"Who did what?"

Asteroth looked up from the boot he was attempting to ram his left foot into for the third time and looked over at his personal revival assistant, Siobhan. She smiled at his efforts before pointing to the obvious error and the reason for his troubles in fitting the boot. He was grabbing the right boot, which was for apparent reasons, one of the being the obvious one of toes being not aligned, not going to fit. Ever. Siobhan knelt down and started to pull the boot off.

"Lebermac Sar. He declared hasself Emperor of Tequilaria Sar."

The slight Bractus accent betrayed her Grey upbringing, even when she wasn't physically present. Now that she was actually kneeling in front of him, her nearly three meters of height along with her long spindly limbs were a dead giveaway. The boot came off with a jarring motion, but she didn't lose her balance for a second. Not quite so for Asteroth, who nearly tumbled backwards.

"Careful Sar, you be drugged for a whale yet," she said as she replace the right boot for the left and placed it in front of his foot, giving him no chance of messing it up again.

Asteroth shook his head; immediately regretted it as he felt nausea forcing its way into his brain and stomach like an unscheduled in-laws visit on his day off. He sat absolutely still, willing the nausea away but lost the battle. And the limited contents of his stomach at the same time. Siobhan cheerfully provided him with a couple of lavender-scented napkins and a cup of water, before she scooped the stomach contents into the smart-matter area of the cubicle, for recycling.

Asteroth swirled the water around in his mouth before spitting it into the smart-area, wincing as small droplets hit Siobhan's hand. She didn't seem to notice it, or if she did, she pretended not to. One of the perks of paying an exorbitant amount for a personal revival assistant, he assumed.

"What is this Tequilaria then?"

"At be an empire in Latos, centred on the Xang Xi station where used to be the old CLM."

Asteroth frowned at that, closed his eyes and tried desperately to get his brain to work at a merely passable-for-sentience level before giving up. He had an nagging sensation of having to do something, remembered what it was and exhaled deeply before drawing a breath again seconds before his body had shut him down, to allow the autonomous nervous system to take over the body functions, that he was clearly not able to perform sentiently. One thing at a time, one thing. He hated waking after a long time in deep-sleep!

He vaguely remembered the Cargo Liberation Movement. Then again, he vaguely remembered everything right now, with the focus being on vague. Had Lebermac been a member of that band of misfits? What did it matter anyhow, it seemed that he was back. And with attitude to boot.

A mug of something hot was thrust into his hand, and he opened his eyes again, looking down at the cup of steaming black Verasi Koffee. Now, THIS he remembered. He put the mug to his lips, sipped gently and let the "Juice of Awakening" slowly trickle down his throat. The fog that had been permeating his brain slowly lifted. He blinked once, twice. He was back as well! And someone, somewhere was going to be sorry!

The voice echoed amongst the abandoned bulkheads of Epsilon Hold's cargo bay X4... "Rule #18 of Tequilaria is henceforth decreed: <hic> There shall never ever be mention of India Pale Ale, nor crappy beer brewed from rice, nor Jagermeister in Tequilaria. Schpeaking of such things shall result in da drowning of the schpeaker in said liquid."

LeberMac nodded satisfactorily at his latest pronouncement, licked his lips and waved at the MysticBot to proceed with taking dictation.

The anatomically-accurate android smoothly transcribed LeberMac's drunken ramblings into memory and simultaneously printed out a nicely-handwritten copy onto its legal pad print-o-matic. This was not its function. It was well aware that it had been created by the previous leader of the Cargo Liberation Movement to act as a decoy in times of infiltration or espionage. It was a very advanced model, supremely skilled in hand-to-hand combat, expert in combat piloting, a trained sniper, and programmed with the most sinister contingency planning routines.

It finished its mock stenography and flicked its flowing red hair back over its shoulders with a small twist of its head, arching her back in a completely unnecessary "stretch" that was calculated to produce the desired effect in men, and particularly this man.

"Schweet Eo, I used to love it when she did that," LeberMac said wistfully, staring at the perfect android that he'd recently activated. He'd come across his old access codes to [CLM] HQ recently, and with the notorious pirate guild's absence he'd been helping himself to everything in the old security offices. Like the free "Bunchie" plushies and the tequila dispenser. Most importantly, "everything" included the surprise find of an android clone of MysticRogue, exact in every detail down to the mole on its...

"Sir?" MysticBot asked with a coy tilt of the head, "Will that be all for the amendments to the Tequilaria Code of Uniform Justice?"

It watched LeberMac's tipsy movements across the floor as it calculated 63 different ways to kill him with objects within arm's reach. The plasteel chair she sat on could be broken and the shards of it could be rammed into his cranium in exactly 197.4 milliseconds. The outer viewport could be shattered and the vacuum of space would suck the life from his body in approximately 83 seconds. The discarded wiring cable could be used as a garotte to fully and messily sever his head in under 347.2 milliseconds. Unfortunately, it was prevented from fulfilling any of its actions by the built-in activation protocols. The failsafe prevented it from taking direct action against its activator, or by omission of action allowing its activator to come to harm.

"Yesh thattl be all fer the momment..." LeberMac slurred. He sat down clumsily across the table from the MysticBot and rested his jaw firmly in his hand, peering intently at the android.

MysticBot retracted its print-o-matic pad, brushed some imaginary dust off of its skirt and met LeberMac's gaze across the table. Behind its lustrous dark eyes, the advanced processors worked to calculate the minimum force required to manually crush his skull, causing maximum pain but not immediate death.

"Penny for yer thoughths..." he droned.

"I fail to see how issuing proclamations to nobody in particular advances your goal of Tequilaria." It said. "Should we not be working toward establishing a secure base of operations before commencing cargo liberation activities?"

"By Eo! You're right!" LeberMac stood up unsteadily and then immediately fell over. "We need to secure this base for Tequilaria!" He rolled over and picked himself up, his fogged mind slowly generating ideas on how he might ever accomplish such a task. He felt a rush of air and heard the doors to cargo bay X4 open, then shut. When he righted himself, he found he was alone again with only the company of the tequila dispenser.

"Wunner where dat annroid raced off to..." he slurred as he poured another large helping of tequila into a plastic cup.

MysticBot moved at superhuman speed through the corridors of the Xang Xi station, accessing floor layouts, initializing forgotten access codes and laying the groundwork for insurgency. It had been given a command by its activator to secure the base for "Tequilaria", which was what it intended to do as swiftly and as bloodily as possible.

[place holderas I am far to vodkanated for writing at the moment.]

[EDIT: Due to my hectic lifestyle, work, current injuries and what not, although I accept the challenge... this will be done piece work. Starting now.]

Apologizing in advance... I fell asleep writing last night, laptop died and I managed to neglect to save every five minutes. I'll start again tomorrow after PT.

Okada made his way through the corridors of Initros Border Guard. The place smelled of bearing grease and fuel. It wasn't the most typical place for an intelligence agent to be briefed, the station mostly served to assert the more visible and traditional kind of war. The other military personnel, your soldiers, all gazed at him intently as he walked by. Okada kept a watch on the door numbers as he scanned the corridor.

He stopped, "Ah. C-12" Okada leaned into the door comm, "Merodis"

Without response the doors glided open and Okada walked into the small briefing room. Not the most accommodated space, a table and two chairs were all occupied the room. As well as a handler, sitting in the chair on the opposite side of the room and holding a datapad. Okada sat down and eyed the handler intently.

"You're probably wondering why this location was chosen. You'll be departing and on assignment immediately when we're done briefing here."

Okada raised an eyebrow, usually he has a few days to a week to study the intel before being sent on assignment. To be flown all the way from Betheshee to the very edge of Serco space without so much a word was rare. Not uncommon, but rare at least. The handler slinged the datapad across the table to Okada. First thing he saw was a facial picture of a non-augmented human.

"His name is Lebermac, ex Itani military now in the ranks of a pirate clan in latos. All of his info is in the dossier. We're positive he is still in Latos somewhere, possibly in the C-2 sector of the system. The sector contains a Xang Xi military base, Epsilon Hold."

