the station. After he had slept. And after he had dealt with this mail. He activated the small worm that would deliver his message.
"Asteroth,
Although I am still interested in receiving the specimen in full health and unharmed, it is at this moment not possible. An incident has occurred that precludes the reception and as such I would be grateful if You could, at standard holding prices, keep the specimen in storage for two weeks. I have released twenty percent of the purchasing price up front as my proof of intent, details encoded with a one-time pad for withdrawal.
Aera Hitro, acting commander Daltas Hold."
There, that should keep the mercenaries off his back long enough for him to secure the station and not least, secure the last money. He didn't send the message, instead saving it as a draft. He was too tired to proof read it. Instead, he dumped himself on the bed and closed his eyes but sleep wouldn't come. His masters still thought that he had the situation under control and he hadn't told them differently. He needed to come up with a plan that allowed him to push the blame for the chaotic situation on somebody else, preferably someone that could safely die in the process. An idea forced itself into his head and he opened his eyes and grinned wide. Yes, that would create the situation he needed and once he had placed the blame, he could acquire their assets and pay the mercenaries for silence. He moved over to his terminal and opened the message again, changing it. There, much better. He sent the message and dumped himself on the bed again. This time sleep arrived almost instantly.
Riddik tossed the heavy duffel bag into a corner. He was supposed to meet up and liaise with the official ONE liaison officer to TGFT but figured that it would be easier to skip the diplomacy and go straight for the main boss. It was easier by far for him at least, since the head of ONE was his wife, Keria. He sent the brainpal version of a "Honey, I'm home" shout and received a location data squirt in reply. Typical, she was in the bathroom. Riddik walked over to the ancient refrigerator and grabbed himself a litre bottle of Lady of Night dark ale, twisted the top off and poured half of it into his throat in one long pull. Keria walked into the room, wearing full dress uniform and positively beaming a smile at him.
"Hi baby, what are you doing here? I thought you were off with Aelius."
Riddik grinned, walked over and scooped Keria up with his right arm and planted a kiss on her lips. He wanted to squeeze her tight and feel her against him but didn't want to be impaled on all her medals.
"I decided to speak to the boss directly instead love."
"Well, you need to speak to Aelius. I resigned two hours ago."
Riddik frowned and let go of Keria.
"You did what? I mean, why would you do that? Did someone force you, who was it that…"
Keria put a single finger on Riddik's lips, silencing his torrent of words. She still smiled up at him as she removed her finger again.
"Remember the time we spent on Helios Outpost?"
Riddik's face split in a wide grin that was enhanced by the appearing mischief in his eyes.
"Do I ever. That was wild."
"Yeah, that was fun. But try and engage your brain for something else for once and see if you remember what we talked about after it."
"I don't know. My mind kinda wandered at that time. Something with ensuring that the race would prosper I think."
Keria nodded and disentangled herself from Riddik's arm. She stole his ale and sipped from it, glancing over to the banner that adorned their wall opposite the entrance.
"Well, I gave it some more thought. And I figured how I could help the race most. I decided to apply for creche, and today I was accepted before the board of Eugenics masters. "
The pride and joy in her voice matched the appearing glow of her cheeks.
"I asked to be appointed to raise one creche myself and I humbly requested that you would be my co-founder. Rid, we have a chance to be the progenitors for 15.000 Serco warriors! That is why I resigned from the leadership of ONE. Seragyn has it now. I know I am asking a lot of you, will you join me?"
Riddik's face changed from wide grin to astonishment and ended in pride and concern. He scooped Keria up in both his arms and held her close to him for the longest time.
"I'll walk with you to the end of the universe Keria, as well you know. Progenitors eh? Just imagine how much havoc 15.000 Riddiks and Kerias will create."
They both laughed at that. And then relived the times at Helios Outpost.
###
The exit end of the wormhole spewed the Vulture forth and, in accordance with the general rules of the universe, ceased to exist. Only the rings of exotic particles remained and even these degraded to normal quarks within seconds. The Vulture remained however, slowly tumbling, leaking atmosphere and shining like a miniature sun in the infrared parts of the spectrum with immense heat from the faulty engine. Cat's conscience flickered on and off at intervals, obvious signs that her brainpal had taken damage from the excess heat she had allowed it to dump into her brain. The damage itself had manifested itself as a massive hang-over, the like of fables and horror movies, the pain waxing and waning with each pulse from her heart, the total pain growing like a tumour until her consciousness shut her off for a small period, allowed her to wake up again and started a new cycle.
She used the “awake” periods to reduce the tumble with the two thrusters that still worked, well the one that worked and the one she could coax around 10% power out of. She had no idea where she was, she had no idea how much time had passed, all she knew was that for every period of unconsciousness, she had slightly less cabin pressure and the tumble had been reduced by even less. The collection of red and orange lights across her readiness board backlit the frosted, cracked and crashfoam-dotted chainglass visor of the canopy, hiding the blackness of the universe. The pain intensified with another beat and Cat wished it would go away, wished she would go away, wished she wouldn't come back. Consciousness faded and suddenly she panicked, remembered her cargo and didn't want to...
She didn't feel the hard bump when the docking cradle engaged her ship; she never noticed the gentle but strong hands that lifted her out of the cockpit after the paramedic had dissolved the molecular bonds of the canopy chainglass, and strapped her onto the emergency stretcher. The medic that treated her inserted a nano-probe into the standard interface port behind her right ear and disabled the damaged brainpal but kept her unconscious. It was easier this way, at least until they reached the station. Besides, they had another patient that was more needing.
