((ooc: No worries,I actually use the term"mooks" to describe any group of personal flunkies my own self. So I got what you meant.)

The comms unit woke Ecka up. So much so that his boots fell off the control desk of the big mining moth and the whisky spilled down his overalls. Thank feck he had it set to voice only. Still, an incoming conference call, something must be happening.

" Are you awake Ecka ? " . The familiar tones of Tsreknor.

" Aye, ken ah wis just takin' a wee nap, whit gives? "

"We are getting reports of a civil disturbance in Ukari. Seems the XX station there has seen rioting followed by a severe internal fire" . The crisp and as ever accurate tones of Surbius.

"Och, nasty. Any of our lot involved ?"

" None at all, and our losses seem to be limited to some ships, together with assorted ores and goods. These are insured with our usual agent" Ah, Lisa, on top of the situation as usual.

Mind ye mair chance of a puggy in odia payin'oot than that lot thought Ecka....

"Aye, so whits the problem?"

"We have scanned TGFT universal inventories and an item of concern has been flagged by our data systems. It seems that you have a statis pod there, under your personal seal, contents labelled Secret CO TGFT ONLY ". Wild Gramps reported.

" Och I do ? Aye , well, I mean I do. Aye well, I'll check it oot and report back"

Ecka growled at the Comms unit several times. Eventually it decided that the old fool growling at it was indeed Ecka and allowed him to dig deep down through layers of security to determine the contents of the sealed statis pod.

"Och, ye are kiddin'me oan"

The simple message read;

Statis pod 6546443164844 : Sealed EE Pxxxxxxx : Content : 1 No. Cheese sandwich

Memories of a party decades before came back to the old man. A party at the end of which Obsidian had presented him with the last remaining Cheese sandwich from the buffet. A sandwich which a young and inebriated Ecka had promised to treasure forever.

He stared at the comms unit for a log time. Finally he amended the entry and sent the simple message "sorted" back to TGFT HQ. Panic over. Time for a large dram.

With a refreshed glass in hand Ecka swung his boots back onto the moths control desk, and looked at the comms unit with the satisfaction of a man whose memories were now in accord with the evidence of records.

The simple message now read;

Statis pod 6546443164844 : Sealed EE Pxxxxxxx : Content : 1 No. Toasted Cheese sandwich

lol

Words could not describe the absolute shock Sam was in. What this man Lysander had lived through.... It was...beyond horrifying. Despite his betrayal, Sam couldn't help but feel deeply sympathetic towards him.

He was still in a state of mental trauma, though; his highly trained mind had dropped into a trance in order to protect itself. With great strain, he then blanked his thoughts and poured all of his focus into one thing: erasing the events from his memory. He deepened his trance into the furthest reaches of his subconsious, falling into a sort of hypnotic state, and began to reprogam himself:

I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.

The mantra began to take effect. His mind started to heal.

I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.
I do not remember what I absorbed from Lysander.


The acquired memories weren't completely gone yet, but they were at least blurred enough for him to become cognizant again. It'd probably take many more sessions from other, more skilled Itani hypnotists to completely eradicate it. His task more or less accomplished, he slowly began to bring himself out of his self-hypnosis...focusing on moving his left thumb, then his hand, then his arm, until eventually he was wide awake. The doctors noticed him stirring, readying themselves to render assistance, but Sam called them off. "It's alright, I'm fine...just had a...rather traumatizing experience.... I just finished memblurring it, so I don't wanna talk about it."

"You erased it...yourself?" one of the doctors said. "If it was anything like what the Chancellor said...um...wow, that's amazing...."

"Well, I was trained by the best.... I don't know if the names Greenwall or CrazySpence ring any bells...."

"You mean you were...."

"Yep. Former Coalition. Served aboard the Retribution. Had some fun times with those guys.... Where the hell am I, anyway?"

"IDF vessel Spirit of Divinia, in the medical bay. Heavily guarded, by the way, so no funny business."

"Wasn't planning on it."

"Good. Now, if I may, Mr...."

"Samwise. Call me Sam."

"Sam, yes. What caused you to leave the Coalition?"

The question pierced him worse than a gunshot. He still hadn't quite gotten over the guilt of abandoning his teammates for a selfish quest of fun and personal gain. There would be no use in lying about it; they'd just pick up on it right away. Better to come up with a plausible half-truth.

"It seemed hopeless fighting the war conventionally. I figured I would better serve my nation by operating from the outside, fighting as a pirate, as most of their groups are inclined to do, like that douchebag Espionage."

The doctor nodded. "Well, now that you're at least awake, I'm sure the High Chancellor would like a few words with you.... I'll get her down here."

"Good. Tell him I'm willing to cooperate in any interrogation he has planned."

"She."

"Right, sorry." He had failed to keep up with Itani politics for the past few years.

A few minutes later, the doctor returned, accompanied by a tall middle-aged woman in lavish white robes and a cadre of armed guards. The doors to Sam's bay opened, and they entered.

"Well, hello, Mr. Pirate. Sleep well?"

"With all due respect, Madam Chancellor, you have no idea."

"If my theory is correct, I'm pretty sure I do.... It's a miracle you were able to pull yourself out of it."

"Still working on that, actually.... If you could get a hypnotist down here so we can finish it, that'd be awesome."

"I'll see what I can do. Anyway, the doctor told me you were willing to provide information."

"That is correct."

"Please, proceed then."

He then recounted all of that day's happenings...Savet's orders, the destruction of Epsilon Hold, his escape aboard Asteroth's Centaur, Okada's betrayal, the sacrificial Greyhound, Asteroth's betrayal, and everything that happened aboard I8, save for his encounter with Geosha. He briefly mentioned what Lysander did to him, but did not dwell on it for long in fear of breaking the memblur he so painstakingly laid down.

"Just as I feared.... Thank you for your cooperation. Now, about your sentence...."

"Sentence?"

"You are an employee of Family Galactic Travel, a criminal organization operating under the guise of legitimate business and one of the most prolific pirate rings in this current day and age, as well as an AWOL military deserter."

"Oh. Yeah. That. If that's the case, then I have a proposition...."

"I'm listening."

"If I was able to come out of that mess myself and pull off all those things I said I did, then that probably means I'm pretty good at what I do, right?"

"I suppose."

"And you would be glad to have someone of my skillset, right?"

"Yes."

"Then I propose this: In lieu of prison time, put me back into the military. I don't care for how long, but I want this whole thing over with as bad as you do. I mean I know I--"

"That is enough. I will consider your proposition. As for now.... I was inclined to throw you in the brig alongside your compatriot, but since you were generous enough to share your story with us, I will let you stay here until this bay is needed again."

"Fair enough."

And with that, she left.

((please don't let this die this is too awesome))

I'm planning on writing more, just needs to find time... I really do hope it keeps going.

The bottle was spinning slowly in front of Asteroth’s face, unencumbered by the tyranny of gravity. He watched it as his mind raced through the mission he had just… well, been involved in, was probably the best term. Rarely had he been involved in a larger clusterfuck to be honest! The last time something had failed in similar epic proportions, it had been enough to have him court-marshalled, given a one-way ticket to grey with a death-sentence if he ever showed up in Serco space again, and his entire team being kicked out of the Serco Defence Forces in disgrace. This was slowly coming to a close second!

It had been supposed to be a simple snatch and grab mission. He was going to infiltrate the old CLM headquarters using a Serco Marine Assault Stealth Holo suit, going under the acronym of SMASH suits, the development of which had probably been more intensely fought over than the production of the actual suit itself, and by using the one-time CLM visitor pass he had received from William Cutting a long time ago. He shuddered a bit when he thought of the huge Itani sociopath and the tools he probably had used in extracting that particular pass. However, he was not above using whatever came his way, however he had obtained it. Then he was to snatch Leebs and turn him over to the Valent authorities, anywhere really. End of story, money in the bank.

The infiltration had worked, and the one-time pass had allowed him to enter the cesspool of filth that CLM HQ had become, probably as a result of Lebermac's short but intense reign as Emperor of Tequilaria. Underneath the general mess were, however, signs of heavy combat. The further investigation had led him to the first of several Mexican standoffs. The situation had felt wrong at the time, and with perfect twenty-twenty hindsight, he knew now that he should have done what any decent and sane Serco would have done, and placed a gauss slug in each of the Itani heads instead of revealing himself. He would have had to be clever with the Serco agent, Okada, but he was convinced that they could come to a better solution than what happened at the second Mexican Standoff inside his Cent. Asteroth had thought that he could blow everyone out of the ship, knowing very well that Okada would survive, and that Lebermac would too, especially given the emergency bubble suit that he had ready for him. However, he had underestimated the capabilities of the Serco operative.

Asteroth sighed, grasped the bottle and squeezed some more Helio Mists down his throat, wincing and anticipating the blow that surely enough arrived in his stomach with the force of a heavy calibre slug shot at close range. He set the bottle spinning again in front of his visor; it helped him focus.