Okada looked up from the datapad, "So...send a fire squad in and sweep the place. I'm not sure why I'm needed if you know where he is." Okada was puzzled why he was being summoned all the way to Initros to do jarhead work, or even guise work.

The handler looked at Okada stoically, "Normally that would be the case. But if he is indeed embedded in a pirate clan like we think, then we won't be able to get close to him. They'll be eyes and ears everywhere and have vanished before we even deploy inside of the station. He is ex military, remember?"

Okada scanned through the datapad, listening to his handler's intel being spoken in a somewhat scolding tone. "So is this a search and destroy or am I picking him up?"

"No. We have reason to believe that an Itani agent is looking for him also. The pirate clan is mostly defunct, but some strange messages have been broadcast from the station. Something about a Teq...Teq-uila-ria."

Okada looked up again and raised his eyebrow once more at his handler's stammering. "what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Okada shook his head in frustration. "Are you sure it isn't pronounce Teq-uil-aria." The handler didn't look amused.

"We're sending you out to gather more intel and recon the situation. You'll be reporting back to us daily. We're sending you in because you look like a regular human. You can get close enough to watch him and see what he is up to and intervene if needed be."

That made a little more sense. It was true Okada looked very human despite being Serco. His implants were subdermal and concealed. Designed for intelligence agents to pass off as Itani monks, TPG engineers or pirates while still giving them all the essential tools and benefits of being Serco.

"So when am I leaving?"

"Right now."

Huddled over the table in the dim light of cargo hold X4, LeberMac wore a look of fevered consternation. The decision had to be made quickly, and the fate of Tequilaria depended heavily on this decision being the RIGHT one. He leaned back a bit, squinted at the sheet of paper lying in front of him. and knocked back another shot of tequila from the dispenser while squinting more. The squinting seemed to help a great deal. Now it came down to it. This would change Tequilaria forever and he had to make the call right now.

Like most decisions LeberMac made, it was made randomly and without forethought.

He squinted his eyes all the way and reached towards the small, tattered green and yellow box that held the instruments of his creation. Slowly, gingerly he reached in, fingers searching for just the right one, and he came down on the chosen selection. He pulled it out with a flourish and held it up to the light to examine it.

"Brick Red..." he muttered as he read the color from the ancient Crayola crayon. "Perfect!"

He set to coloring in his drawing with a mad fury, staying mostly within the lines as he colored the ground fully brick red, wearing down the crayon's sharp point to a nub as he did so. Just as he was about to finish, there was a knock at the door of the cargo hold.

"Whoizzit?" LeberMac barked as he continued coloring in the ground, adding brick red earth.

"It's your boss," the voice said from behind the door. "Open this door, LeberMac."

"Wha? Oh OK sure..." LeberMac subvocalized a command he'd remembered from his time in the [CLM] pirate guild and the door slid open. The silhouette of Greenwall projected into the room, hesitating briefly to allow the stench of tequila to dissipate a bit before entering.

"Whatcha got there?" Greenwall said as he joined his subordinate at the table.

"THIS," LeberMac said as he proudly raised the worn piece of paper to Greenwall's face, "Is the flag of Tequilaria!"

Greenwall peered at the paper. "It looks like a person riding on something... is that a crippled Bractian gutter newt?"

"What? No that's supposed to be a horse." LeberMac said, glancing at the paper.

"Hmmm. The five crooked legs fooled me. Is that supposed to be YOU riding in the... uh... horse?" Greenwall continued.

"Yep!" LeberMac beamed proudly and spread the Flag of Tequilaria on the table in front of the [ITAN] Lieutenant.

"Why do you have a... penis sticking out of your head?" Greenwall asked, confused.

"That's a Hat!" LeberMac said, clearly exasperated at this critique of his time-consuming national Tequilaria artwork project.

Greenwall tilted his head sideways in an attempt to reconcile the drawing with anything approaching realism. "Yes. Sorry. Well, it seems you've been hard at... work. You even managed to color within the lines most of the time." Greenwall stated as LeberMac nodded happily under the praise of his boss. "Anyway, I was just checking up on you and our [TGFT] surveillance. It seems that issue has faded away and it's now safe for the itani traders... uh, I mean you to come back to your important plasteel trading routes."

"Oh, well... I started a new nation called Tequilaria, and I'm afraid that I'll have to spend a few more days down here at least in order to get it off to a good start." LeberMac stated with an air of imperial condescension.

"Oh! Indeed? Very good, then. Yes, in fact the itani trading guilds would be happy with you, ah... holding down the fort here in Latos if you don't mind." Greenwall said, pouncing on the opportunity to keep the drunken pilot away from the Itani protected shipping routes. "Carry on, LeberMac! We'll be in touch for your return warning... I mean orders. Yes, orders." He turned on his heel and left the alcoholic stench of the cargo hold behind, eager to tell the Itani High Command that he'd managed to find an excuse to keep LeberMac away from Itani space for a few more days, maybe weeks.

LeberMac watched Greenwall depart, then looked forlornly at his flag, biting his lip and trying to figure out how to fix the hat.

Meanwhile, MysticBot had silently broken into the Xang Xi weapons locker, selecting various wicked bladed hand-to-hand weapons, mobile demo charges, kinetic sniper rifles, blasters, and assorted combat hoverdrones. Its augmented battleplan subroutines calculated the most efficient way to capture the station as it gathered ammunition. The fractal probability matrices aligned in its positronic processor, and its plan was set. It would do nicely, with only a 5.1% possibility of failure. Satisfied, it moved into a air duct and slid down towards the station's power core.

The caffeine of five cups of Verasi Koffee was slowly forcing the last of the fugue away. The last hour had been rough, but with the efforts of Siobhan and the exquisite cocktail of drugs she had injected him with, he was now beginning to feel like something that he remembered. He sipped some more of the bitter liquid and sighed with pleasure. And then frowned, when he remembered that he should have been under for at least five years to get away from the last assignment's repercussions. Something special must have come up to warrant his early awakening, and that something had been lying in front of him, just waiting for him to be able to focus. A diskey.

He grabbed the diskey and plugged it into the nearest reader. Siobhan had left him a few minutes ago, so he had the cubicle for himself. He had paid enough money for this facility to be secure, or at least as secure as normal civilian systems could make it. The wall holo lit up with a green and gold office with a single surface in what appeared to be pure star-filled night sky, distilled and poured in the shape of a desktop. A blond woman was sitting behind the desktop, an apologetic smile on her delicate features. Nyrian, Asteroth was not in doubt. Nyrius was famous for its elfin-boned women and giant construction facilities. Although, to be absolutely honest, she could have been Itani as well, maybe from Setalli. She opened her mouth and started to speak with the hard emphasis on the consonants that was yet another trademark of Nyrius.

"Commander Asteroth," he chuckled at that, nobody had called him by any rank in ages, "I represent a group of people, whose origin is of no concern for this mission we have for you."

Asteroth sipped some more koffee and squinted as the steam slowly rose to his eyes.

"This holo does not contain any information regarding the mission, but contains the data, routing and a one-time pad that will allow for communication directly with my employers. Note, that even if you do not wish to contact my employers, they will have reimbursed the awakening facilities with the credits owed for waking you, and for allowing you to re-enter hibernation if you so choose. If you choose to accept the communication, interface the diskey to your secure data storage. This message will now loop."

Asteroth allowed the holo to loop twice before terminating the it and ejecting the diskey. Before doing anything else, he'd need to get some facts straight. He allowed his brainpal to connect to the station's mainframe and used a couple of backdoors he had paid for earlier, to insert a small program into the financial tracking system, It didn't take long before he had traced the money to a station in Divinia. That was interesting. Apparently, someone was not all too keen on letting him know that he'd be working for someone 'Tani-side. Not that he cared to be honest; money didn't have a nationality after all. And he had worked with enough 'Tani, that he had learned to respect them.

