The galaxies finest have misplaced a biological weapon on a remote mining world in the Kather system. A representative has shown up to call forth whatever crews available to track down this weapon and return it (alive) to the bio lab on Thestran. Such a mission would include beings adept in tracking, trapping, and lethal creature transport. Do you have what it takes to take up such a mission? (( i know it sounds like a cheap sci/fi flick, but bare with me))

Imotios will do it. Should be a piece of cake for him, considering it was just misplaced (not sure how that happened, though ;\ ) and most of his missions involve assassinations, etc..

Is there a location? I'm not exactly sure how this works.

The bar was dingy, as usual, but somehow bright at the same time. In one corner the noise was louder than usual, probably because it was filled with celebrating crew members, and the bounty for the completed mission was being split up. In a vid screen on the wall a message flashed, beckoning all willing adventurers to serve the Empire in a brave quest.

Rat and Lewie were obnoxiously celebrating their kills against the raiders, while Charlie was watching the imperial broadcast.

"Check it out, we might have another run there." He said to his two companions, who were barely coherent in their stupor.

A tall figure, obscured by a dark cloak and a white, reptilian-esque mask, rose from its seat on the other side of the room. It produced vague clicking noises from underneath its cloak as it approached the side with the broadcast, and once it was close enough to hear it stopped and stood motionless. It watched the broadcast in curiosity. "It seems this 'empire' is so useless it cannot do anything for itself," it mused. Its voice was raspy and unnatural-sounding, and intermixed with that voice was an undertone of clicking sounds.

((So yeah...))

((yes?))

((I'm waitin on you guys...))

(What exactly is the advert going to say?)

((pretty much what i said in the first post, desribing the mission specs))

((we don't need to sign up or anything, just bring it back to the lab))

"All systems standing by."

So dutiful, Oberon thought, as the Razorback AI's cool, clean, feminine voice filled the control cabin. So loyal.

Her hull dimmed and her panels went dark. Life support whispered clean, breathable air into the cabin but little else; the waste pumps had ceased their incessant churning, the microfilter tanks were locked down and as the pitch dark moments crawled by, he could hardly even hear his own heartbeat.

Outside the viewport, a starscape blazed. Novae stained the dark infinities with vibrant colors, treating his retina and his flourishing imagination- what it must have been like! The death of a great star was no small matter. Their energy did, of course, following the same entropic patterns as everything else, but their coming-apart, their diffusion, the bombastic death of the star they once composed were breathtaking events.

The engines were silent. What miniscule momentum the Razorback retained from deceleration kept it drifting serenely through the void. These were the quiet moments in the life of Oberon Cale and, rare as they were, they meant more to him than any wealth or glory. He often hoped, when given solitude, that he would die like this- nobly, peacefully. Not gunned down like some unlucky thug.

"And yet," he murmured as he leaned forward to the control console, "gotta doubt that fate, or whatever, likes me all that much."

There were very few quiet moments in the life of Oberon Cale. As he brought the Razorback to life again, routed power to her engines, her cannons and her shielding, she shone like a homing beacon on half a dozen scouter-fighter radars. Suddenly, quite a few autolasers were aimed her way.

Vibrant white beams made surgical cuts through the long darkness, forming a beautiful pattern where she had just been. All that remained for them to destroy was a cloud of carbon dioxide and nitrogen, the parting gift of her filtration systems as she blasted forth into the empty unknown- and further still beyond the speed of light.

---

Dingy was good. Dingy meant lax security, less pomp and more innocuity. It meant he could keep a low profile without drawing suspicion. Hopefully.

Dingy didn't quite cover it, though. Most swill taverns were lucky to have an ancient cathode ray tube model, much less a working vid screen (in his experience, anyway). Stranger still that it was broadcasting Imperial employment opportunities. Assignments like that usually came with an appreciable reward, Oberon knew; an entity as massive as the Empire made proportionately massive and costly mistakes. Deadly mistakes.