His third error had been allowing the thrice-cursed Itani to use one of his infiltration suits to sneak up on Okada. Granted, it had been the price the smurf had wanted for leading the three hunters to Okada's hideout. And Asteroth had been able to make a complete mind-mapping of the smurf, including a complete readout of that strange location power, but he wasn't sure that the following destruction of the agent had been worth it. Asteroth grinned as he recalled the smurf's honest-looking facial expression, the very wide eyes and semi-blank features when he tried to hustle a fake tracer-mem-crystal to Asteroth instead of the real one. A bit like a con-artist trying to outsmart the Devil; not going to happen. However, the mem-crystal had been very good at leading the smurf to Okada's "death" later on.

And all that had left him here. Lebermac was gone. Okada was spliced onto a guise and probably long gone to Serco-land where he'd be downloaded into a clone, mad as hell, but with the correct and complete readings from the smurf. The pirate Rin had, hopefully, found somewhere to sleep. And Asteroth had no clue whatsoever what to do next. His computer chimed softly and a heavily encrypted message chirped into his brainpal.

"He's here. Pickup ready. Single hostile."

Asteroth grinned widely. Lady Luck, that old and fickle bitch that he loved so much, had just smiled upon him and granted him a passage to a solution. He replied, but used an Itani encryption in case someone intercepted the message and wondered what a nice Itani girl was doing on a heavily guarded semi-secret station with a Serco military grade code-breaking implant in her pretty head. He closed his eyes and encoded the message, pressed two fingers against the bridge of his nose to force the attending head-ache away; he had trained long and hard to be able to use the Itani way of coding messages, but he would never get the hang of using his "mental powers" to actually do it without the pain.

He set up for a jump to CLM HQ, started boosting for open space, ignoring the contact beeps of the stupid dentek mining drones around him, and slowly formulated a plan. As with all very good plans, it would involve several players of deception, it would be wildly complicated and would be almost suicidal. Oh, and this particular plan would involve the remains of the Mystic-bot. He was fairly certain that he could make it work again, but this time he would ensure that it would be slightly psychotic instead of the pillar of calm he knew it had been programmed as.

Two quick jumps and a retrieval mission later, he was on his way again with the trashed bot in his hold. He jumped to the ultra-secure secret station and identified himself. The pass he had purchased three hours ago worked like a charm, as he had known it would. No piracy entity could keep anything secure for longer than it took one of their members to get in a position, where he could be bribed. Which was a sensible position if you asked Asteroth, after all, if you didn't have people arriving with money and goods, what was the point of having a station? He docked, paid the "fine" for speeding, the "fine" for having equipped his ship with too heavy-calibre weapons, the "fine" for not wearing corporate issue jumpsuit the "fine" for wearing sunglasses indoor, the "fine" for not wearing having a sanctified "Pirate's Codex" etc…

He moved towards the bar-area, a fairly large chunk of the station, when his brainpal received another chirp.

"Target moved. To Spirit of Divinia. Multiple hostiles. In contact. Request orders."

He cursed silently and stopped in the corridor. This had just complicated everything by a factor of stupid. No matter, change of plans. He turned and was about to move back to his ship, but instead managed to crash into a man with a large burn-sore on his left shoulder, a slightly confused and tired expression on his face. Rin looked up and smiled.

"Ast, man. Do you know where the hell they placed that burger joint that made pizza-burgers?"

"The Latos Deepfry Palace?" he blurted out, his surprise over seeing the pirate taking precedence over the fact that he wanted the pirate to disappear into a black hole somewhere and let him get on with his new plan.

"Yeah, that's the one. It's down here somewhere, yeah?"

Asteroth was slowly regaining his calm and was about to brush the pirate away; get on with it! However, the burn-wound on Rin’s left shoulder looked decidedly like the one you would get from a smurf Navy issue standard sidearm, and Asteroth was slowly getting around to the position that there was a story behind that. Maybe a story that was related to Asteroth’s situation.

"I know where it is. Have you ever tried the deep-fried pizza-burger with toasted deep-fried batter on the side?" He indicated a direction with his left arm, urging Rin to walk in that direction.

Rin grinned and looked down sheepishly, "naw, but I think it is time for one of them heavenly delights now."

Change of plan mk VII was about to happen, Asteroth thought. Eventually, he'd get there, eventually!

((Not dead, but it needs to die eventually. It is slowly becoming less focused, and that makes the story hard to write. I'd suggest that post nr 100 will be the finishing post, and that it will be written by Leebs! You kickstarted it, you kick-finish it as well:) ))

"So," ventured Asteroth between bites of a meal that would probably have been illegal outside of Serco space in the days prior to the cloning tanks, "where'd you get that burn?"

"Mwiwa ahhghkh awy uh warumth waff," came the explanation.

"You'll have to try that again Rin, but with more articulation this time."

Rin nodded and held up a finger while he made a few attempts at swallowing his burger, then downed his milk in one mighty swig. Signaling to the waitress for a refill, he repeated himself. "I said, it was back by The Latosian Nosh. LeeberMac's girlfriend's minion did it."

Asteroth just quirked an eyebrow, so Rin elaborated. "I was lookin' fer this place when some random guy tried shootin' me. I turned around and LeeberMac and a whole gaggle o' smurfs had snuck up behind me! His girl tried to read my mind and got cranky when when I employed the Swimwear Defense. She told 'er minions ta kill me, and I was hungry and outnumbered so I ran for it. One o' them hit me, but I got away and gave my arm a Paingoway, so it's fine. These are really good burgers, but I think I like the normal grilled kind more. Nice change of pace though!"

Rin dipped his side of batter in marinara with his good arm and munched away while Asteroth processed his statement. When it looked like Rin was coming back up for air, Asteroth spoke again.

"Names. Did you get their names? Or insignia?"

"Hmm... one o' the minions was named... Siora I think, but she seemed pretty okay. I don't think she even tried ta shoot me. Hope I didn't make things awkward for her with her boss." Rin grew pensive for a moment. "Oh, I think the group's brown-noser called their boss a chancellor. I don't know any outlaws who use that rank though. Maybe La Familia, back before they incorp'rated. These dweebs didn' look FAMY though, either version. Too organized. They even had matching uniforms! You shoulda seen it. Was like they thought they were Itani officials or somethin'. Maybe they were cosplaying. There a convention going on I don't know about?"

Asteroth was considering disconnecting his facial controls to keep his expression from reflecting what he thought about Rin's astounding powers of deduction, but he needed them active to continue questioning the fool. He compromised by disabling the facial muscles around his eyes, leaving the ones around the mouth running.

"You said LeeberMac was with them. And you implied there was a romantic link between LeeberMac and the Chancellor?"

"Well, I didn't catch 'em smoochin', but when I tried to get Leebs to come eat with me, it looked he wanted to. Then Smurfy Bitch yanked his leash and he didn't even try ta object."

"You mean they put a leash on him?"

"Might as well. If she said jump, he jumped."

"So he wasn't being physically restrained?"

"Nope. Only restraint was that finger he was wrapped 'round."

Asteroth reactivated the rest of his facial muscles and resumed chewing over both his food and this new information, while Rin ordered a pair of grilled pizza burgers to-go. Finishing his meal and reaching a decision, Asteroth stood abruptly and excused himself. Rin watched him leave as he finished off his second milk, and then realized he'd been left with the check. He shrugged and paid for the meal, mentally writing off Asteroth's portion as fair payment for directions. He left a 100% tip, because he figured he needed to take care of places that were actually willing to feed him. Besides, he'd found that small frequent bribes in advance leave people a lot more helpful and forgiving than large bribes at the moment of need. And bribery after something blew up just left them indignant, no matter the sum. Yep, proper preparation was the key.

Not that Rin intended to blow this place up, but hey, accidents happen. And bounty hunters. Gotta watch out for them. Sneaky bastards ruined his favorite ice-cream place that way. He didn't mind the hunters coming after him. Just part of being a pirate. But ruining a perfectly good ice-cream parlor in the process? Inexcusable! After he'd settled into a new clone, he'd swapped roles and hunted them down. Once they were safely knocked out, he'd hired a suitably persuadable doctor to amputate their limbs, ensure they were stable, then hook them up to life support systems. Then he set the whole rig up inside the cargo hold of a Behemoth parked in a dusty Aeolus hanger stored under a false ID, with enough spare batteries and fluids to keep the sick bastards alive for a couple years. As long as they didn't die, they couldn't jump into a fresh clone. One of them managed to suffocate himself, but after that Rin had stuck pipes in the other two's throats so they couldn't escape. (Well, he'd had the doctor do it.) He'd also had their tongues and vocal chords removed so they couldn't communicate. He wasn't completely evil though. He left them a video set up to loop continuously through a series of ethics lectures by various Itani monks. Maybe some of it would sink in before the supplies ran out or the dead one tracked them down.