He swiped the diskey across his interface point behind the right ear and was almost instantly patched through on a one-time secure line to somewhere. Another person, this one backlit to hide his features and with a very obvious voice-scrambler that turned his voice tinny. Asteroth started an analysis of the light, the room and the shape of the person on the other end of the link.

"Commander Asteroth. We have not met, but you come highly recommended."

"Oh, by whom if I may enquire?" Asteroth growled, making his voice extra raw and metallic.

"The UIT intelligence community. Apparently, you did something for them once?"

Yeah, he had. And had been forced into this hibernation since to weather the fallout. Still, it had been very lucrative!

"That is not, however, why I have contacted you. I have contacted you to ask for your assistance in a matter of extreme secrecy and ultimately, of complete deniability for my associates and me. I must ask for your acceptance before I go on. The payment of 20 million credits to your TPG account will be initiated upon acceptance, with ten percent of the funds available immediately, the rest on fulfilment of the contract's clauses."

Asteroth wasn't really in need of money, but it sounded intriguing. Besides, these someones had deemed it necessary to wake him for this. He accepted and allowed the trace software of the customer to install a small program in his secure storage space. Not that he couldn't erase it, fiddle with it or even turn it against them, which they probably knew, but it was customary in transactions like this.

"We need you to find us an Itani pilot that has been missing for two weeks now. I am enclosing his dossier and the last message string he had in our system. Once you have found the pilot, you must apprehend him and bring him to any Valent station for exchange. Partial bodyloss is acceptable, but must be restorable. The pilots name is Lebermac. We have an idea that he might be in Latos. You have three days."

Asteroth nodded slowly, well in the sim he nodded slowly, in the real, he was completely passive.
The person on the other end faded out and was replace by the data he had promised. Asteroth killed the sim and focused n his koffee again. The dossier was fairly large, probably mentions of all the fleet actions he had participated in. He opened it. Apparently not so much fleet action. Most of the entries were criminal records from the Itani military, the various stations in grey or in UIT space. Crashing ship into dock while under the influence; Crashing ship into other ship under influence; attempted theft of 80k liters of Tehkilla, theft of 20k litres of Tehkilla, attempted assault on TPG convoy, theft of more Tehkilla, theft of… Asteroth snorted koffee and coughed into his hands. He accessed the data again. Theft of a pony?

He opened the last datastring entry for Lebermac.

"Leebs. Just swung by the old place. Seems nobody is guarding the stash anymore. 'xcept the maidbot. Thought you'd like to know."

The sender hadn't signed, but was obviously someone he knew well. A mental picture was slowly assembling in Asteroth's head. Lebermac had obviously acted on this last data and had gone searching for the, apparently unguarded treasure of the old CLM. A grin slowly spread across Asteroth's face. Might he join Lebermac in liberating some of all that cash. And bring him back as well. One had after all a reputation to look after.

The analysis he had initiated, pinged softly as it finished crunching the data, and he allowed the data to display. Dau Central. Looked like someone in UIT space wanted Lebermac for themselves.

Okada sat in the warm comfortable seat inside the shuttle. It was an atlas, outfitted to carry passengers instead of cargo. They were used to ferry people from tridents to the docking areas of the station since there were no stations that a trident could actually dock with other than the shipyard where it was born. He was lucly enough to get a window seat, not that there was really anything outside to look at. Latos was a dull place, still the vultures and trade vessels that littered the background kept his assignment from fully taking hold of his thoughts. It was arranged for him to sit aboard a trident that was transporting some businessmen and women to various destinations along the convoy trade route. Okada was a "BioCom Consultant" if anyone asked. His cover package included photo IDs to match and other credentials, a letter from Xang Xi requesting his services to Epsilon Hold. All of those were manufactured by the SkyCommand Intelligence Agency.

Okada was "dressed for the occasion" as well. He looked the part of a successful consultant working for a cybernetic implant firm. He looked casual, but upscale, wearing a brown leather jacket and a black turtleneck. Blue pants that looked on the expensive side and... black combat boots. Okada always wore boots, he hated wearing shoes or anything else when he was on a mission. "Its important to have the right footwear for the job" He thought, and his job sometimes involved combat or terrain situations, urban or not.

The Atlas class vessel made it's slow docking maneuver into Epsilon Hold. Inside the station had armed guards and dock workers wearing bright orange jumpsuits for visibility were swarming all over the place. One such dockhand guided the atlas through the bay and into a space that was accommodated for the arrival of passengers. It wasn't much, basically a dock used for military personnel and soldiers. Okada unbuckled his seatbelt and climbed right out of the atlas, he was eager to get this mission over with. It was hours until he had actually arrived after his briefing, the procedures for this sort of thing wasn't like hopping in your own SVG and taking off. Passengers had to board, escorts had to undock and scan the area, cargo had to be unloaded and loaded and counted. It was an ordeal, one Okada was completely overjoyed that it was over.

Okada made his way to the entrance into the station lobby, there were security guards posted.

"Reason for visit sir?" One guard said very emotionless and very uninterested. "I'm a consultant, I work for BioCom and our services were requested some time ago."

The guard looked almost cheery at that answer, "Sales?" Okada laughed, "No, no. I do twice the work for half the pay those crooks get. I'm a security liaison mostly." The guard almost looked appreciative of his presence and was quick to make conversation, "I hope you're here to fix the glitch in our system. We've had a lot of strange interference with our neural uplinks to the security hub lately."

Okada was suspicious at that, It was unlikely the interference in their uplinks was accidental. Nothing was accidental in his line of work, nothing. Lebermac likely was tapped into the security system and watching for people just like him. The interference was probably caused from the decaying equipment in CLM HQ. He thought for a moment before looking at the guard on how to answer, "Heh. Just one of the many things I'm here to look at. So I should get at it, if you're in the bar later maybe I'll stop by and buy a soldier a drink." Okada patted the guard on the soldier as he walked by and the soldier nodded. It didn't hurt to make "Friends" it meant that he could probe them for information when and he needed it. It also helped to blend in. Being standoffish and reclusive makes people intrigued and/or suspicious of you, Neither of which are useful to an intelligence agent trying to monitor someone else. The guard likely patrolled other areas on different days and shifts, someone like that would see a lot of things and know the station really well. Especially the HiSec places Okada would likely need to sneak into.

Okada made his way through the station "lobby". It was a hub of activity, people rushing in different directions. Lebermac was here inside of this station somewhere, and probably keeping a close eye on the activity so going through the front door of CLM HQ was not an option. Any intelligent person hiding out would have the front door sealed tight, and if he was in the security systems then he had an eye everywhere. He is ex military after all, and planning something of some sort with other agents looking for him.

As Okada walked through the mass of people, he noticed an Itani pilot making his way out. The two looked at each other briefly as they passed. Definitely Itani military, hopefully just a coincidence. Okada intentionally ignored him and kept about his business, making his way to somewhere less suspicious. He found a vending machine and stood in front of it looking at it inquiringly. The reality is he was connecting to the SkyCommand Security Network or SSN through his neural uplink. There were some maps on the station, albeit not exactly complete or updated. They were more like references to a treasure, the treasure being a better map. Okada however got enough information from them to work off of. What looked like access to the maintenance tunnels, security posts and the central security hub location, and the bar of course. The maps were displayed across his field of vision, only noticeable by him. No one would be the wiser.

Okada put a credit chip in the vending machine and retrieved a cola when he was done looking at the maps and disconnected from the SSN. He was definitely sure that he would need access to the maintenance tunnels. Finding a back way into the CLM's headquarters was imperative and that meant the stealth approach, not just to avoid lebermac's detection but that of the security forces as well. Okada sipped his cola as he walked down the busy station corridors, it was interesting enough. While it was a military outpost, the station's upkeep was impressive. This wasn't a place for common street thugs, any shady characters were of Okada's type. Sifting their way through the masses unseen, pretending to be someone else. Any criminal activity going on here would be psychological and espionage centered. A good spy always makes note of the social and economical environment.

"There we are" Okada found a maintenance elevator, it required an access key but took Okada a few moments to hack. The lock was a good tier, Xang Xi isn't known for not being secure. Okada stepped in, and the mag-lift descended to the Station's power core room.