Money was money, though, and he'd take what he could get. Underneath his unassuming civilian clothing the Asics Cor combat suit hummed gently, constantly monitoring data both internal- heart rate, blood content and pressure, fatigue levels- and external, such as the passive but curious clicking noises emitted by a cloaked figure beside him.

"It seems this 'empire' is so useless it can not do anything for itself."

"I'unno," he replied in passing, memorizing what he could from the advert, "you've gotta have some impressive resources to screw up like that. Takes some doing, you ken?"

Somewere in the dark corners of the bar, a dimension burst. Between the reject bounty hunter and obsolete bioterrorist weapon, waves slid, fell, ceased to exist, and Lambda burst into being. Which was unfortunate, because in this dark corner between the reject bounty hunter and obsolete bioterrorist weapon sat a rather fat Jid, smoking away at his kampf leaf. So it was to no ones surprise that this Jid suddenly exploded, which is what usually happens when one mass is placed in another and there is insufficient room for the second mass to fit. Complaints rose up from the the nearest tables, which took the full force of the explosion and were subsequently splattered with several handfulls of rather smelly blue sludge. Lambda calmly stepped out from the suddenly uninhabited corner and went to join her crewmates the table.

((That explosion part reminds me of the first minute of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-7UwvyVzG4&feature=PlayList&p=8D4FB22A884C3279&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1 but to really understand it you'd have to watch part 1, and especially the ending where he rolls up the ballistae: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiTEHqAeanw&feature=PlayList&p=8D4FB22A884C3279&index=0 ))

"Kaboom!" Lewie sputtered between drinks. The bellow of the man's laughter could likely be heard far outside the establishment.

The ichor splatter stopped at Oberon's heels. He could feel it- smell it, too, warm and pungent. Turning slowly he saw some strange, ethereal creature sitting where an enormous Jid once peacefully smoked his... whatever that was. It (she?) didn't seem to mind the wretched mess it had made, and in fact looked dangerous enough to question. Without inquiry Oberon returned to the vid screen, picking carefully through all of his options.

"Kaboom!" Raucous laughter.

He began to wonder if this wasn't a madhouse after all.

"I'd like to call this a night for us. We're gonna take up that bounty with the Imperials once you two are sobered up." Charlie settled to the others. Rat nodded and finished off his drink before poking at the now passed-out Lewie.

"I don't want to carry him." The small man groaned.

The tall cloaked figure didn't even flinch at the gorey explosion. Turning to Oberon, it clicked thoughtfully and then responded, "True, though spoken in a slightly rustic dialect. And now, if you can keep up..." It turned to the bartender. "What are the current approximate coordinates for the Kather system?"

At the bar, Lambda demanded a Nu-Cube. She slid the frosty radio beverage between her ribcage and felt the power flow through her as the waves (312 meters, to be precise) were absorbed into her peripherals. After consuming a few more, she drunkenly slammed her fist through the bar counter, threw down some currency, and sauntered off to find some excitement.

"Lookshlikesumonshgettingintereshtedintehbroodcast"

she thought, hyped up senses blurring together with the effect of hard energy, flashing her eyes at the two travelers at the bar. The one nearest her spoke, a series of immensely slow clicking noises intersped with strange gurgling.

"Whhaaaaaattttt rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ttthhhhheeeeeee *CLLLLLIIICKKK* cuuuuuurrenttttt-"

She got that far before losing interest, and, with a twitch of her head, jerkingly went to have a chat with the mercenaries in the corner, one of who semed to be complaining about something.

"True, though spoken in a slightly rustic dialect. And now, if you can keep up..."

SMASH. The ethereal entity, having moved to the bar, seemed to be ill-equipped to handle its... alcohol? And had caused some damage. A splinter bounced off of his cheek as he turned to take a glance. It seemed like nothing more than the same.