Rin wasn't very proud of his misspent youth in the Itani military, but at least they'd taught him just enough brain-fu to kill himself if he was ever in a situation like that himself. Not that they'd intentionally taught him suicide. The technique in question was supposed to let him get a very vague reading on people's emotions. He just really sucked.

And the former owner of that ice-cream parlor still wasn't talking to him, even though he'd gone out of his way to steal a bunch of high-end weaponry and given all of the proceeds from their sale to the guy. It had been enough for the dude to start over fresh, and with much larger and nicer facilities too! So, nowadays Rin was proactive with his dining establishments.

As Rin walked out of the Palace, he pulled out his date-book and scheduled some time later that week to rob some of the snootier clothing shops around greyspace. (His rule of thumb was that if he couldn't pronounce their name, they were probably valuable enough to be worth his time.) While he didn't bother to meticulously track his account balances in ledgers like some people did, his father had taught him young about how critical it was to ensure that incomes exceed expenses. He'd need to go on a good solid crime spree soon if he wanted to keep his Roger jolly, what with all the purchases he'd been making lately.

Speaking of keeping his Roger jolly, Rin stopped next to one of those station maps that are always hiding away somewhere when you actually need them. Since his search was now finished, the things almost seemed to be jumping out to block his path. He carefully stepped back a few paces and squinted to make sure the sign had settled down, then switched his watch to the camera settings and snapped a photo of the map. Then he used the device's built in photo editing software to place a big red X over room corresponding to The Latos Deepfry Palace, and saved the file under "~/Maps/Treasure/Latos/PizzaBurgers.png". With a satisfied smile, Rin switched his watch back to the datetime setting and sauntered off toward the industrial zone of the station to procure some parts. He figured he'd get the gear moved onto his Trident, then set up the tent-like emergency air bubble and camp out overnight instead of renting a room in the station. Then in the morning he could start right in on the repairs.

Rin never noticed the young couple who, moments before his arrival, had given the sign a shove so that it would conveniently block the otherwise entertaining view down the side passage where they were busy making each other's Rogers very jolly indeed. This was rather unfortunate, because not only was Roger-ette quite attractive and only partially clothed, but she was also somebody he would have recognized as the daughter of a particularly high-ranking and conservative official from Orion. Her father had more than enough authority to smooth things over with the Latos division, making this perfect blackmail material. Alas, the unknowing Rin walked out of the station's commercial zone with nothing gained but a map, some take-out, a full belly, and a slightly oozing shoulder wound. Still, he counted his expedition a success thus far.

Rin's feeling of success slowly started to transform to one of disgust as he started trying to estimate how much work and materials it would take to repair the hull damage caused by all those hive bots. He was a pirate, not a mechanic. All he wanted was a place to sleep in peace and style. So why was he trying to repair a freaking capital ship solo? Or at all? His original plan had been what Samwise initially proposed, only with a moth and some stolen high-end furnishings. Easy to acquire, simple to maintain, easy to hide. But when he'd seen that Trident wreckage, he'd just gotten carried away. And now he couldn't stop, because the Art demanded completion.

Well, he certainly wasn't going to repair all that hull damage, and he wasn't about to drag the thing over to a shipyard to pay somebody else to fix it. So fuck the hull. Shields. That's what he needed. If he had those, the hull would just need to be airtight. And if he could get the turrets online using some of the bot processors he had stockpiled here for building nukes, it would be safer to leave it unattended. And why the hell did a simple proximity triggered nuclear mine need bot processors anyway? Now that he thought about it, he suspected the manufacturing guys were just tacking that onto the recipe and skimming them off for themselves. Well, he could hustle them over it later.

So, decisions made, he redirected from the bulk nanite vendor to a shield technician. There, he discovered that the guy only installed and tuned shields, and learned that generally one didn't repair a shield system. Either the system safely kicked offline before the stress became too great and then automatically reactivated once it had cooled down, or all the expensive bits got slagged. In his case it was the latter, as it hadn't come back online. The technician said it was cheaper to replace the whole unit than try to fix those fiddly bits. That wasn't even the bad news.

Turns out the guy didn't even sell shield systems. And the only people who did were the sort who only dealt with large corporations. From what Rin could gather, it sounded like the big corps had stacked the deck on the whole capship industry, so that the only recourse left to individuals was to either salvage stuff from wrecks, or get some reverse engineered schematics of dubious quality off the black market and build the parts yourself. Apparently there were some folks who'd do that and then sell the parts to others on an individual basis, but such small operations could afford to keep stock on hand, so they had pretty large lead times. Rin didn't feel like waiting for a month while they cobbled together something that might just explode instead of actually working.

Now decidedly unpleased, he bought some more plating and air canisters, hoping to at least make the thing airtight tomorrow. Then he extracted a hive queen processor from his stash, and hauled the assortment out to his Trident in the lone Behemoth he'd parked there previously.

An idea struck him as he was unloading the supplies into the Trident. He'd seen one other Trident parked at the station when he'd arrived. A shielded Trident. He hadn't looked to see if it was still there when he'd returned, so he lightly pushed the crate containing the queen processor toward the floor and was already halfway to the bridge by the time the crate's magnets had pinned it down.

Once Rin had reached the bridge, he pulled up the sector list. As he slid into the seat to start perusing the list, his good arm suddenly felt like it had been pierced by an angry stream of plasma. Observing the flash of light and the glowing hole in the viewport, he decided that it probably had been, and that he was probably under attack. Meanwhile, he'd reflexively started spinning the swivel chair around to face the threat - a short man in an armored EVA suit pulling the trigger on a blaster aimed his way. The spinning chair was fortunate, because it shifted his upper body enough that the second blast missed and and gave the first glowing hole a somewhat larger companion.

With his former good arm freshly demoted to the unhappy position of nonfunctional arm, and the other in a clumsy state, he decided that trying to draw his own blaster would only get him killed. Instead, he leaned forward and pushed off with his legs, aiming the ridged crest of his helmet at the faceplate of the attacker. He saw a flash as he did this and surmised that he'd ducked a third shot. The sense of validation in his decision only lasted a moment before it was washed away by the unpleasant jolt in his neck as his helmet connected with the enemy's helmet, which connected with the hull a split second later. As he bounced off, he noticed he was rolling backwards, so he kicked out and knocked the other guy sideways. It didn't look like he'd cracked the guy's faceplate either. Damn.

Rin reached out toward the chair and shoved himself back toward his opponent, feet first this time. The guy was firing wildly now, unable to deal with the loss of orientation. Must be a newbie. Rin didn't get in many conventional zero-G brawls, so he probably didn't have any more experience at this than the other guy, at least when it came to technique. But when it came to maintaining orientation in 3d space during a high stress event, he was an old hand. It was a pretty essential skill for a fighter pilot, especially the sort who preferred to get up close and outmaneuver the enemy rather than the more popular technique of employing superior aim from a distance.

And this didn't seem all that different from flying a ship. Orient so as to offer a minimal profile, then move inside the range of their weapon and dispatch them. When the other guy tried to dodge out of the way of Rin's flying kick, the pirate surprised him by coiling his legs instead, then reached out his functional arm and grabbed the other guy's foot. By then, Rin's own feet were just colliding with the hull, so he uncoiled, effectively jumping forward across the bridge, and towing the gunman with him. Thankfully the painkillers in his left shoulder were still working, or that would have been painful.

As they departed the wall, Rin tried to sling the other man forward faster and reduce his own momentum as a result. It didn't really work out that way, and left them both spinning madly. But that was probably better anyway. His right arm was flailing about in a painful manner due to inertia, but he manage to hook his legs around the chair (which was bolted to the floor) and then use his functional arm to steady himself against the console. Then he carefully drew his own gun and tried to aim it at the man who had just bounced off the ceiling followed by the viewport and was about to crash into him.

They collided again before he could aim properly, and Rin ended up blowing a hole of his own into the viewport. Well, at least it wouldn't be lonely. There were a few in the walls, floor, and ceiling now too. And at least one display screen had been wrecked. These were just details Rin had gleaned along the way however, because at the moment he was distracted by trying to disentangle himself with just the one clumsy arm, who's hand was busy holding onto his blaster.

During the flailing, a variety of buttons on the control panel were also bumped. One of them was the gravity toggle. Shortly thereafter, both combatants found themselves pinned to the ground. Rin observed that the other man had finally lost hold of his gun, which was lying a few feet away. Taking advantage of this, he pressed his faceplate against the other so that sound would transfer.

"You're disarmed. I'm not. Now stop moving or I'll shoot whatever limb this gun is jammed into." (His own gun arm was trapped somewhat, so he didn't exactly have a selection of targets to choose from.)

"Yeah right, like you'd risk hitting yourself... ARRRGGG GyAHAHAAA!!!!" came the high pitched reply.