Using gravimetric manipulation, MysticBot silently glided down the air duct to Epsilon Hold’s power core. It reached out with its programmer’s interface to briefly disable the duct’s infrared detection systems as it slid past them, one by one, in patient downward progress until it approached the bottom of the shaft, where the duct ended in a large grille suspended above the power core facility itself.

Epsilon Hold was powered by a synthetic wormhole that tapped into the molten plasma core of the Latos system’s supergiant planet Ka-Tet. The planet was not sufficiently massive enough to become a full-fledged star, but hovered on the edge of self-sustaining fusion, perfect for a wormhole energy tap but not as dangerous and unpredictable as tapping into an actual star. Ensconced in several layers of protective EM fields and ultradense tritanium shields, the wormhole pulsed and strobed, throwing a dynamic lightshow against the walls of the power core. The face shields of the Xang Xi engineers reflected the sparks of hard radiation as they labored to maintain a constant power draw from the planet, providing energy to spare for the station and also sustaining the wormhole itself. It was a delicate balancing act of physics, one that MysticBot intended to disrupt in the first stage of its plans. First, disrupt power to the station, forcing an evacuation of the biological residents. Next, seize the station’s command and control facilities. Last, secure the remaining [CLM] archives, bank and cargo stores while commencing privateering operations in-sector.

Manipulating the local gravity fields with the Higgs actuators embedded in the soles of its feet, MysticBot slowly and silently unlatched the securebolts that held the air duct’s grille in place, moving it out of the way as it ran the odds again in its positronic brain. Arriving undetected in the power core had increased its success ratio to 98.1%. It remained motionless beneath the air duct and commanded the combat hoverdrones to life. The small, softball-sized spheres activated, moved to their preassigned positions around the perimeter of the power core, and waited.

Mysticbot began the assault by brutally hacking the station’s comms-net with a combination of dormant computer virus, active infiltration algorithms and targeted gamma-pulse overloads, effectively silencing all electronic communication in Epsilon Hold. At this signal, the hoverdrones flashed out with their antipersonnel gauss bolts, incinerating nearby engineering and security personnel in an efficient yet lethal display.

Panicked, nervous yelling combined with alarm klaxons filled the power core as MysticBot dropped into the center of a triad of security guards. Unsheathing one of the katanas it had liberated from the weapons stores, it neatly severed the arm of one guard as it wheeled on the ball of its foot to strike cleanly through the legs of another. Blood sprayed from the arteries of the two dismembered guards as the third stared in shock for a second too long. Before the Xang Xi security expert could react, MysticBot had drawn its blaster and squeezed off a point blank shot to his neck, spattering the wall behind him with smoking flesh and shattered bits of spine. It finished the last two screaming guards off with blasts of their own and bounded to the power core’s control matrix.

It worked quickly, jettisoning the stations heavy-duty powercell energy storage cores into space while simultaneously sending commands to change the location of the Ka-Tet wormhole to impact directly onto the discarded batteries. The truck-sized cores exploded within the station’s NFZ as soon as the wormhole came into contact with the volatile energy storage devices, ripping away the station’s outer shielding of the engineering section and causing significant damage to residential block ZZ9-Plural-Z-Alpha. With the station’s power supply and reserves gone, solar power for the Xang Xi station would last 30 minutes, at best.

As the wormhole winked out, red emergency lighting filled the room and the klaxons went silent. Checking its freeform fractal success probability matrix, MysticBot was almost pleased with itself as the success percentage climbed to 99.67%. It recalled the hoverdrones, wiped the blood from its blade, holstered the blaster and signaled the mag-lift to descend so it could proceed to CNC deck. It stepped to the loading zone.

Odd. The mag-lift was already on the power core facility’s sublevel, in fact… it was about to open. A soft chime echoed throughout the eerily silent level.

*Ding*

A powerfully built human was the mag-lift’s sole occupant. Surprise registered on his face as he found himself face to face with a well-armed female android, red hair stained redder by the overwhelming red lighting and spatters of… was that blood?

His Serco implants screamed “THREAT” and his training took over. He immediately led with a devastating palm strike, connecting solidly with the bot’s jaw. The android clasped its hands over his, forming a wrist lock, and threw Okada several meters into the room away from the mag-lift. As it threw him, it spun and activated twin shoulder-launched heatseeking personal defense darts. They scanned for heat signatures and leaped into the air towards their target.

Okada relaxed his body as he was thrown and landed in a roll. Sensing the heatseeker threat, his subcutaneous cryogenic grid activated, instantly making him appear several degrees cooler than the ambient room temperature. The seeker darts went wide and obliterated a good portion of the shielding that formerly housed the station’s wormhole power supply.

Relentless in its assault, MysticBot was in the air immediately after the darts and connected with a powerful flying sidekick squarely to Okada’s ribcage, shattering bone and driving it into internal organs. Unable to block due to the stiffening effect of the cryogenic countermeasures, Okada flew backwards with a grunt into a large computer control bank, sending sparks flying.

Before he had even landed, the medical nanites infusing his enhanced body had already repaired the organ damage and had begun to reknit the splintered ribs. He stood up from the wrecked computer bank, cracked his neck, and grinned through clenched teeth as adrenaline and other combat enhancers flowed into his system. He hadn’t had a good fight like this in years.

MysticBot drew twin Betheshee dueling blades and adopted a combat stance as it activated personal energy and kinetic shielding. This was unexpected. Not planned. An aberration. An obviously highly-trained Serco operative was already onto the operation, which means they’d been monitoring for a few days, at least. Running the freeform fractal success probability matrix again, contingency planning subroutines activated and the android felt a pang of what could be called doubt.

Success rate had just dropped to 72.3%.

Lysander ducked as Okada flew through the air, missing him by inches. This whole operation was going to hell. A quick internal scan told him his blur suit was still functioning.
Saying a quick prayer of thanks to "Olga the Corpulent"... he belly crawled away from the scene of impending doom, stopping for just a moment to appreciate how lovely Mystic was looking these days... and seemingly, more deadly.

Okada was beginning to realize something was wrong here. He rose from where he'd fallen drawing a MagBlaster in a fluid movement. Mystic simply stood, knives in hand... waiting for him to make a move.
At this range, there was no need to aim. Okada fired off five quick blasts. Each round ricocheting off of Mystic in a shower of sparks and brilliant light.

"What are you?" Okada growled... using an internalized implant to set the coil of his MagBlaster to full power. It would only give him one shot but, before today... that was all he'd ever needed.

Mysticbot smiled. She casually flipped a knife into the air catching it by the tip of the curved blade and in the same movement, sending it hurtling end over end towards Okada's heart.
All emotion drained from Okada's face as he looked down. The blade had found its home.

Okada stumbled once, and collapsed to the floor... his vacant eyes staring at the cold gray ceiling.

Mysticbot lowered her shielding, bent over his corpse, placed a slender foot on his stomach and pulled free the knife.
In an instant, Okada's hand was around her throat, implants augmenting his already considerable strength. Mysticbot calculated that the odd of success were dropping fast as his fingers began crushing the outer casing of her neck.

Okada smiled...

"Self repairing cybernetic organs... you just have to love them." he said half laughing.
He brought the blaster up and fired.
Mysticbot was a fraction of a second faster, and reactivated her personal shielding.

The explosion was deafening in the confined space, shards of the round radiated outward colliding with a metallic 'ping' as the hit walls and equipment. Then came the crash of flesh hitting deck plates.

Mysticbot and Okada turned as one towards the sound. A spurt of blood seeming shot out of nothing... then, as though looking at someone through intense heat, a tall and slender human form slowly came
into focus.

Lysander clutched his wounded shoulder, blood oozing between his fingers.

"What in the hell is wrong with you two?" He screamed... "Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to fire that thing in here?

Mysticbot calculated the odds of completing her mission... they were rising. She spoke, activating a seduction subroutine to modulate her voice in a pleasing way.