"Oh, I c'n keep up," he murmured sidelong to the other, turning to watch him approach the bar. He assumed that was some suggestion of a temporary partnership which, as Oberon knew well, was generally the wisest course of action. Going it alone on high profile assignments could result in a higher payoff, but it had a much greater chance of resulting in death. Partners were good for watching your back and dragging your mortally wounded ass to the medical bay if nothing else.

He felt a cerebral rush, an electric surge from the base of his spine to the crown of his skull. The Asics Cor was reacting to a strong energy system somewhere in the immediate area.

He couldn't help but glance just once more at the half-transparent woman.

"Anything?" he said to the dark clicking figure, returning his attention to the business at hand. "My ship is ready for departure at a moment's notice, if ye've got nothing else to tend to."

The figure, once it got its answer from said bartender, glanced at Oberon. "Your ship? Why would I need something like that? What use would a thing like that be to me?" It turned away from him. "I was not offering a partnership. I was offering a challenge. Whoever gets there first gets the goods, and I always get there first. Eheheheh." With a blur of motion and a loud ripping noise, a thin, vertical, barely visible white line appeared in the air in front of the figure. Then, it turned to glance at Oberon again, tilting its head in curiosity. "You will not get in my way, will you? Because I might have to kill you now if you plan to. Imotios never fails a mission, nor do his enemies live."

"Spacial displacement detected." The Asics Cor's feminine voice, a direct copy of the Razorback AI interactive module, smoothed down whatever frills he might have instinctively raised. It was an unintended side effect, but no less useful for it. He kept his head, but...

Wonderful. Another spook.

He'd once met a man who called himself Levantine, who possessed abilities not unlike the ones being displayed right before his eyes. The ability to bend space, even time, to his whim and will; but he had been the shell of a human, devoid of personality or humor to make room for his awesome power.

"Never say never," Oberon said, the first phrase to come to his mind after the jolt of the figure's hostile refusal.

In that minute interval his suit had begun preparations for combat. Stimulant packages- adrenal solutions- were ready for quick injection, protective plates were unlimbering with quiet pneumatic hisses to allow greater freedom of movement and the contact lenses over his cloudy grey eyes lit up with pertinent environmental information. Distance to hostile, noncombatants in the area, ammunition for the Gryphon and the Atle, physical suit integrity...

You couldn't kill me if you tried, asshole.

He hoped the figure wasn't a mind reader, to boot.

"Is that a yes or a no?" Imotios clicked. "No matter, you aren't worth the effort anyway. Acligius was made to kill gods, not insignificant amateur bounty hunters like you. I doubt you would even be good for practice." He turned away, chuckling. "Here, I will even give you a head start. See if you can beat me to the bounty." Imotios looked back at Oberon.

Lambda sat watching the vid screen, absent mindedly noting the hyperspace ether floating around the room. Her system told her something that might have been (//01spatwarp*%^03438)), then redirected its thoughts to the vidscreen. She decided to keep a watch on the two at the bar.

"Here, I will even give you a head start. See if you can beat me to the bounty."

In the face of the robed being's arrogance he was suddenly reminded of an old adage, a favorite bit of his father's.

"Arrogance," he murmured, low enough that only those listening in would be able to catch the full sentence, "breeds decadence. Ye'll fall on your own sword."

With that he turned to leave the bar, but the Asics Cor was like an eye in the back of his head. Each click mapped the other's location, important information should he choose to attack from behind. Through it all, though, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched...

Imotios watched him go. "We'll see who falls on whose sword," he said quietly. Then, more loudly, he called to Oberon, "I will give you and all those other amateurs a twelve-hour head start. Heheheh. After that, if you get in my way, you will die." With that, there was a blur of motion and he disappeared.

"Spatial displacement field detected."

A rush of air, and the robed figure was gone.

Oberon couldn't help a brief glance over his shoulder. The white anomaly was gone and so was his new friend, unless he had some sort of advanced cloaking device; but there wasn't much reason to stick around and hide, was there?