Rin winced as the shot grazed his own upper leg. Then he carefully began extracting himself, the break in contact cutting the girlish scream short. After rolling to the side (which involved painfully rolling over his right arm), he swatted the other blaster further out of reach and struggled up onto his knees. A quick visual search of the kid (he was guessing based on vocal tones and inexperience) didn't show any other weapons holstered outside the suit. Looked like he'd shot right through the middle of the thigh, probably burned the femur in half. Kid wasn't going anywhere.

He carefully set down his own blaster where he could get to it, turned down the volume on his radio, switched it to the minimum transmission power (ten meters vacuum), and then turned it on. Then he flipped on the kid's radio to the same settings and channel. Oh, good, the kid had already passed from the screaming stage of recovery to the whimpering and moaning stage. Confident that his ears were safe, he turned the volume up a few notches and then retrieved his blaster.

"Hey kid, I'm turning the gravity back off. Don't try nothin', or I'll shoot to kill next time. Hell, only reason I didn't last time is my arm was pinned down."

"What the fuck is wrong with you! Don't you feel pain?!"

"Damned straight. But you die a few thousand times and you get used to it. Fuck kid, I'm just a UIT. You want to see some pain tolerance, try playing with a Serco or Itani. Those freaks ain't human, neither one." As he was grunting this, he slowly crawled to the bridge, keeping one eye on the kid. The other eye was staring a little ways off to the side. He really needed another Paingoway right now, but they were inside his EVA suit. Normally it wasn't an issue. Until recently, he'd never needed to spend much time outside an atmosphere. He'd have to be more prepared in the future.

Rin finally reached the toggle again and flipped it, and they both gave a sigh of relief. Well, the kid's was more of a whimper.

"What's a wuss like you doing out here anyway? And for that matter, what in the name of all that glows were you doing on this scrapheap? Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play around inside decrepit franken-wrecks docked outside pirate stations?" Come to think of it, he wasn't sure he'd ever heard of anybody else's mother ever needing to tell their kid that. Maybe it was a Ganborro thing.

The kid hadn't answered, so he asked, "Hey, you wouldn't happen to be related to any Ganborros would you?"

"Umm.. I don't... Wait. No. I'm not discussing my family with some perverted pirate!"

"Woah woah woah, I ain't no pervert."

"Oh yeah? Then what's that?"

Rin glanced where the kid had pointed and saw a poster taped to the bulkhead. It featured a scantily clad... something. Weird-ass Serco. "Look, um, that was already there! I just got her today. The ship. I mean I just got the ship today, and I haven't had time to redecorate. Been more concerned with..." Rin blinked, and then started shouting. "Answer my questions, you little shit! Why are you on my ship?"

"You're just going to kill me anyway."

Rin sighed. What was it with people, always assuming he wanted to kill them? If he wanted to kill them, they'd already be dead, not telling him how to do his own job. "I'd prefer not to kill you actually. We've made enough of a mess in my ship already. But it doesn't matter whether you believe me. Let's say I did intend to kill you. I think you'd prefer that I just get it over with, rather than say... doing this." He finished the statement with a swift kick to the kid's injured leg, then made a fool of himself by trying to cover his ears in pain (ear rather, as nonfunctional arm was nonfunctional) before remembering he had a helmet on.

Once he'd dialed down the volume, he started rooting around in the nearby cubbyholes. Once he'd found what he was looking for, he turned the volume back up in time for the tail end of the inevitable string of cussing that followed such acts of assholery. Ignoring it, he held the first aid kit out in front of him briefly, then opened it and withdrew a pair of syringes. He stabbed one into his right arm and emptied the contents, then lightly tossed the other toward the kid, who's cursing finally trailed off.

"It's an antiseptic, anesthetic, and clotting agent. Like a Paingoway, but healthier. Won't help the pain as much, but should do more to stop infection. Not that you're likely to get much of an infection in a vacuum. And let me tell you, it's a damned good thing these blasters cauterize their wounds as much as they do, or we'd both be dead and bloodless by now."

The kid fumbled with the syringe, and then balked at piercing his leg with it. Said leg was bent in a fairly disturbingly sharp way after that last kick. The kid's hand was trembling, and not looking any closer to making the injection.

Rin sighed to himself. He quietly drifted over, placed his good hand over the kid's wrist, and shoved the syringe in. "There. Now push that plunger down. Oh stop whimpering and get on with it! There, now you can remove the syringe. Now, stay right here while it kicks in. I'm going to find something to splint your leg with so it ain't flopping around like that. Legs ain't supposed to bend sideways. Makes me want to puke, and that's no good in a helmet."

He drifted off, taking both guns with him. He returned with just his own holstered gun and a metal rod. By now he could use his right arm again, though it was painful and didn't want to move into certain positions. Probably the best it was going to get until he either visited a surgeon or went ahead and ditched this body altogether.

The kid hadn't moved from where he'd left him, good.

"Alright, feeling better yet?"

There was no response. The kid didn't even twitch.

"Hey, you hear me?" He waved the metal rod in front of the kid's face. When the kid didn't respond, he gave the kid's leg a light jab.

Still nothing. Kid must have passed out. Shrugging, he got some elastic bandages out of the first-aid kit and set to work. Just as he was finishing up tying the splint, he heard a groan over the radio. He looked up just in time to get a very good view as the kid kicked him in the face with his good leg, yelling "Get off me you pervert!"

Landing on the opposite wall, Rin shook the little birdies out of his vision. "I already told you, I ain't no pervert! I ain't into little boys, alright? So chill the fuck out."

"I am not a fucking boy you goddamned psychopathic idiot!" came the rebuttal, in a rising screech that gave credence to the claim.

Rin squinted through his visor. Well, maybe what he'd taken for upper body armor consisted of less armor and more upper body than he had at first assumed. It wasn't like he could see through the mirrored plastic of the kid's visor, after all.

"Okay, so you're a girl. That just goes to show how unperverted I was being! So now it's obvious that I wasn't groping you, because if I were I'd have known! All I did was splint your leg, and well, legs are legs. They don't tell me much. 'Specially when they're flabby broken pieces of work like that one!"

"I'm not flabby you asshole!" came the response. Well, to be fair that had been a poor choice of words.

"Flabby, flappy, floppy, whatever," Rin growled. "The point is, all I did was patch you up. Now answer my flipping questions already. Who in the name of shitty aim are you, and what are you doing on my ship?"

She replied through clenched teeth, "My name is CindiMac and I'm trying to find my drunken idiot of a father."

Asteroth tried desperately to clear the greasy taste of the deep-fried burger with a piece of synth-rubber gum on his way to his ship. Even though he was a Serco, he was also more hu-normal than most of his kin and did not particularly relish the taste of oils and lubricants. To be honest, he was actually very fond of the heavily spiced Nyrian food or the Itani seafood from Eo, but he wouldn't admit it to any of his creche brother under pain of limitless amounts of torture. He spat the gum onto the floor and grimaced at the lump of greasy phlegm that had accompanied it. It reminded him of something. Ah yes, Lebermac's command console in the CLM HQ. It had the same colour and appeal as the lump on the floor tiles. Probably the same utility value as well he reckoned.

He entered the docking bay of his Warthog and grimaced again, this time at the two obese officials in slightly stained beige overalls with large FAMY letters in neon-blue on their backs. The fatter of the two turned with all the grace of a quadriplegic elephant and speared Asteroth with his small piggish eyes and a smile, or at least an upturn of his flabby mouth in something that resembled what on a normal-sized human could be a smile, but on this individual could be confused with the predatory look on a lamprey about to strike its target. He reached one massively flabby arm towards his companion and poked him on the shoulder.

"We have company, and from the looks of it, the owner of this fine combat vessel," he lisped, pronouncing vessel with at least ten s's.

He looked down at his print-screen, poked it twice before he looked up again towards Asteroth.

"Mr. Dawnbringer, I assume?"

Asteroth sighed and spread his hands out from his sides in defence. He used the Dawnbringer alt when he needed to dock anywhere in pirate space. It made his life easier. Normally, that is.

"Yes, I am he."

The wet chuckle sounded just like Asteroth imagined it would be like, if someone tried to swallow a tallow-dunked living bullfrog, "you seem to be in arrears Sir. We have in our records that you have owned this dock for the last ninety months, and that it is registered to berth one Behemoth class cargo vessel. However," he turned and indicated the Warthog with his fat index finger, "this ship is clearly not a Behemoth class cargo vessel, but instead looks very much like a Warthog class combat vessel."

Asteroth wished the opulent tub of lard would come to the inevitable conclusion of Asteroth having to pay some obscure overpriced fee for the grievous crime, but knew that if he interrupted the obnoxious official, his price would be double or triple the original amount.

"And the docking fee is significantly larger for a combat vessel than for a cargo vessel."