"There is no need for concern, his weapon cannot fire again. He was trying to sabotage the stations core power supply... you're a hero."

Okada had had enough... with surprising speed he planted a foot into the androids stomach and kicked. She sailed through the air, destroying a console she landed on.
Lysander wasted no time.
Before anyone could react he hurled a cyclical magnetic pulse disruptor towards the droid.
On contact it pulsed with light, its magnetic frequencies cycling faster than she could process effectively restraining her.

Okada limped over to Lysander.

"You're far from home... terrorist." He said, weariness creeping into his voice.

"I prefer 'Freedom Fighter', if you don't mind." Lysander said as he stripped off his ruined blur suit, revealing a Bractian EV suit.

"Plannin on goin fer a walk 'Ryan'?" Okada asked as he pulled out a small Needler taking aim at Lysanders head.

"No... I just hates the cold. Cant stand it... really, really hates it in fact." He said with a wink as he secured his helmet and took a step back raising his hands in surrender.

"Why don't you just tell me what you were doing here?"... Okada asked in as friendly a fashion as he could. Lysander was technically an ally of the Serco... but he felt it best to take no chances on a man who had spent several years in an Itani hospital...

Lysander just smiled.

"Actually, I think I will go for a walk." The rooms observation wall exploded. Okada barely had time to react. He activated his heavy combat boots maglocks as the air in the room futilely tried to fill the void of space. All he could do was watch as Lysander dropped his previously concealed detonator and was sucked into the void.

Within seconds the stations breech shielding kicked in and Okada walked over to the gaping hole. He located and picked up the detonator, a nice custom job... Serco in origin but modified in an unknown fashion. He held it up, locking eyes with Lysander, watching as he floated almost lazily amidst the growing chaos surrounding the station.

His ocular implants kept Lysander in sharp focus as he drifted out past any natural line of sight. Where did he think he was going?

The space near him exploded in blue light and faded as a Sky Command Prometheus warped in. Within seconds... the light reappeared.

The ship and Lysander were gone.

Okada's eyes scanned the room, surveying the damage and casualties. He noticed the android was gone, not out in space. He would have noticed that, it must have escaped during all the chaos. He stepped up to the railing near the power core and looked at all the damage to the shielding. With all the systems destroyed and explosions, it was sure to be noticeable. Security forces were likely on their way, heavily armed. Power Core disruptions are taken seriously, especially in a facility as locked tight as this one. Okada looked around the room for a sign of where the android could have gone and he noticed ventilation covers missing.

"The only reason I can think of, that an android would attack the core is to render the station defences inactive." This must be some sort of attack on the station itself he thought and a significant one. This left him with some decision making, he could proceed to the command center and warn them of an impending attack. Or he could stay on mission and look for lebermac, the android was likely going to warn him of Okada's arrival. Which meant he might choose to escape or evacuate with the other residents of the station. An evacuation was likely after an event like this, that is all the residents save special ops and command officers.

At any rate, if the commandos found Okada here by himself they would likely try to kill or capture him. "and we can't have that."

He ran over to the mag-lift's console which miraculously managed to survive the heated battle. Okada connected directly to the console and locked it down. This wouldn't keep the impending fire team from reaching the core but the hack would slow them down. He ran back into the power core maintenance chamber and looked around, more importantly looking up. Okada spotted the ventilation duct and nodded. He ran and leaped high into the air, grabbing just the edge of the ventilation shaft. He pressed his hands against the sides to support his weight and began climbing upward.

At this point communications were out and Okada couldn't make contact with SkyCommand. He was on his own to complete the mission. Ultimately he decided by following the android he would learn more about the operation. If the android was heading to the command deck he could catch up to it and stop it. If it was headed for lebermac... well he would have another fight on his hands. This game his organic nanite capacitor time to recharge after all the damage he took from the battle.

Okada reached the top of the shaft, it split four ways. He peered into each opening before he saw the trail of blood and mechanical fluids in one of the ducts. He couldn't be too far behind, he definitely couldn't afford to.

The commandos broke the mag-lift's hack and stormed into the power core chamber. Okada could even hear them shouting as they moved into the room, discovering their engineers and security forces gruesome fate. He had to move fast, everything had gotten out of control way too fast. What sounded like a fool's errand quickly reached lethal in scale. Okada wasn't worried about being questioned, but being detained and bound while that mad android was on a killing spree was no way to survive. He also needed to reach a place where he could communicate with SkyCommand, so they could warn their ally Xang Xi. A tense relationship as it is, providing serco with purified xithricite over the itani. This wouldn't help their relationship if Xang Xi found out a serco operative was in the middle of all this and didn't warn them.

He crawled his way through the ducts until he found an opening ahead. He approached it slowly, looking out just enough to get a good visual scan of the area. The trail was still fresh, but the android was nowhere in site. Okada hopped out of the duct and found himself on some old maintenance level. He gave the area one more quick look and brought up the maps he downloaded earlier. This place was not found on any of the maps. Okada found a small security station, he smashed down the door with a palm strike and found a gear locker that was still stocked up. Taking the tactical vest and all the ammo he could find along with a new handgun and smg.

Without any power, the station was a dark place. Okada switched on his nightvision in his ocular implants and began following the trail. It lead him to a set of double doors that were smashed down. This was definitely the right way, the corridor was dark and the trail was becoming harder to detect. He had to stay sharp, make sure he could spot the android before it spot him. But as he followed the corridor he found himself at it's end. There was a heavy door that was pried open, Okada stepped closer to examine the door. The door was brown red, stained by dirt and rust from over the years of neglect. He reached out and brushes the dirt away with his hands over some markings.

"CLM-HQ M-Level"

Vengeance mixed with resolution stirred inside of him and changed the expression on his face. He stepped into the musty dark room, and inside of CLM's base of operations. Okada was ready for a chance to finish the fight that was interrupted by that accursed terrorist. Every step that he took was filled with violent intention, Serco were motivated by honor, combat and revenge. Okada was no exception, he reveled in another meeting with the android and his other prey, Lebermac. Nothing would please him more than to smash that android to pieces and bring terror to the itani scum.

He made his way through CLM HQ, searching for his prey.

"Warranty recorded. Safe travels and have a nice day, sir."

With a satisfied smile on his face, Samwise briefly halted his orbit of the flaming and heavily damaged Behemoth as its pilot wired him a rather obscene amount of credits. It was the first time in months he had found a wuss trader with no intentions of fighting back...all he ever ran into anymore was Serco military and that other douchebag that only flew Ragnaroks. After punching a few quick commands into the central console of his Greyhound, he saw a rather odd notification in the upper corner of his screen. "Incoming call from: Savet Hegar." Intrigued, he clicked the Answer button on his headset.

"Hello?... Hey boss, how goes it? You wouldn't believe the sale I just made.... What's that? Ally's in trouble?... Alright, I'm on it. Coordinates received. I'll let you know how it goes."

He disconnected the call and looked at his map screen. Latos C2 was highlighted, somewhat confusingly. What would Xang Xi have anything to do with this? Oh well...orders were orders, and he was way down on his quota anyway...anything to get some brownie points with the higher ups would go a long way at that point.

After jumping in, he almost couldn't believe what he was looking at. The station was entirely locked down; every single window and docking port was covered up with a thick xi-rite plate. Attempts to gain access were flummoxed by an automated "DO NOT APPROACH" warning covering his console screen. With no other option presenting itself, he decided to attempt a "manual override"...and primed his tube of Sunflares.

The docking bay shield floated away after three strategically placed hits, allowing him to make his landing. Once inside, he went into a meditative trance and began to survey the area, scanning for auras or other signs of life. During his stint with ITAN, he had trained rigorously in the arts of the spiritual, and, while nowhere near as skilled as Oernon, could still hold his own in a fistfight against an augmented Serco.