"Alright," he called out, his voice and demeanor no less confident for his recent spat, "I'm looking for a temporary crew. I pay well, and so will the Empire if we manage to clean up their little mistake." Jerking a thumb at the vid screen announcement for emphasis he turned his eyes to each person in the bar in turn, whether they looked fit for the assignment or not. His gaze lingered longest on the ethereal woman-thing who, he suspected, had been keeping an eye on him the whole time.

"So who's up for it? I've got the perfect ship for the job, so nobody's risking anything but their own neck."

"I'll come," a feminine voice said. Its source, another cloaked and completely obscured figure, stood and stepped forward.

Lambda briefly nodded in the strangers direction.

(You'll be wanting me, I suppose. Count me in)

she said.

That's two, thought Oberon with a slight smile. Two was even better than one. It meant further dividing the earnings, of course, but it also meant a greater chance of living to enjoy them.

"My thanks. Name of Cale, and you two would be...?" His tone was simple and unobtrusive, respectful before anything.

"I can't, uh, show you what I look like here, since it would attract a lot of attention, but my name's Atrixsa," the cloaked figure said.

Lambda flashed her signal at Cale, a large lambda imprinted on the back of her hand.

It took a moment for Oberon to comprehend what he was being shown- a piece of symbolism as old as electronic combustion engines, the sign of lambda, the radioactive decay constant and the isotopic half-life. What an odd name. Though no more odd than his own, he supposed. What made a name conventional, after all?

Greetings made he led his small crew to the private spaceport he'd paid well to keep the Razorback in. After a short series of credentials and security checks the hangar was unsealed and she rose up before them, a magnificent steel chariot, more curves than angles and alive with sensor arrays and retracted defense systems on standby. Circlets twice the size of Oberon's head were arranged in an X-pattern the length and breadth of her pristine hull, each containing a missile payload. Seven to kill and three to save his own skin, if it ever came down to dirty tricks or a battle of wits. The Xerxes railgun shone like some holy artifact in its top-locked firing cradle and the Viraxus cannons lay still and breathless, eagerly anticipating their next chance to hurl lances of fire through the heavy, horizonless void-night. Nestled within her was the Caelus Corinthia FTL-drive, customized to make maximum use of the smaller Antolius class engines in hyperspace.

"She brings out the poet in me," he remarked with a wry grin, casting a glance back at both of his mysterious female companions. "She's comfortable fer eight, so I'm sure ye'll find it pleasant enough.

"Already stocked her so far's ammunition and food are concerned." He shifted his focus to Lambda at that. "Saw you processing Nu-Cubes back at the bar. Assuming that's alcohol, what do you... er... consume?" And to Atrixsa, "If ye've got any, ah, 'special needs'- 'least from a poor humble human's perspective- lemme know now. Since there's only the three of us, I'll keep the expense outta yer cut at the end."

As he talked, a few of what looked like heat shimmers suddenly materialized just over his shoulders. By the time his suit picked up their heat signatures, the vibroblades were already descending.

Lambda sighed a little, looking over Cales shoulders at the three beings approaching him. Infra red showed a temp of 212K, meaning they were probably coldform and wearing refrig units. Vibrolades came out of there cloaks, whining in that tiny pitch. She waited until they could be taken by surprise to attack, then flipped herself over Cale, grabbing the hoods of the coldforms, tearing them back from their prey. The bodies flew, crumpled when they hit the ceramacrete wall. With a twitch of her legs her form blurred, and suddenly she was standing over them, time slowing as she readied the Jaunters. The air boomed as it was liquified, shot into the body of a coldform. Whisp flew up from the body as the refrig unit overloaded, failed. The second coldform had time to register what was happening before he, too, was gone. The third, in a blaze of motion wrought by the will to survive, flew up and grabbed the blue demoness, throwing her to the floor. They hadn't even hit before Lambda was on her feet. She grabbed an arm, pulled. The limb was torn from its body, whipped around, and connected to the head which had once controlled it. The muffled sound of transfered energy ruffled through the hanger, and the last assassin fell to the floor.