"Significantly larger indeed," his partner chipped in, in a high nasal voice that bordered on chalk-across-blackboard in pleasantness.

Asteroth summoned some humility from the depths of his training, and with the most sincere expression he could muster, asked politely.

"Surely there is some way we can find an arrangement?"

The slightest glimmer of a frown passed across the rolls of fat that doubled as the face of the official. It was replaced by the former lamprey-smile.

"Yesss. You will have to pay the difference between a cargo vessel and a combat vessel for the last ninety months. It is not our error that you didn't declare a change of docking habits."

Asteroth nodded and braced for the worst.

"I believe that the difference comes to 990 credits, payable in UIT credits or Corvus dubloons."

Asteroth's face went slack for a half-second before his brain had understood what the official said. He smiled widely as he understood how little he had to pay. Peanuts, they had held him here for peanuts. The official continued,

"Plus the fine for not declaring a classification change, the fine for not informing FAMY immigration and taxation officials upon docking and the fine for being late after having been summoned by said immigration and taxation officials, totalling," he leafed through several pages on the print-screen with great care before triumphantly stabbing the paper with his index finger, "ah yes. 3.080.990 credits, payable in UIT credits or Corvus dubloons."

The realization of how much money he owed the FAMY immigration and taxation officials hit Asteroth like an Avalon to the solar plexus. There went his bonus, there went the money he had wanted to send to Rin as a thank you for the tip, there went the donation to the Itani war-orphan's nursery home in.. well, scratch the last one. He tried a desperate gamble.

"Fuck that ship, you can have it. I can buy 50 new ones at that price."

"Indeed Mr. Dawnbringer, that is probably the case. However, we hold you personally responsible and if you are insolvent, you may instead choose to serve some limited amount of time to pay off your debt to the FAMY immigration and taxation board by mining Xithricite in the Sedina L-2 penal colony at 500 credits per day. I believe that you will be able to pay your full debt in less than seventeen years if you so choose."

The four marines that had been standing off to one side armed their pulse-dust rifles with an audible clanging noise. Asteroth was fairly certain that he could kill them all without getting injured, but that would probably mean that he'd have to pay even more in bribes to be allowed to dock at another time. He grasped his credit stick and held it out to the official with two fingers.

"Rape it then. And change my docking license at the same time please?"

"That will cost you an additional 19010 credits Sir. Do you wish to continue with the payment?"

Asteroth groaned audibly and nodded in defeat. He could practically feel the credits drain from his chip. He had bled for that money, done abominable things for that money. And now it was more or less gone. He needed to find Lebermac more than ever now!

After paying, he strapped himself into his ship and did a full systems check. The dockhands had at least been very efficient in servicing his craft, and all systems showed green. He undocked and started boosting for open space.

The battered pockmarked hull of a Serco trident was floating off to his dorsal left side, and he could see thin streams of air venting from several pinpoint holes around the main crew section. Suppressing his urge to just get the fuck out of the sector, he hailed the ship with a directed burst of lased microwave.

"Unknown Serco Trident, this is Asteroth piloting the "Scowling Sow". You seem to venting air from at least ten holes. Do you require assistance?"

The crackling reply came after a few seconds.

"Ast, Rin here. This ain't no toaster ship anymore, this is mine. I think it'll be named Mighty Penis, or Inside Siora. Not sure yet. Listen, I have some information you might be interested in."

Asteroth ran an analysis and came up with a 100% probability of it being Rin that actually owned the previously Serco trident. Fate, the fickle bitch, was really playing with him these days.

"I see. Congratulations I guess. You are still bleeding air like a gutted pig, Rin."

"Yeah, I know. Listen, dock and help me with the holes and I'll let you in on a little story."

Asteroth sighed and turned to the Warthog towards the open docking bay of the… well, the ship. Rin might be able to help him get aboard the Itani cruiser, and at this stage, any help would be good help.

Rin and CindiMac greeted Asteroth at the docking bay amid a smoky haze, and Rin's voice came over the comm. "Welcome aboard the Buttered Toast! Yeah, I was just kidding about those other names. And this is Ms. Gopher." Rin waved toward CindiMac. "She's an even worse mechanic than me, so she's just helping fetch things. If she gives you any trouble, just poke the leg with the splint and she'll straighten up. And don't let her talk you into giving her a gun. I'd like to still have an uninjured limb when it is time to attack the cattle feed."

Asteroth just nodded while Rin continued.

"I've got the biggest rents plated over inside, even if it's still a mess out there", as he tilted his head toward the starboard pylon mount. "So now we just need to track down the leaks. I've got 'er filled with smoke so that shouldn't be too hard. I already finished patching the ones we made in the bridge while you were docking. Those were the only ones in known locations. The rest we'll have to go outside to find the easy way."

Asteroth paused, glanced at the wounded girl, then looked back at the now more heavily damaged Rin, and asked, "So, what's the story?"

"Well, it's about this kid from Sol-I in the days before spaceflight, who fights crime using gadgets that he..." Rin trailed off as the seemingly agitated Asteroth drew his blaster and pointed it squarely at his chest. "Woah woah, if you're gonna shoot me, I'd prefer if you aimed at my good leg instead. I know I said-"

"Shut up!" yelled Asteroth. After pausing to take a breath, he continued in a calm but dangerous growl, "Do you or do you not have a non-fiction and relevant story, regarding LeberMac and/or our activities today?"

"Well, no, but sheeEEOOWTCH!!" Asteroth had shot him in the chest. Fortunately, Rin had a pretty good deflective chest-plate on underneath his suit. A single shot from close range like this could heat it up enough to leave minor burns, but the plate still deflected the bulk of the shot. Right into the hull near Asteroth's feet. Rin squinted at the hole while letting some of the air out of his lungs to try to pull his chest away from the scalding armor. It didn't look like any of the smoke was being sucked through, so it probably didn't penetrate the hull. Looking back up, he saw that Asteroth was now aiming at his head.

"If you had let me finish", Rin carefully complained, "you'd have heard me say that SHE has the story!" This was accompanied by a jerk of his head toward the girl who was now doubled up in a fit of laughter. When Asteroth lowered his gun and swiveled, Rin pushed himself toward where he thought he left the freeze packs. At least after this he might not have to worry about her trying to stab Asteroth in the back, since he'd apparently made a good impression.

"Sorry about that Rin, but you had it coming. So, Miss... Gopher was it?"

"*snerk* No, my... it's.. bwahahahahahaa"

Asteroth sighed and considered taking Rin's advice, but figured it probably wouldn't be very conducive to subsequent conversation to inflict any more agony on the girl than Rin had already done. He opted to wait out the giggles. Meanwhile he kept an eye on Rin, who was now sighing in relief with a freeze pack to his chest. He figured if Rin was going to pull anything violent in revenge, he'd have done it already, but it paid to be careful.

A few moments later, the girl raised her hand in a "hang on a sec" gesture and took a few deep breaths, then cleared her throat.

"*ahem* Sorry about that. Probably the painkillers. No, my name is CindiMac. LeberMac is my father. I'm trying to find him. I had a hunch he might show up here, so I've been staking the station out. Then I heard about some commotion near the Latosian Nosh, so I went up to look around. There had been shooting. I asked around, and it sounded like some pirates had gotten into it, then a bunch of Itanis had shown up and chased off another pirate, and then left on a Trident. By the time I made it outside, there were no Itani Tridents in the sector. I don't have any ships, and I got mugged yesterday so I couldn't buy one, so I couldn't follow. This... 'ship' looked suspicious though, so I snuck aboard to poke around. Then that reject came aboard. We, um, introduced ourselves violently. Then it turned out he knew LeberMac, and then you showed up."

Asteroth let that bundle of exposition sink in for a few moments. Not much new there, he'd already gotten most of that from what Rin had told him earlier. Well, if she really was LeberMac's daughter, she might know more about what was going on.

"Okay, do you know who those Itanis were, or why they were after LeberMac, or where they might be heading? Why are you looking for him, for that matter?"

"Because I love him dearly of course. Duh! I think the people were the Itani government, who are trying to track him down over some kind of reports he was making. Mr. Walking Injury over there said the woman in charge was a chancellor. The only Itani woman matching that description who is in this part of the galaxy is High Chancellor Tohasandra Chi. Mmmm... *ahem* And they're probably taking him back up to Itan for questioning and possible imprisonment."

Asteroth remained silent. Something seemed off about this whole situation. And her voice was annoying. Wait, her voice. He ran it through an analysis, and quirked an eyebrow at the result. It was full of minor distortions. That meant she was using a voice changer. He looked at her more closely now. Her build seemed off too. Even for an Itani, she wasn't exactly shapely. For that matter, she seemed a bit large for an Itani woman. In fact, the body shape was familiar to his cybernetic memory.

"Hey Rin, you got any emergency masks around here?" he asked, not taking his eyes off "CindiMac". What kind of name was that, anyway?