At first, not a lot presented itself...mostly blackness, then a small group of four or five, probably security staff...and a very faint and diseased energy signature. A toaster. Probably a soldier, judging by the sickening elemental imbalance of his soul. Was this the ally he was supposed to save? Probably not. And then, he noticed something else...someone with an actual clean aura. Another Itani, who had an air of emotional tenseness around him...Samwise interpreted it as fear. And the Serco was headed right for him. He linked his mind to the other's and attempted to send a message: "I don't know who you are, but I was sent by Savet to rescue you. Do not panic, help is on the way." That accomplished, he jumped out of his cockpit and grabbed his combat belt: mid-size SMG, several magazines, a wharncliffe fighting knife, backup derringer, small PDA, and an old multitool. Without wasting a moment, he raced towards the Serco, unfolding and loading his firearm on the way.

After what seemed ages navigating through the dimly lit labyrinthine station, as well as circumventing a broken and bloodstained maglift through air ducts, he came across a very old and decrepit part of the station. The only indication of anything he could find were the letters "CLM"; being a somewhat new entrant into the conflict, it meant nothing to him. An old door presented itself, appearing to have recently been opened with bloody footprints leading into it. He took cover along one edge of the doorframe, opened it, and began "slicing the pie," a technique taught to him for clearing doorways. Nothing. He pressed on.

Even though there was emergency lighting in the rest of the station, this section was completely dark. Forced to rely on his non-physical senses, he followed the bits of life force left behind by what he assumed was the Serco's blood smears. And then...he saw it. The nasty aura was right in front of him. The onerous buzz whir clank of its implants filled the room. It seemed not to notice him approaching. Wasting no time, he slung his firearm, jumped in, and with a quick strike to its head from his blade, it let out a roar of agony. Quickly retreating, he sheathed his knife, unslung his firearm, and aimed it tensely at the now-crippled Serco, projecting a psychic shield with his outstretched left hand just in case. It was apparently too overcome by pain to think or act with any sort of focus, so Sam lowered his weapon and pressed on.

Rin Ganborro woke up in the room he had rented for the week. It was dark and quiet. Perhaps too quiet - the background hum was missing. And he had that feeling like he had recently heard something loud but slept through it. Sleep was on the verge of reclaiming his confused mind when he felt a soft shudder through his bed, accompanied by a rattle from one of the idiotic placards hanging on the wall. A placard extolling the virtues of Xang Xi hospitality, no doubt. The same Xang Xi who apparently had no consideration for the sleep of their patrons.

Okay, so it wasn't exactly the designated sleeping period, but he had activated the "Do not disturb" indicator on the outside of his door! Couldn't they at least have the decency to keep the power running and stop those yahoos from... bumping the station with their moths or whatever that was? Some kind of rowdiness anyway. Probably loads of fun if he wasn't so tired, but not today. He just wanted some freaking rest for a change. But noooo, every time he tried to sleep, something had to interrupt him in the middle of it. If it wasn't some idiot panhandler knocking on his door wanting handouts or free rides to Edras, it was an escaped Dantian Lizard nibbling at his nose or some dweeb security officer trying to arrest him or loud Geirran "music" seeping through the walls. And if it wasn't one of those, it was some alleged "friend" trying to get him to help raid some moronic station in the middle of the "night" so they could build erotic figureheads of themselves for their ships or... something. Okay, he didn't really know what they were trying to build because he usually tuned them out after the first couple seconds. But seriously, he just wanted some sleep for a change.

Stumbling out of his bed, he fumbled through his rucksack until he found a flashlight. Of course, the batteries were dead. Figures. He found his blowtorch and lit the room's cheap desk on fire. "Ahh, that's better" he said. Or at least, that's what he thought he said. It probably came out as "Ahhhhaassssthbehhaa". He really was quite tired.

With the light of the fire, he was able to quickly find his welding equipment and a spare battery. He slipped the battery into the flashlight and left that on the bedside table next to his blaster. Then he put on the welding mask, shoved the refrigerator out of the way, and set to work on the door of his room, making sure nobody would be able to easily open it. After all, he knew firsthand how useless locks were. Once it was welded shut, he put his gear back in his pack and grabbed a small explosive and the remote detonator. He stuck the explosive to the door and put the detonator next to the flashlight and blaster. Then he replaced the refrigerator in front of the door, with the freezer door open so that it would fit more snugly with the bomb projecting into the compartment. For good measure, he went and got the oven as well. Squinting at the assembly, he decided to stick the toaster on top of the oven, with the station directory balanced on top of that. Yes, now the barricade was functional and artistic.

Satisfied, he snuffed out the fire and climbed back in bed. As he allowed the soothing smell of burnt furniture to begin carrying him off to sleep, it suddenly occurred to him that the smoke would probably set off the fire suppression system once the power came back on. That would not be conducive to completing his sleep. Grumbling some more, he grabbed his flashlight and located the outlets from which whatever gas or foam Xang Xi was using nowadays would be dispersed. These he promptly slagged with well placed shots from his blaster. The blaster was set to low power for this, of course - he didn't want the people upstairs peeking through holes in the floor at him. That would just be weird.

Lying back on his pillow, Rin thought some more, trying to come up with anything else he ought to take care of now to maximize the amount of sleep he could get. Coming up blank, he reset his blaster to high and replaced it on his table, made a practice grab for the detonator so that his muscles would remember, and then turned off his flashlight. Finally, he let the sweet smells of smoke and ozone guide him back to that special place in his head, where alllll the pretty blaster lights danced sensuously around him.

Epsilon Hold was burning.

The remnants of the stations’ entire power core battery slowly drifted away from the station after being ejected, leaving a trail of radioactive embers and quantum flashes. The power core battery had been designed to be jettisoned in an extreme emergency, and it had ejected exactly as designed. However, the designers had not thought about what would happen when an active wormhole mouth was steered into the core by a psychotic android. The resulting explosion had rocked the station and left it on solar array power only, along with an additional ragged hole on the power core level caused by an internal explosion, on top of the destroyed lower hull of the station due to the close proximity of the explosion.

With enough explosions, fires had started throughout the station. All automated suppression systems were offline, so the remaining Xang Xi station personnel had begun sweeping floor to floor, putting out fires where they found them, and herding all nonessential personnel out into every available ship they could find. Hulls of behemoth trading vessels were emptied of goods in order to carry families and workers of Epsilon Hold away from the station, EVA jumpers and pressure suits were appropriated or just stolen, and throughout the station there was a general migration to the exit docking bays once word spread amongst the residents. The station had turned into an emergency-lit panicked mass of humanity floating in space, with ships leaving in a constant stream. The stream turned to a trickle, until the last remaining pilotable craft had left the station, with only a skeleton crew left behind.

In the chaos, a few ships had actually approached in the general evacuation, however, able to land unnoticed without authorization. The pilots of these ships were opportunists, bounty hunters, or just thieves, at the right place and the right time to take advantage of the situation, which looked grim for the Latos station. Nowhere was this more apparent than on the command deck.

“Lieutenant!” barked Station Commandant Prizt, “Get with security detail Gold-23 and round up those oxygen recycling crates that we emptied out of that [TGFT] atlas from bay 18!”

“But, sir,” the young officer stuttered, “We promised the security of those cargoes to…”

“Not now, son,” Prizt exclaimed, “unless you can breathe carbon dioxide, we’re going to need those oxygen recycling units up here right away. Tell [TGFT] they can bill me.” He glared at the lieutenant, who thought better of responding, and hurried to the docking bay with his security detail.

“Comms?” he yelled across the CNC deck to the senior communication officer, who was buried under a control panel of wires, attempting to patch anything together that could function to get a message out. She poked her head out of a tangle of patch cables, “Nothing, boss. We’re still dead in the water.”

The Commandant leveled a pointed finger at the female officer. “Communications is first priority once we make sure everyone’s evac’ed safely, comms. I don’t care if it’s fracking morse code, but you’re going to get a signal out of this broken heap or your team is the next detail on EVA, if you get my… drift.”