(I have no idea what just happened. Nor do I have any idea what a viroblade is. o_o)

Atrixsa glanced at Lambda, then back at Oberon. "Well, I don't think I'll be needing anything for a while. I don't need to eat, I do it for fun." She pulled back her hood, revealing a flat, almost catlike head with long ears that went backward like a crest. It also was glowing brightly in a mixture of hundreds of different colors and hues. She smiled. "I'm sure you can imagine why this would attract attention."

((A vibroblade is a knife with a miniature motor inside. It vibrates the blade, letting it cut through things easier than a normal knife would. Imagine a chainsaw where the blade only goes forward for a half millimeter, then goes backward for a half millimeter. It produces a distinctive whirring sound which is harsh on the human ear.

Ha, went too fast for ya didn't I? Lambda seems to work that way))

(No, I just didn't know where it came from. :P It's like writing about a girl skipping through a field, smelling the flowers, and then in the last sentence having her get eaten by a dragon that randomly appeared. "Whut?")

((this is not, however, the last sentence. It can be equated to her first smelling the flowers. The dragon at the end would be the totally unknown ending to this quest. One would not say sniffing a flower is surprising, eh? as you know in a field there are most likely flowers. In this RPG there are most likely trained assassins lurking behind your back wielding vibroblades.))

(Yeah, well I don't know how you figured from the mention of "vibroblades" that there were assassins.)

((It wasn't the fact that they were using vibroblades it was the fact that they were apparently trying to kill Oberon with them. For all I know they could have been friends of Oberon and were sheathing the blades when they realized who he was. However, the way Arcfall wrote the passage construed to me that they were trying to kill Oberon. But, we digress. Let us move on.))

Lambda looked at Cale.

-Well, then shall we be going? I'll be bringing my own provisions, if you don't mind-

She reached her hand around the chin of the second assassin and slung the body over her shoulder.

"Well, then shall we be going? I'll be bringing my own provisions, if you don't mind."

Oberon watched as the coldforms' environment camouflage faded away, the units self-destructing- for what purpose he couldn't discern. "Secret technology", most likely. He seemed hardly fazed by the fact that he'd only just barely avoided a bloody assassination attempt. Instead he seemed utterly taken by the style and markings of their uniforms; crisp, simple white with a crimson trim. The body laid out on the floor before him had died facedown, and the back of his uniform bore a single black circle, struck through thrice at identical angles.

"Odai," he murmured, a shadow passing over his normally relaxed expression.

Then he snapped back to attention, gesturing to both of his companions to board the Razorback.

"We're leaving, then," he said, fighting to keep his voice level. "As soon as we hit a safe distance, we're jumping to the co-ordinates."

She woke to the sound of his voice. Life support took up its near-silent humming and the engines entered their millisecond warmup cycles as Oberon took the helm, rigidly composed, fingers flying over the sensor controls. Monitors came to life, displaying visuals of the hangar in thermal.

A dozen or more coldforms, outlined in striking violet and painted a cold blue, stood at the extreme edges of the observation decks surrounding the Razorback. They made no move to stop their departure, which frightened Oberon more than any amount of firepower.

"Crede," he nearly shouted, "status?"

"Internal security breach." This time, the ship's soothing, feminine tones did nothing to calm Oberon. There was something practiced to his reaction, though, as if he'd experienced this more than a few times.

"Great-fuckin'-Aeo!" With a leap and a bound he'd made it from the cockpit to the storage room, returning with a plasteel egg and a tiny data drive. The egg had no immediately discernible purpose, and the drive contained naught but a plain text file.

We understand you are a busy man, Cpt. Cale, but there are matters which require your immediate attention, most notably the matter of your debt.

If you are reading this, you survived our initial effort. Good for you. Though as you've probably already noticed, there are many more of us.