Rin paused from placing hull patches into a sack near the airlock. "Sure, why?" he responded, as he grabbed one off the wall and tossed it to Asteroth.

"I need to test something..." came the reply. Catching the mask, Asteroth set it floating within convenient reach, and then quickly gave the Itani a quick light kick in the leg. Using the opening this created, he quickly removed the "girl's" helmet to reveal LeberMac, who shortly switched from screaming to coughing on the smoke. Asteroth grabbed the emergency mask and shoved it into LeberMac's face.

Rin watched in confusion as the girl donned the mask. He'd only gotten a brief glimpse of her face, but she looked strangely familiar. Almost like a girl he'd known in school. Her hair was the wrong shade of brown, but it was just as long and majestic. And her eyes, which he could still see, were the same orbs of beauty he'd known. Weird. She sure was pretty though. He wasn't sure how he'd mistaken that lithe, petite form for a man's, even in the heat of battle. It was a shame she looked to be about ten years below his bracket. That was about the same age group as James though, so maybe he could introduce them. Rin, like all Ganborros since the Uncle Jane Incident, made it a point to take good care of his personal cloning technicians. Well, in the other Ganborros' cases, that would be the family technicians. Rin, being the lone pirate in an otherwise upstanding if quite eccentric and misunderstood family, was not at all welcome in the Arta C facility where the family docs operated, so he'd had to hire a couple of his own.

Well, he'd better find out what Asteroth was up to. "Okay, so she's pretty. Give her helmet back now, we've got work to do."

Asteroth glanced at Rin, then back at LeberMac, then back at Rin. "Um, Rin? This is LeberMac."

"Oh sure, and I'm Ecka Estenk. Do you see those curves? LeberMac doesn't have curves like that."

Asteroth looked at LeberMac again, and replied, "No... I don't see any curves." He looked back at Rin. "This is an Itani we're dealing with. Are you sure your shields are up?"

Rin didn't have mental shields, but he wasn't about to admit it to anybody else. He did have a couple defenses, but none were passive, so they were only useful when he already knew he was under attack and left him susceptible the rest of the time (which he tried to counter by being scary and thinking in patterns of nonstandardness, but he had no idea how much if any hindrance was caused by such antics). He decided that if CindiMac was messing with his brain without him knowing, she deserved one of the more malicious techniques he had at his disposal. He started chanting quietly. "Choko-ra-ii-toh Dis-ko, Choko-ra-ii-toh Dis-ko, Choko-ra-ii-toh Dis-ko...." He increased his volume as he repeated the phrase, and his voice took on a sugary sweet high pitched melodic tone, akin to a little girl who thought she was sounding cute. A few moments later he started adding tonal variations and then additional phrases. Asteroth looked the other way rather than observe the frankly embarrassing "dance moves" Rin was throwing in for good measure.

Soon LeberMac's head started moving in tune and a mumbling came through the mask. A few seconds after that, LeberMac seemed to notice what he was doing. He froze for an instant, shuddered, and then started shaking his head violently as though this could somehow loosen the earworm's hold on his mind. At the same time, Rin recoiled in minor disgust as the vision of beauty that had been constructed out of his own memories wavered and then warped into a view of good old Leebs.

"Huh, so it is you. Alright, well, I'll give you the antidote if you promise not to mess with my mind anymore. But mess with me again, and I'll hit you with something even your smurfy friends won't be able to wipe out of your head!" This was a total bluff, but Leebs didn't need to know that.

LeberMac nodded frantically and made noses of agreement through the mask as vague memories of that scary Ryan guy ran through his head, somehow pulsing to the beat of Rin's atrocious song.

What Rin didn't bother to mention was that the Chocolate Disco maneuver was a double-edged sword that tended to infect his own psyche even more deeply than the opponent's, necessitating at the very least a silent self-administered antidote. Any affected psychic could just listen in and receive their own copy. It was more effective when performed audibly, though.

With a grin of anticipation, Rin started chanting the antidote. "Benri benri banzai benri benri banzai benri benri banzai ningen!" This one was a lot more pleasant, by his measurement anyway. It involved loudly shouting in a quite manly and merrily psychotic fashion. Of course, Asteroth made him shut up just as he was really getting into it.

"ENOUGH ALREADY. You're scaring him."

Rin reluctantly stopped and watched as Asteroth tried to get the whimpering LeberMac out of the fetal position. At least the lack of gravity meant he was still floating, rather than needing to be helped back to his feet. Rin helpfully poked LeberMac in the injured leg, then dodged as the various other limbs flailed about.

Backing away out of arm's reach, Asteroth asked, "Don't you have anything soothing to throw at him?"

Rin pondered for a bit, and then launched into a song about large hungry carnivores sleeping within areas of dense vegetation. He seemed to have a voice recorder or something set up in his EVA suit's audio system, because he managed to record a loop of himself singing the nonsensical background sounds and then played it simultaneously as he sang the actual lyrics. He gestured at Asteroth to join in, but to no avail. It did seem to be working on LeberMac, but in a "three steps forward, one step back" fashion, the steps back being when Rin tried to sing the high bits before the "mumbaway"s.

Eventually Asteroth deemed LeberMac's calm sufficiently enhanced and made Rin stop before he tried to do any more of that infernal yodeling. He handed LeberMac's helmet back to him so that they could converse without the mask in the way. "Now LeberMac, tell us why you are here, what you are doing, and who else knows you're here," he demanded in the gentlest fashion he knew. "Otherwise, I'll let Rin 'sing' some more."

LeberMac winced and started to speak, but Rin interrupted.

"And why were you being so confusing and sneaky-like? Oh, and my arm wants to know why you shot it. I think you hurt its feelings.... Did your girlfriend put you up to this?"

Knock knock.

"Don't know why you'd bother knocking. I'm your prisoner, right?"

The Chancellor entered once again. "Not exactly...Ensign." She handed him a rectangular blue patch emblazoned with a single white star and stripe.

"Ah. So you have accepted my proposition."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures. It appears we have been hoodwinked."

"Is that so?"

"I don't know how he managed.... But we do not have LeberMac in our brig. The current resident is an imposter. We haven't quite figured out who he is yet, but the fact remains he is still at large. You are our only hope for catching him again."

"Fair enough. Get me a Valkyrie and I'll find him."

"One has been prepped in Bay 3. I must warn you, though...this specific Valkyrie has been fitted with a self destruct device. At the first sign of funny business, we will not hesitate to detonate it. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Now get to your post."

With a salute, he headed off for Bay 3. Once there, he was greeted with the shiny white sight of an IDF Vigilant Valkyrie, done up in traditional sky-blue IDF livery. Alright, this won't take long... he said to himself. He placed his hand on the ship's nose, connecting with the crystal matrices, and performed another deep aura scan. Within a minute, he found them, along with two others. One appeared to be Rin, the other was....

Asteroth.

Sam had to put all of his willpower into keeping a straight face. Bringing the full might of the Itani military against him would be most enjoyable. Moving to the nearest comms terminal, he attempted to get in touch with the Chancellor. "Target located. System Lima Alpha, sector India 8. Be advised, moderate Serco forces are present. Recommend backup."

"Understood," she replied. "Teradons Phantom Blade and Stalwart are inbound. Your new objective is to rendezvous with Phantom Blade and assist in whatever way they may need. Coordinates will be uploaded to your Valkyrie. Your callsign will be Whiplash 1. Is your objective clear?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good. Valkyrie Whiplash 1 cleared to launch from Bay 3."

"Launching now, ma'am."

A few short minutes later, he had returned to I8, with the Phantom Blade and Stalwart in tow. They were greeted with the sight of the station again, but.... "Phantom Blade, this is Whiplash 1. Hostile spotted," Sam transmitted. "Serco trident."

"Copy that, Whiplash 1. Target acquired," Phantom Blade replied. "Moving to engage. Is precious cargo onboard, over?"

"Uh...that's an affirmative, Phantom Blade. Hang on...Trident appears to be disabled and severely damaged. Shields down. Hull integrity is 62%. All turrets either offline or missing. Numerous pockmarks across the topside. One engine has been replaced with a Behemoth. Orders?"

"Say again, Whiplash 1? One of the engines is a Behemoth?"

"Affirmative."

"Copy that. Stalwart, prep your jump drive in case it tries to run for it. Whiplash 1, cover its docking bay. Phantom Blade engaging Trident."

The Teradon loosed a single anti-capital Gauss bolt at the one remaining engine, ripping it clean off its pylon as well as knocking the Behemoth loose from its improvised moorings. The Trident itself was sent spinning. Sam and the Phantom Blade moved to follow. The former kept his sights trained on the launch bay, anticipating any runners. The latter began hailing.

"Unidentified Trident, this is IDF Teradon Phantom Blade. You are outnumbered and outgunned. Resistance is futile. Surrender LeberMac or we will destroy you."