A runner burst into the CNC, obviously exhausted in the low-oxygen environment that Epsilon Hold was turning into. “Sir!” he exclaimed, “O2 scrubber units are now back online, hooked directly to the solar circuits. They’re only able to keep up with maybe 15% demand, but that might keep us alive for a few more hours. All power to the damaged levels has been cut, we’re on emergency lighting on the other half of the station, heat exchangers are offline so we’re looking at dropping temps until…”

“Yes, I know,” the Commandant said, “We’ll be in subarctic conditions quickly unless we can get power restored. What about the fires?”

The runner pulled out a slip of paper and read from it, “Chief Grismer says: Fires out of control below deck 12, preparing to manually depressurize to extinguish, containment forcefields offline, foam suppression systems offline, sprinklers offline… send buckets of water?”

Prizt shook his head, they were back to 20th-century firefighting methods in a Class-VII space station. HIS station. “Get the chief whatever he needs, recruit anyone you need on my authority, son. I can’t have open fires on this station. Not now.”

“Yessir. Oh! And sir?” the runner said.

“Yes?” The commandant saw that the runner was holding out a securecrypt datapad from the chief of security, who he had sent to the power core level with a team of what was left of his best tactical team.

“This is from Major Elhoff, sir.” The young soldier held out the pad grimly.

“Thank you, son.” Prizt said, and shooed the runner away. His thumbprint and DNA sample authorized the message, and he keyed the –PLAY- command as he stalked back to his station in the center of the bedlam that was CNC deck:

SECUROM/CRYPT 8192..-..-.. ACCEPTED..-..-..- MESSAGE FOLLOWS EYES ONLY CMDT EPSILON ACTUAL

Signs of battle, explosive personal defense weaponry used, gauss burns to all engineering staff. Signs of bladed close-proximity fighting. All power core personnel dead. Repeat zero survivors. Power core jettisoned and unrecoverable. Wormhole conduit damaged beyond repair. Entire level depressurized.

Signs of high-level sabotage of all comms units stationwide. Gamma scoring on many A/V repeater units and all subspace transmitters fried. Software inop/boot crashing, indications of virus hack. Will require complete replacements, all comms hardware bricked.

Obvious hostile activity, initiate DEFCON 1, station is under assault by unknown forces. Assume squad or platoon strength commando units have infiltrated station. Recommend pullback to maximum defensible position and await reinforcements from Sedina. Advise make comms top priority and dispatch the on-deck courier relay ships to all Xang Xi installations for similar lockdown procedures. Priority Alpha. Secrecy Alpha.

Intentions: The tactical team will sweep up from core level, depressurizing all decks below 12, link up with Chief Grismer’s fire control engineering teams and then pull back to the scenario “Zeta” defensive positions around CNC deck. We will not attempt to engage until we have established defensive perimeter, unless conditions indicate otherwise.

Elhoff out.

Prizt read the message again to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, then began preparing for the siege of Epsilon Hold. The O2 safe-level countdown on the wall read: 27 minutes. The temperature was 18 C and dropping. He hoped that they could hold out until help arrived, but the odds were good that they would freeze or asphyxiate first.

LeberMac licked his lips as he finished his giant “Pelatus’ Pride” brand corn-dog with relish. Banned in most of itani space, the two-foot-long corn dogs were rumored to be made of real Pelatus Starhound, but they were delicious and extremely unhealthy. According to the warning labels on the package, they should not be consumed by anyone without active nanite-reinforced gastric systems.

He ripped off a generous portion of fusion tape, and adhered his new flag to the corn dog stick. Waving it with vigorous joy, he exclaimed “ For Tequilariaaaaaa!” as he rose the flag to the cargo hold’s ceiling, fist pumping.

As if on cue, the station shuddered, rumbled, and then began to quiet. Mechanical hums from pumping equipment faded, warning lights winked on, distant klaxons sounded, and the lights went out, surrounding LeberMac in complete darkness.

Confused, he brought the flag down, examined it, and raised it again, fist pumping. In response, emergency lighting clicked on with the sound of tripping circuit breakers, bathing the X4 cargo hold in a sickly glow of red light.

Satisfied, LeberMac went to the tequila dispenser to fill his used plastic cup with more of his new nation’s lifeblood. He placed the cup under the spigot, hit the button with a satisfying click, and was about to contemplate his next move when the unthinkable happened.

Nothing came out.

Slightly perturbed, he pushed the button a few more times, just to make sure he had done it right. Still nothing. He panicked and pushed other buttons that he was reasonably sure were somehow related to the tequila dispenser. When those failed to produce results, he went around pushing any other button he could find to fill his cup. Nothing worked.

"That damn MysticBot is never around when I need something fixed..." he murmured. He had no idea how to fix anything himself, much less the tequila dispenser, and his ire grew. He swore mightily.

“Well, THISH is a fine station!” He exclaimed to nobody in particular, “I’m gonna to have a word wit the mainnance chief right now!” In his inaugural day as leader of Tequilaria, it just would not DO to be out of tequila. He stormed out into the hallway, reeking of sweat and booze, holding his flag of tequilaria and his plastic cup.

People were screaming and running. Damn straight - they should be! He knew exactly how they felt at this moment, and he climbed onto a small food cart to address his people:

“People ooof Tequilaria!” he shouted, and a few people stopped. “Pepple of Tequilaria!” he said again, and a good-sized group of people were now listening to him. “I, your new glorioush leader, will remedy thish outrage! You have no need to fear! I have a plan to bring the tequila systemsh back online! Do not panic!”

The people heard “…bring systems back online…” and they cheered him. The crowd grew into a throng.

“I go now to the command deck to demand that tequila power be restored to the people!” LeberMac said as he swayed unsteadily on top of the food cart.

The throng had grown into a following of several hundred in this open section of Epsilon Hold, and the mob heard “…power be restored…” and they cheered madly, lifted him up, and carried him to the nearest turbolift that would take him to CNC deck. Packing the turbolift full, LeberMac was body-passed into the turbolift with around 50 other scared, angry, rabblerousing station residents. Holding improvised clubs, homemade knives and chanting “POW-ER… POW-ER…” they pushed the button to the command deck. The turbolift responded, groaning a bit at the unexpected weight, and ate up a significant portion of the solar power reserves as it transported its load of humanity high up to the command level.

LeberMac worked the crowd into a frenzy, waving his flag madly in a drunken display of nationalism, chanting “POW-ER” over and over again until the mob-filled turbolift reached the CNC deck. Once there, the mob spilled out into the security lobby of the command center, yelling for power, with LeberMac at the head of the unruly mob. “Rarrrrrggghhhhh!" He yelled as he stormed towards the CNC door, but tripped due to the poor lighting, fell face-first into a potted floor plant and sprawled unconscious, awkwardly flopping prone onto the floor clutching his cup and flag.

“OPEN FIRE!” Major Elhoff shouted from his concealed position, and his defensive teams lit up the rest of the running crowd with military-grade weaponry, cutting through the surprised civilian mob with frightening accuracy and deadly effect. The cries of the wounded were quickly silenced with headshots, and the XangXi tactical team emerged from their concealed positions to clear the area.

“Got a live one here…” one of the team said to his commanding officer, as he kicked LeberMac over onto his back.

“Bring him, he looks like he was the commando leader.” Elhoff said, scanning his ident. “Hrm. LeberMac, newly readmitted member of [ITAN], former [CLM] pirate… We’ll interrogate him in the CNC. Take the rest of this commando unit and jettison them out of the airlock.” Elhoff was impressed, the commando team looked just like Epsilon Hold residents – they blended in perfectly. No wonder the station had been taken unawares, these team members had apparently gone to great lengths to appear to be actual station workers and family members, even going so far as to live on the station for months before the operation. Their credentials and identicards were the best forgeries he had ever seen.

Elhoff left behind a small detail team to guard the entrance as the majority of his unit accompanied him deep into the secure Command Center for an interrogation date with Commandant Pritz. He would soon know what this Itani LeberMac had been planning, and why he had almost destroyed his station.

"OPEN FIRE!"

The cry rang throughout the halls of the darkened hallways of the old station section, followed by an ungodly amount of gunfire. "Shit..." Samwise said to himself. "I really hope I didn't fuck this up...." After a quick aura scan, he was able to determine his friend in need was alive, but only barely, as well as being escorted by a cadre of other individuals...not Serco, but not Itani either. In a flash, he set off for the crowd, praying he wasn't too late.