The egg-shaped device you found with this drive is a quark bomb with a proximity detonator. That is to say- if you attempt to leave, it will detonate.

We leave the next move to you.

"Go t' hell," Oberon all but growled, staring out the cockpit viewport at the observation decks below. He could just make out those telltale shimmers, vague disturbances in the air...

"It seems we've been delayed," he said after clearing his throat and carefully setting the bomb down. "Normally I'd start with the simplest solution- that is, cutting 'em down with the trilasers- and work my way up. They are, and you can take m' word on this, a horribly tenacious bunch, and we don't have too much time.

"So if ye've got any ideas, speak up." He went to work again, fingers dancing over a few more delicate control layouts. Outside their would-be assassins would see the smuggler's plates lifting away to reveal the cannon barrels beneath, all six of which calmly protruded and began locking in each hidden coldform. Not that it would ever be so easy.

After a small period of sobering, the three mercenaries left the inn they were at. Their ship, the Intruder, was fitted with the supplies they needed days before.

However, the trio stopped and hid behind random nearby cover as they spotted the troops (by my reckoning at their appearance?) circled around a ship nearby to theirs.

"What do we do?" Lewie asked to the others. He had his needler gun loaded and at the ready, just in case.

"Rat, try your comm-catch (a device with numerous formats of communication, to discover which works best in certain areas, distances, or different kind of people, etc.), and see if you can contact that ship." Charlie told him as he loaded his rifle and read off the name of the ship, counted the number of foes in his line-of-sight, and range.

((By any sort of random chance that these mercs of mine may know your antagonistic bunch here?))

( Sure. "Odai" is Odai Transgalactic Communications and Commerce, a massive trade route "regulation service". In actuality they're a front for a bunch of pirates, so they've probably hired your mercenaries once or twice for 'security operations'. )

((Or against ;) ))

"Oh, this is bad. It's Odai." Charlie said lightly to Rat and Lewie, both of whom shuddered a bit and loaded all their weapons.

"No luck with the ship yet."

((Now, let's see how this goes.))

Lambda slumped in the upper observation deck, watching the scene unfold outside. The coldform lay at her side, slowly dissolving into mush. She raked her fingers over its hide, tasting the sweet flesh. It was like eating melted plastic and Lambda pushed it away in disgust. She walked to the forward observation deck, noted Oberon was in a bit of a panic, and dumped the body down the disposal shaft, where it slid across the floor toward the ring of Odai

Wondering whether Oberon's panic might be induced by the large quantity of coldform assassins standing outside, she sat down and pondered, switching her senses to radio. Picking up a random charge off to the left, she switched on infra red and noted Rat, Lewie and Charlie, the three hired hands she had had the pleasure of operating with on the battlecruiser quest. Noting they were a little low on firepower and that they were in a position to lend some direly needed help, Lambda looked around the ship until she found a suitable cache of plastique and a microwave gun. With a complex hand motion that involved one finger going there, and another going here, she transmuted the weapons cache to the spot immediately one foot away from Lewies head. Then she sat back to watch the fun begin.

Atrixsa picked up the egg and looked at it, her expression calm. However, a tinge of green was creeping across her features. "This... Why not just jettison it? How large is the blast radius?"

Eyeing everywhich way perplexedly, the trio wonder about the weapons. After ensuring all remained clear, Lewie picked up the weapon and eyed it.

"I think this is something good. You two stay here, I'll take first shot with my rifle, and you pound the flank here." Charlie ordered, and quickly headed off to another dock where he can find equally adequate cover and range with his rifle.

It wasn't much longer that the low drum of the cities' people was overwhelmed by two quick, successive shots at the farthest assassins. ((His aim was to shoot two far from him on another flank, hoping they would look/think the shots came from a different direction, giving the three mercs that much more of an advantage.))

With a grin, Lewie rushed forward to another piece of cover, much closer to the foes. Hoping he found the trigger, he took aim at the nearest and opened fire.