Back on "Spirit of Divinia" Chancellor Chi paced back and fourth along a narrow and deserted maintenance duct. She was still trying to piece the events together, absolutely nothing about this made sense. Their quarry had slipped away, leaving an imposter is his place, a Serco terrorist was still at large and their best bet at figuring things out was a soldier turned pirate.

"And I thought the Phoenix Alliance was complicated." She muttered to empty space.

Her pacing was interrupted by a comm panels alert.

"Ma'am... this is Tirenius in TacCom, we must be getting a glitch here, but we're getting a faint bio mechanical signature from the holding cells. Not exactly Serco... but very strange. There's also an unusual amount of psy energy and..."

The rest of the message was cut off by static as the deck plates seemed to ripple beneath her feet.She looked around in confusion... had they hit something?
She steadied herself and expanded her consciousness around the ship. Fear, panic, confusion... an explosion had ripped through the holding areas and people raced to put out dozens of small fires.

Slowly a thought occurred to her... she placed her hand on the comm panel. Nothing. She turned and ran for a lift, smashing her elegant finger into the control panel that would bring her to the TacCom. As she stepped out and joined the other diplomats and officers, Tirenius stood and saluted.

"Ma'am... there was an explosion, its under control but we have casualties in holding and..."

Chi cut her off.

"You need mobilize all military personal on board, tell them to scan for the Bio mechanical signature... search deck by deck,and bring him to me alive and unhurt."

Tirenius looked confused.

"Bring who to you Ma'am? What exactly are we looking for?"

Chi couldn't help a sad smile...

"The chickens have come home to roost... Ryan Reign, is somewhere on our ship."

A young technician stood up and walked over handing Chi a data pad before stepping aside.

"Ma'am, you really ought to look at this."

Irritated she pressed her thumb to it and it buzzed to life, reading the simple message...

He's closer than you think and he has a quantum singularity bomb.

She looked up her expression of rage turning to confusion as she saw the TacCom crew all standing with thier hands up, confusion gave way to understanding as the TacCom Techs face shuddered and faded revealing the smiling face of Lysander.

He was aiming a blaster at her midsection.

"Hello Chi..." he waved the blaster indicating the rest of the TacCom crew. "...assorted corpses."

Chi tried to smile.

"Ryan... we've been looking for you ever since that bomb in the Corvus bar... we want to help you, I swear... no one will hurt you but you have to let us help you, ok?"

The ever present smile faded from Ryan's face.

"HELP ME?" He screamed. "Like your torturers in the guise of doctors helped me before? Maybe lock me away again and try to break me?"

"Ryan, I swear we didn't know... we thought you were UIT when we treated you! It wasn't until Gerty was doing the surgery and we saw your two hearts and bio mechanical organs. If we'd known you were Serco... we wouldn't of used the techniques that..." She paused, stumbling over words tryingto find the right language.

"Wouldn't of what?" He asked calmly

Words escaped her.

"WOULDN'T OF WHAT?" he screamed raising the blaster to her head, simultaneously drawing and aiming another at the doors to the lifta second before they opened and security forces poured in, weapons drawn and aimed at him.

Chi found her voice... "Stand down! He isn't going to hurt anyone."

A tall slender security officer spoke up... "Ma'am, he's already killed seven crew members."

Chi looked daggers at the officer...

"And I said he wont hurt anyone else." She reached up and caressed Ryan's cheek. "Please... Ryan, let us help you?"

"You never answered my question... you wouldn't of what?"

quietly, almost in a whisper Chi replied...

"We wouldn't of broken your mind... I'm sorry."

Ryan's blasters relaxed a little.

"Every night...every time I close my eyes, I see war and destruction, death and carnage. You did this to me."

A tear rolled down Chi's ivory cheek.

"Ryan... we didn't know. It was a mistake... please, let us help you!" there was a sadness, a pleading quality in her voice. Ryan smiled a wolfs smile.

"You MADE me! I remember the faces of every soldier I killed, I feel the pain and suffering of every life lost in this damned war. I'm a monster...and you made me, you did this to me, and you want me to let you help me? Do you know how many nights I refused to sleep, so I wouldn't see their faces? Hear their screams? I HVEN"T SLEPT IN FIVE DAMNED YEARS!" He screamed... "Why would I let you 'help' me?... what possible reason is there for me to trust you?"

Chi placed both her hands on his cheeks, his face was red with rage... she felt as though the touch may burn her, she looked into his eyes and spoke.

"Because I forgive..." She was interrupted by his blaster as it struck her across the face sending her sprawling. In two steps he was over her, blaster aiming down.

"DON"T YOU DARE! WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT? DON"T YOU DARE!" He screamed, his face inches from hers.

Something wasn't right. His finger moved on the trigger. The light was blinding, the noise should have been deafening. Ryan dropped his blasters confused as he began bleeding from hundreds of small wounds where the shrapnel had ripped through him after impacting on the psionic shield around him. He collapsed as the shield faded.

Chi screamed and pulled him into her arms, her white robes turning red as Ryans life spilled over her. He was trying to say something, she leaned in closer...

"Can... I go... to sleep yet?" he asked, blood pouring from his mouth with each word.

She cradled his head in her arms.

"Yes... you can go to sleep now, there's no one left to fight." Midway through the sentence she felt the last of his life slip away.

The blood had stopped flowing, her robes were nearly all red. She looked at the security Monk... the only one that could have put the shield around him.

"Why? You could have mind locked him, you could have done a dozen things... why that?"

[[I apologize for that not being up to snuff... rough week, lost some good people... so,I'm some what incredibly drunk. I'll doa rewrite when Im sober. Onlythings that'll change is descriptives and dialogs so none of the chsnges will affect the next chapter. Just one thingtokeep in minds. for reasons made clear in the rewrite... Ryan wont be clone resurrected.]]

((Sorry to hear that, man.... Hope it all gets better soon.))

(( Sorry to hear that RR. However, a good death mate:) ))

Asteroth groaned as the ship lurched with the impact of the giant energy bolt. Something had been torn clean off the ship and sent it spinning. His radio crackled with energy,

"Unidentified Trident, this is IDF Teradon Phantom Blade. You are outnumbered and outgunned. Resistance is futile. Surrender LeberMac or we will destroy you."

Asteroth ran through his vocabulary of swearwords, but came up short. There was no single outburst that could cover this latest even, this hour or this day, not even close. He considered his options in less time than it took for the two other's to understand what the message meant and came up with three possible scenarios.

Option one was to comply, but in reality, this was a no-brainer. He would likely not survive the encounter, especially considering that he had pending multiple death-sentences by torture hanging over his head in Smurf land. The smurfs would gain access to the sophisticated infiltration suits that was in his ship, which was not going to happen either. And lastly, he really hated doing what some arbitrary smurf commander told him. That aside, Rin was probably not all too keen on surrendering to the mind-rapers either. Scratch number one.

Option two was to go out in a blaze of teradonts. Seeing how they had no weapons onboard, nor any manoeuvrability, this was going to be really hard. And he'd lose Lebermac and would have to start searching for him again. Plus, he'd lose the suits, setting him back economically even further than the friendly FAMY immigration people had ensured. Besides, Rin might actually oppose to blowing up the ship while he was inside it, and while Asteroth was certain that he could handle the pilot, he didn't want to have to fight him for the rights to die. Scratch number two.

That left him with option three. He grasped the five-foot blade that was doubling as an antenna on his infiltration suit, activated the power stud that made it vibrate at an incredible rate, and sliced it through the splinted and damaged leg of Lebermac, severing the leg at above the knee. In a single smooth motion, he bent forward, applied a wound suppressor to the leg stump and sheathed the sword. As an afterthought, he applied a tourniquet to the attached leg-stump and looked up at Lebermac's face. Something was missing; ah yes. The audio. He could see that Lebermac was screaming at the top of his lungs, but fortunately, he hadn't activated his radio. In space, no one hears you scream; unless you toggle the PTT…

He lifted the leg and turned to walk aft, and instead found himself staring into the unpleasant sight of a large calibre hand-canon. Sighting along the barrel, Rin was standing behind the canon, face contorted in rage.

"What the Hell are you doing you murderous son of a whore?"

Asteroth chuckled and keyed his own radio. He had forgotten that RIn wasn't linked up on brainpal, and that he, Asteroth, had to actually explain himself in slow-talk.

"Helmet to helmet please."

Rin looked worried at letting Asteroth come so close, but lowered the canon to another equally tactically favourable position and nodded inside the helmet. Little did Rin know that Asteroth had retractable genitalia like all combat-rated Serco soldiers, but if it made him feel secure, Asteroth could endure having the canon in his groin.

"Speak, make it good."