###
Chi docked her Warthog, grabbed her backpack and strolled over to the entry portal to the station and the blocking customs officials. She had her papers in order; they were the best quality that the Phoenix Alliance diplomatic service could provide. She sought out the very official that looked to be most likely to be a sorry excuse for a human being, the reasons two-fold. Normally she could charm her way in if the papers were somehow discovered as being false; if that didn't work, she could always cough up with a small bribe. The line consisted of only four people and the going was fairly swift. When it was almost her turn, a young man, immaculately clad in a grey and brown suit with a small pin in bright yellow and red on the left side, walked up to the official and bent low to whisper something in his ear. Chi had noticed him coming out from a door next to a large, she suspected, one-way mirrored glass window behind the customs department. The young man took over and allowed the person in front of Chi to go through. Chi steeled herself and walked up to the desk and handed over her papers. The young man took the papers and scanned them, disappointment obvious on his face.
"It says here that you are a UIT national. You don't look very much like a born UIT to me miss.... Kosterlein?"
It was an old trick. Fortunately for Chi, it was also a very common trick and one she had anticipated. The official intentionally mispronounced her name to see if she was using a cover name, which she was, that she wasn't used to. She feigned slight annoyance and responded.
"It is Kosterschein. And I was born and raised in Verasi, second generation UIT, first generation Valentar. My parents were exiles from Eo. As it says on your screen no doubt."
The official smiled slightly but kept his eyes on the screen, busying himself with the input field before looking Chi directly into her eyes while handing her the papers back.
"Can't be too careful these days. The Itani and Serco menace is stirring everywhere and we like to keep track on where they are. For their own protection off course. Can I enquire of whether you still have contact with your Itani relatives?"
He managed to say Itani and make it sound like an infectious disease and it took all of her training to keep a straight face in front of the naked hatred that was presented so innocently.
"No, my parents are both dead and I was an only child. There is one at work but I rarely speak to him."
The official handed her a small contact card and smiled without it reaching his eyes, the eyes that stayed cold and dead, calculating.
"Please, if the person acts in any way suspiciously, report it to any number here. If you are in doubt, report it. Have a nice day."
Chi put the card in her pocket and walked past the official. Something was wrong, very wrong. She needed to look into this as soon as she had finished the current mission. And as soon as she had helped John find Hortan.
###
The Xang Xi official opened the mail that had been trying to catch his attention for the last day or so but had been too busy for. He had not believed it possible that the station would have descended to such a level of chaos in so little time. Entire decks were now off-limit to the Xang Xi auxiliary police and hand-to-hand combat had been fought around the commercial hub. Only the heavy use of teargas, stingnets and tasers had allowed his peacekeepers to disengage without fatalities. He had tried to reason with the troublemakers, rebels really, and was rewarded with a can to the face that had smashed itself against his highly sculpted brow and would no doubt leave a scar. He believed he had even gained some grey hair from the stress as well. Right now Xang Xi, in the form of his peacekeepers, only had control with the manufacturing deck, much good that did them without power he thought, three of the nineteen habitat levels and fortunately, the prison. He shuddered with the thought of what would happen if the prisoners were freed. He needed to come up with a plan for re-taking the occupied parts of the station. After he had slept. And after he had dealt with this mail. He activated the small worm that would deliver his message.
"Asteroth,
Although I am still interested in receiving the specimen in full health and unharmed, it is at this moment not possible. An incident has occurred that precludes the reception and as such I would be grateful if You could, at standard holding prices, keep the specimen in storage for two weeks. I have released twenty percent of the purchasing price up front as my proof of intent, details encoded with a one-time pad for withdrawal.
Aera Hitro, acting commander Daltas Hold."
There, that should keep the mercenaries off his back long enough for him to secure the station and not least, secure the last money. He didn't send the message, instead saving it as a draft. He was too tired to proof read it. Instead, he dumped himself on the bed and closed his eyes but sleep wouldn't come. His masters still thought that he had the situation under control and he hadn't told them differently. He needed to come up with a plan that allowed him to push the blame for the chaotic situation on somebody else, preferably someone that could safely die in the process. An idea forced itself into his head and he opened his eyes and grinned wide. Yes, that would create the situation he needed and once he had placed the blame, he could acquire their assets and pay the mercenaries for silence. He moved over to his terminal and opened the message again, changing it. There, much better. He sent the message and dumped himself on the bed again. This time sleep arrived almost instantly.
I should certainly hope her papers were in order! Otherwise there'd be some heads rolling, I assure you.
Excellent as usual, Hort! Keep up the engrossing work!
Excellent as usual, Hort! Keep up the engrossing work!
Do you write books, Hortan? This is wonderful stuff, as always.
I dunno, I found 4 spelling/grammar errors already. :<
Writers usually have someone spell/grammer check for them. They're too busy thinking and writing to care about it while writing.
nope, I don't. May do so one day.
Sorry Chaosis, English is not my native language. I hope it isn't too annoying as I really try to kill any spelling errors prior to posting. Note that I write in UK English, that may explain one or two "errors".
Sorry Chaosis, English is not my native language. I hope it isn't too annoying as I really try to kill any spelling errors prior to posting. Note that I write in UK English, that may explain one or two "errors".
Note that I write in UK "English", that may explain one or two errors.
FTFY
FTFY
well, I could have just stated English but then I would have to translate for those of you that are challenged by the slang they call US English:)
But thanks ladron;)
But thanks ladron;)
No, I mean actual grammar and spelling errors. I'm well versed enough in UK English to understand what your getting at :p
But yea, it really doesn't take away from the story itself.
But yea, it really doesn't take away from the story itself.
Then why'd you comment?
Because I wanted to spite you, now go get back to your religion or wahtever it is you kids do nowadays.
I'm can think of so many comebacks to that... though I don't want this thread to fill with chaos, so I'll restrain myself.
fill this thread with chaos, ya say?
fill this thread with chaos, ya say?