Meanwhile, Rat opened fire with his carbine, taking careful bursts at the assassins.

Oberon shook his head at Atryxsa.

"That's a quark bomb," he said. "Depending on the manufacturer, it could take out anything from this city to this planet- or more. It's not worth the risk. We need to find the detonator."

Turning back to the cockpit viewport he saw a firefight had broken out amongst his assailants and a few mercenaries he recognized from the bar. Not one to question surprise reinforcements, he decided to leave his curiosity for later. Now that they were distracted...

The Viraxus cannons unleashed a light aimless barrage, not even enough to penetrate personal energy shielding. The discharge, however, was able to scramble his foes' camouflage units. Those who hadn't taken fire were now in plain sight, fumbling to activate their personal shielding. Two assassins fell to well-timed bursts from the mercenary group and the rest were taking up cover behind storage crates, transport cubes and whatever else they could find.

"Crede?"

"Awaiting your instructions."

"If they leave cover, put them down. No warning shots."

"Understood," she whispered throughout the ship, just as the alarm klaxons went off. With a muttered curse Oberon snatched a long, slim rifle from a compartment beneath the automated defense control panel, unplugging its charging cable and inspecting its current firemode.

"Atryxsa," he said over his shoulder, "prep for launch and stick with Lambda. I'm trusting you to keep that bomb safe." With that he disappeared through the airlock and out the escape hatch, right to the middle of the shit.

Two precise shots sliced clean through a wide barrel of vegetable oil, cutting down the man who crouched behind it. Blood mingled with the clear, savory fluid, and the scent of seared flesh hung in the air for a moment before being swept away by the air filtration system. The Asics Cor underwent its routine stim injection preparations, fed pertinent combat data to his contact lenses and corrected plating and mesh connections for any strange or potentially harmful movements. It also opened up a tightbeam radio channel with the three mercenaries as he slid into cover behind the same barrel he'd just penetrated, the soles of his boots now slick with oil.

"This is Oberon Cale, captain of the Razorback. I can only imagine that you and Odai have met before, so you know the score."

He paused for a moment to unleash a stream of laser fire at a moving assassin, lacing his armor and the floor around him a deep red.

"Don't hesitate. Kill them or they'll kill us. If you find anything that looks like a detonator..."

CRACK. CRACK. He was on the move again, hair singed by a few uncomfortably close-to-home plasma bolts.

"... deactivate it. Otherwise, we're gonna wind up dust."

Atrixsa nodded and put down the bomb, carefully. Then she moved over to the ship's controls and studied them. She had never seen a ship like this, let alone operated one. Closing her eyes, she reached out with her mind, seeing everything as clearly as if her eyes were open, more clearly in fact. She reached into the ship and examined its entire structure and interior, scanning each piece and determining its function, and building in her mind a model of the ship. The entire process took only a few seconds. Reopening her eyes, she pulled the sleeves of her dark cloak back to expose her glowing, small, humanoid hands, and began to run them expertly across the ship's controls. After a few moments, she glanced at Lambda and nodded. "Ready for launch."

Even having been in situations like this, Lambda hadn't gotten used to being within range of bombs such as the one sitting on the console. Out of fear half her leg dissolved into spores, and she only settled down when Atrixsa put down the egg. She heard,

"Ready for launch"

and agreed it was time to get out of here, judging by the way the others were faring against the Odai. Still, she had one more thing to do. She gazed at the egg, feeling its energy, its waves, until against the brightness one such wave stood out among the others, a glowing strand in the ether. The detonator was on the other end of that string, and she was determined to find it. it flickered, spun, and rested on the Odai nearest the bay door.

-Oberon- she called -at the door! It has the detonator!-

"Can you get the detonator?" Charlie asked to Oberon. "We can give you sufficient cover. Which one has it, you know?"

Charlie began taking aim at ones closest to him for the sake of lowering the numbers while Rat and Lewie continued taking random pot-shots from their cover.

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