Eventually he came upon a doorway, guarded by six or so...ordinary unaugmented humans, wearing Xang Xi logos. This sudden turn of events delighted Sam, considering his job just got way easier. He ducked into an adjacent passageway. Scanning around, he noticed the emergency lights were spaced quite far apart...and then a plan hatched in his mind. He unslung his SMG and set it to semi-auto, and began shooting the lights out. The area surrounding the doorway became completely dark, and the resulting commotion allowed him to slip through undetected. Cries for backup rang out behind him, but he would've been long gone before any reinforcements arrived.

Eventually he came up behind the rest of the crowd, marching in a perfect double file, with the Itani in question in the center of them. Ducking behind a structural support, he calmly waited, expecting some of them to break off and assess the situation next to the newly shadowed doorway. And he was right. A third of the guards broke off and hurried backwards towards the other end of the hall, giving him his chance. Once they passed, he popped out of cover again and shot out all the lights, creating more confusion and a chance to rescue his supposed compatriot. He closed his eyes and once again tuned into his nonphysical senses, picking out the aura of the other Itani quickly. He ran over and tried to drag him away, only to find one of the guards was keeping a firm hold on his restraints. A quick bullet to the guard's face solved that, allowing the two to make their escape.

Once in a remote part of the station, away from all the ruckus, Sam broke his comrade's restraints with a firm tug and attempted to introduce himself...only to be met with slurred speech and a strong smell of alcohol. Either they had drugged him or...nevermind, he didn't have time to think about it.

"Alright, so...now that that's all settled...who are you and what needs to be done?"

My oh my... this is quite a kettle of bad fortune I've started up here...

Thanks to all the extras, keep it up:)

Okada stood still for a moment, bathed in a red glow. He received a warning from his augments, the oxygen levels were... well "sub-par". He had to take it easy, this would especially limit him in any encounter with the android. That android doesn't require oxygen to breathe like he did, any intense fighting with the ever lowing oxygen levels could cause him to pass out right in the heat of battle.

That was unacceptable.

It isn't everyday you get a worthy adversary like that android. Any real Serco would jump at the chance, easily trade places with Okada. That being said, he needed to remain aware of his mission, the android was a bonus. He began searching the corridors, it was fairly easy. The power was down and nothing was smashed in. The quarters and rooms all looked like they hadn't been touched in years. Okada needed to get to the upper levels, that is likely where Lebermac was. But that android had to be lurking around here somewhere, it had to know Okada was following it.

"The thing is likely rearming itself.", He spoke softly as he carefully made his way through the corridors looking for a lift off the maintenance level. The android trail had gone cold, but at this point it didn't really matter. After a few minutes of wandering down corridors, Okada found no sign of the android, but did find a lift. As he stepped into the lift he heard a commotion that seemed to come from above. It sounded like people shouting or chanting, this was concerning. It could be unrest or a gang of looters. The station was likely in utter chaos by now, which made things pretty complicated for his mission. Too many unknowns, situations that could get out of control, normal people otherwise turned into violent criminals.

The lift hummed as it ascended upward and in a minute or so he reached the command level of CLM HQ. The doors glided as he had his back to the wall for cover, before stepping out he leaned around the corner and took a look to see the immediate area clear. It was so quiet in the complex, an empty arena for him and the android. But in the current circumstance, the whole station was an arena for the two. Any law that was left on the station was likely in a defensive position.

As Okada was making a sweep of the command level he began seeing tell tale signs of recent activity, human activity. Empty cans and food packages littered the hallways and common areas. Lebermac had been living here, now to zero in on his location. Okada found an open door, he carefully but quickly moved over to investigate. He moved into a position of cover and leaned into the room.

*cough cough* "what is that horrid stench, something must be dead in there." Okada stumbled away from the doorway hunched over, he started hacking from the smell. Then he realized that perhaps the android killed Lebermac and his rotting corpse was in there. Okada held his nose and tried to re enter the room... It was a complete dump, the room was filled with debris, old food, vomit for one thing. Empty booze bottles littered the area indiscriminately, it was some kind of cargo hold turned into a makeshift shelter. He could even smell urine and body odor, I suppose mentioning the fact that it smelled of booze was a given.

"This is inexcusably disgusting...I don't even understand how anyone could possibly live in here" After being shocked and appalled by the "choice" living conditions, Okada realized Lebermac was not here and left the room in a hurry.

He stopped in the corridor as he heard screaming and gunfire. It sounded as if things were getting worse and if Lebermac had left the safety of the CLM base he could be dead. Okada turned and ran, looking for a way out, hoping to get to Lebermac and extract him from the station before death found him. He knew that the oxygen levels were low, but either he was going to get to Lebermac or the mob outside would. He turned a corner, running into a commons area....

And the android. It looked just as shocked as he did, if a machine could be shocked that is. Okada raised his SMG and immediately began laying down fire. The android immediately ran to it's right, leaping into the air and crashing through a wall. Okada was impressed, but left the commons area the proper way and began running down the corridor hoping to cut off the crazed machine. Okada turned the corner and saw a door at the end of the corridor that would lead to the room where the android just crashed into. He raised his rifle and slowly approached...

The door glided open and MysticBot stood there holding a rocket launcher. The android grinned and immediately fired the rocket down the corridor. The rocket screamed towards Okada and he turned and ran the opposite way. As he ran, Okada remembered a room he had passed while going down the corridor towards MysticBot. The rocket was quickly approaching, and Okada managed to bust into the room as it collided with the outside wall of said room. The blast ripped through the wall and the concussive forced flung him across the room.

The blast reverberated through the station. Okada picked himself up, trying to catch his breath with the fact that oxygen was being depleted in the station well in mind. MysticBot had found the armory and equipped itself with the biggest weapon it could find. It waited for him to appear, guarding the hallway. There was only one way out of that room and it was just expanded. But all was silent.... the android began running analysis to determine the numerical probability of it's prey dying in the blast.

41.12%

That wasn't good enough. As it was about to determine what action to take, the wall exploded in the armory, blasting the android out of the doorway. Okada found a ventilation duct and placed an explosive he found in the security outpost earlier. The android got to it's feet in a hurry, turning toward the explosion and began walking aggressively toward the armory. Okada came running out of the room down the hall, leg augments at full drive. He quickly closed the distance between himself and the android, leaping into the air and planting a hard kick in the chest of the android. The android was sent flying into the newly remodeled armory, colliding with some steel shelving that snapped like twigs as the android crashed into the wall.

Okada was constantly wary of the oxygen level, there were fires burning now, consuming even more oxygen. The android pried itself from the wall and the hand to hand combat ensued. The two fought at incredible speed, exchanging blows and blocks. The android took a hard swing at Okada, he ducked and it's fist destroyed a weapons locker. Okada, immediately after ducking tackled the android to the ground and rained down punches trying to smash through the plating. But the android blocked a single punch, stopping the momentum and kicked him away. Okada fell back into the remains of the weapons locker. He grabbed two blasters and overcharged them in a hurry, aiming them at MysticBot. The Android mocked him and activated it's personal shielding.

"I didn't realize you were capable of overconfidence." With that, Okada raised the blasters towards the ceiling above MysticBot and fired. The bolts crashed into the ceiling in a violent explosion, the result was the ceiling collapsing in on the android, along with everything in the storage room above. It all came crashing down on the android, burying it and likely crushing it. Okada had scrambled out of the room and laid in the corridor at a safe distance. The fires in the room had spread and you could hear ammunition exploding. It was almost prophetic, Okada realized there were incendiary rockets stored in the room and quickly got to his feet. He was having a hard time breathing and began running down the hall, everything was getting blurry and dim.

The last thing he remembered was hearing an explosion before collapsing.

((OOC: sorry if I didn't word it clearly enough, but did you miss the part where I shanked you in the head?))

I had not noticed that entire post.