"No radio, they listen in. I need some of Lebermac's essence. As long as his leg is "alive"," Asteroth made brackets in the air with one hand, "it will show up as a bio-aura and the smurfs can track him, or it. So, if we cloak the body and head of Lebermac, we can smuggle him out without the smurfs knowing."

Rin nodded and removed the canon, a tired look on his face. "And all I wanted was to have a nice little place where I could sleep. Just lean back, relax and sleep."

Asteroth chuckled at the pain and tiredness in Rin's voice.

"We'll see about that. I might even be able to help you, if you help me. If you can shove Lebermac and yourself into those two infiltration suits," he indicated the suits that were slowly walking up towards them from Asteroth's Warthog's cargo hold, apparently remotely piloted, "I'll get the little smurf present ready."

Rin tossed the hand-canon to one side and moved over to Lebermac, who had fainted by now.

###

The bio-signatures of the three persons inside the targeted Serco Teradont blinked once, and were reduced to one. That signature then moved out of the Teradont on small puffs of reaction mass from the spacesuit, towards the IDF vessel. The “aura-reader in command” identified the signature as Lebermac's, although somewhat distorted and faint. He must have been hurt during the last three minutes that the crew of the rogue Teradon had managed to stall for time. The cargo-door opened to allow the suited figure inside.

Asteroth and Rin observed this, floating towards the space station in their infiltration suits. They had exited the Teradon via a side-exit, and jumped for the station. The Bio-dampers were working overtime, but the signatures of Lebermac, Rin and Asteroth were undetectable from more than a meter's distance, and the chameleonware could fool even the best Serco sensor clusters. There would be no sign of them until they chose to enter the station proper. Asteroth grinned wide as he saw the space-suited figure enter the IDF vessel. He had re-programmed the Mysticbot to identify all Itani as hostiles, and as soon as the robot sensed that it was securely inside the IDF vessel, it'd go on a killing spree. Lebermac's leg, or the still living remains of it, had been latched onto the bot's back to confuse the mind-rapers even more. Asteroth liked option three more and more as he saw it unfurl. Outgunned and outnumbered indeed. But not outwitted.

There's no way they gave up this easily. No way at all. Where'd the rest of them go, anyway?....

Sam began an aura scan of the supposed Lebermac...yep, something was up. Not only was the aura faint and quickly fading, there were also no signs of any energy centers besides the right leg. And to top it off, there were traces of artificial electricity moving along with it.

"Phantom Blade, this is Whiplash 1. Cargo is not Lebermac. I say again, cargo is not Lebermac. We've been duped."

"Are you sure, Whiplash 1?"

"Target's aura is fading very quickly and has traces of artificial energy. Trust me, I've dealt with this guy before...he always finds a way to weasel out of everything."

"Understood. Scanning target.... Thermal scans show nothing, besides a leg. Nice catch, Whiplash 1. Jettisoning target."

And with that, the cargo bay's airlock shield halted its path open and instead headed back up. The opening door and the outrush of air was enough to send the imposter tumbling out. "Whiplash 1, move to inspect imposter and engage at your discretion, Phantom Blade barked. "Stalwart, cover the Trident." Sam turbo'd over, only to be greeted with an all too familiar sight. "Cargo was in fact CLM attack robot. Engaging." MysticBot tried her damnedest to dodge the onslaught of incoming fire, but her small impulse thrusters were no match for the Valkyrie. Soon, she was reduced to several thousand bits of slag.

The radio crackled to life again. "Uh, Phantom Blade, this is Stalwart. We got a situation here."

"Go ahead, Stalwart."

"We're showing absolutely no other signs of life in this sector. The others got away."

"Whiplash 1, can you confirm?"

"Affirmative, sir. No signs of life. Although, if I may...."

"Go ahead, Whiplash 1."

"Last time I met that Serco, he had all sorts of high-tier black ops equipment. It's fully possible they've cloaked themselves...although why they'd stay on board that burning husk of a Trident is beyond me. The only other ship I saw was that Warthog, so unless they've suddenly developed jump-capable space suits, I think it's safe to say they're probably aboard the station now, if not on their way."

"Copy that, Whiplash 1. Any other ideas?"

"If we can generate some form of electromagnetic pulse, we'll be able to see if they're safely aboard the station or not."

"Hm.... We'll work on it. In the meantime...hang on. New lifesign just appeared aboard the station. Whiplash 1, can you confirm?"

"Affirmative. Precious cargo appears to be among them."

"Stalwart, engage the station's launch bays. Make sure nobody gets in or out. We will follow shortly."

The combined force of two Teradons attacking the station brought a swift end to any sort of ship-holding port. Entry and exit became impossible. Phantom Blade began hailing again.

"Pirate station, this is IDF Teradon Phantom Blade. You have among you a fugitive by the name of LeberMac. Surrender him to us or you will be destroyed. And...no tricks this time."

Rin wasn't a fan of wearing somebody else's power armor, especially when it had been demonstrated that it could be remotely controlled. Lacking access to any especially high-end ordinance, however, he didn't have any better ideas for getting out of this situations. Still, he didn't like it. Fortunately, as he had put LeberMac into one of the suits, he'd seen the queen processor that he had intended to use to operate his turrets and gotten an idea. While Asteroth was occupied with attaching LeeberMac's leg to... was that the same sexy robot who had woken him up and dragged him into this mess? The hell, it belonged to Asteroth? Did that mean it was the toaster's fault he'd been woken up? Well, that made him feel even more justified about what he was about to do. He activated the CPU and slipped it the empty space in the lower-leg of LeberMac's suit. He couldn't wait to see what sort of wacky hijinks would ensue once it had finished booting and assumed control of these suits! That arranged, he hopped into the one allotted for himself, feeling much less worried about the possibility of becoming a puppet for the Serco.

The queen core hadn't finished booting by the time the three had reached the station, so Rin quickly got out of his armor. "Thanks for the escape, but I think I'm going to split. They just threw my toast on the floor, and that is intolerable!"

"You do realize they'll be able to sense you now?"

"Exactly!" was Rin's enthusiastic reply. With that, he identified the nearest side corridor likely to have suitable acoustics, and strode away.

Asteroth decided that if Rin wanted to make himself a distraction, more power too him. Especially once he heard the maniacal laughter echoing back through the corridor. Finally, he had LeberMac to himself. Now he just needed to procure a ship and get out of this despicable station before anything else could interfere with his operation.

Theatrics complete, Rin headed to the armory. He had a party to prepare for.

---

Hive Queen RG-7215 online. Diagnostics indicate Queen Chassis unreachable; integral sensors reveal Queen Core surrounded by powered armor frame, infiltration class. Sharing frame residency with damaged human male of Itani origin. Human resident unconscious and lacking lower-leg. Human resident deemed irrelevant. Assessing armor's computational resources... Serco bio-computers and short range networking. Technology is Hive compatible. Searching for preexisting Hive compatibility layer... No compatibility layer found; Hive cannot assume immediate direct control. Further study required. Analyzing traffic... Armor being controlled remotely. Signals intercepted. Remote interface partially reverse engineered. Hive is in control of motor functions. Conducting proximity network search... Two additional armor frames in proximity, one containing a Serco operator. Serco cybernetics dated but outside Hive capability to assimilate. Cybernetics within Hive ability to evade detection. Seizing control of unmanned armor... Hive will enact command pass-through, mimic behavior of non-Hive-augmented suits. Hive will meanwhile conduct thorough analysis of hardware to assume full armor control. Hive will bide its time, strike when time opportune.

((OOC: Whoops, you posted that while I was typing, Samwise. Maybe you could edit that to only have Rin detected? Pretty safe assumption that if Rin is now on the station, so are the other two.))

"Phantom Blade, this is Family Galactic Travel Resort Latos. We have double-checked our records, but you do not appear to have a reservation."

At that moment, the station defense turrets opened fire on the Phantom Blade with capital-ship grade missiles and gauss cannon.

"You also do not appear to have a warranty on your ship. That's really a shame, because we just received notice of a recall on the upholstery used in that model of Teradon. It appears to have hallucinogenic properties, causing the crew to mistakenly believe they are under attack. The windshield wipers on that model have also been reported to sometimes spontaneously explode, taking the shields and much of the hull with them."

When the explosion from one of the missiles knocked the Phantom Blade into range of a stealthily drifting cluster of lightning mines, the station made a final comment.

"And the rubber used in the engine belts of Teradons manufactured from 4439 through 4440 has a disturbing tendency to generate massive amounts of static electricity. Very dangerous indeed. Warranties help avoid all of these problems."

The statement was punctuated by screams and explosions as the Phantom Blade's shield generator overheated and shut down, allowing the next volley of gauss to rip into the hull and destroy the ship's main weapons systems. A second later, the bridge was lost to an unlucky missile strike.

Samwise cursed and flew into the gap between station modules, where he'd be relatively safe from the raining death. He needed to get the hell out of this booby-trapped ship before anybody got the wrong idea about what had just happened...