Shadow's Welcome

[Wes]

ON: Ke-T4 "Fox" Shuttlecraft

Yuuko stirred in her sleep, coming just far enough out of her dreams to check the time left until they would arrive in Nepleslian space. Still about six hours. Rolling on her side, she held the thick emergency blanket against herself, and opened her eyes, finding herself wondering where Tyriel was. She felt underdressed, which meant a lot for a Nekovalkyrja used to holographic clothing.

Tyriel was still asleep on the bench across from her, wrapped in his wings; he muttered something incoherent and stirred a little. In a couple more minutes he woke up and stretched a little and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and looked over at Yuuko. "Hi," he yawned, covering his mouth.

Yuuko started to give him some sort of frowny face when all of a sudden she was flung off of the bench by an impact that violently shook the shuttle. The shuttle's computer started telling them warnings that the current course could not be maintained, along with an alert klaxon. The busty purple-haired Nekovalkyrja ended up on her back on the shuttle floor. "What the hell was that?" she yelled, struggling to get up. The small craft was still shuddering from whatever was causing the disturbance.

Tyriel was thrown off the bench as well but simply ended up on his hands and knees from having sat up. He steadied himself and went up into the cockpit to find out, checking the sensor arrays for what caused it. "I'm not quite sure yet." the elysian said.

Shadow sat back in his chair, looking at the small shuttle that had just come onto his sensors. It was quite a ways away still, but better to get the jump on them, than to have them get the upper hand early. Scanning the sensor data on the small shuttle, it appeared that there was life, and that meant a profit; with a few movements of his fingers, the pulse cannon's of his own ship came online, and readied to fire, and hopefully, disable the shuttle.

Tyriel couldn't seem to make any sense of the shuttle's pink and blue control panels. All he could see was that the CDD system no longer seemed to be working. Yuuko dropped the blanket and followed him into the small cockpit, also looking over the control panels. "Shit," she cursed, reaching for the Type 27 NSP that she'd left back on the Ongaku. "Do you have a gun?" she asked.

"Yeah, I always try and have at least one with me." Tyr said, looking at her. He reached down and withdrew the GP-13 from its' holster and handed it to her. "It's all I have at the moment, other than my GP-12." Tyriel said. He couldn't help but blush as the sight of her rather attractive, slender body but kept those opinions to himself.

Taking a deep breath, Shadow fired the pulse cannons at the shuttle's engines. This was the first time that he had been on a collection mission, so he wasn't sure how much force to use on these types of ships.

Inside the shuttle, there was a small explosion of some sort and all the shuttle's lights went out. Yuuko had been trying to get into the pilot's seat to use the shuttle's weapons, but the impact bounced her head off the windshield and left her and Tyriel floating in zero gravity. The GP-13 floated somewhere in the darkness.

Shadow shook his head and called one of his crew, an actual pilot, and asked her to fly the ship in closer to the shuttle, but to be prepared to take evasive action, should hostility be shown. "And do not harm those inside, if you can keep from it. I think, if I read these damnable sensors right, they are new species...."

Tyriel grabbed onto the seat to avoid getting hurt, "Great." he snapped, suddenly more or less pissed off. "This has certainly been the best damn week of my miserable life." he growled as they floated almost helpless. The lack of gravity was new to him but he figured that he could use the seat to hold onto to stay in one place.

Once the shuttle was fried by the Vampire's pulse cannons, it was easy to pull into on of the ship's large shuttle bays. Yuuko looked for her pistol in the dark, using the starlight and the night vision all nekos had to look for that pistol Tyr had offered her. What she found was even better, though: her blood-covered NSP. As the shuttle landed in the bay, the ship's gravity lowered her and Tyr back to the floor. There was a shimmer of light as Yuuko's skin created a holographic Star Army uniform.

"You know what Yuuko? I'm really sick of always ending up in trouble." Tyriel grumbled standing up and had to feel around to find the weapon that he soon found and checked the concealable "assassin" weapon and sighed in relief. It was still there; "I hope this isn't a YSA ship." He said as his natural lower-light vision started to fill in, only in black and white though.

When the shuttle was within the bay, the pilot turned to Shadow and told him. "Thank you, I think I will go down and greet our guests." With a smile, he stood up, straightening his shirt, and tucking it in tighter, before walking to the door leading out of the cockpit. As an afterthought, he made a slight detour to his quarters to take the only weapon he had brought, a modified stun gun. Shaking his head at the meager defense, he turned and walked towards the bay. "This, will not go well, I can already tell. Curse my denying taking a security detail on this mission...."

Yuuko triggered the shuttle door's manual release and kicked open the back of the shuttle. It made a cloud clang as it dropped to and struck the bay floor. The neko girl stealthed herself and rolled out into the bay invisibly, leaving the Elysian to fend for himself.

“Bitch, leaving me behind, like it not we're in this together,” he thought, keeping it to himself and cautiously exited the shuttle. His senses on high alert for any sound or movement, he stepped out and looked around; automatically taking in the surroundings. Tyr mentally snickered at the floating pistol though as it was a dead giveaway; he'd spotted it after a moment of looking.

After walking through the doors of the bay, Shadow stood fully at attention just inside the doors. "Tenyal, please lock the doors to the bay, I do not want anyone coming or going without my permission. You know standard protocol." the captain said to the computer monitoring the ship. Turning his attention back to the shuttle, he watched the back of the shuttle slammed to the floor of the bay, and then a pistol come flying out and float in midair. Hmm, stealth camouflage, how interesting Shadow thought to himself. Seeing an actual solid entity emerge, Shadow decided to greet this. "Greetings....Please allow me to welcome you to my ship..."

Tyriel jolted turning toward the voice along with one smooth motion had his GP-13 out and aimed at this person. "Who are you and where am I?" he asked in a deadly serious tone.

The pistol's female owner faded into sight next to Tyriel after a few seconds. She wore the uniform of a warrant officer in the Star Army.

Taking a deep breath, Shadow's attention was at first drawn to the pistol, then to the female. Forgetting Tyriel for a moment, he addressed Yuuko. "Quite the interesting trick, Miss. I must say that I would not have been expecting that." Looking back to Tyr, a small smile came to his face, "Do you enjoy breathing, Sir?"

"Watch yourself, you! Your actions could be considered an attack on the Star Army," Yuuko said angrily, warning the man.

Shadow tsked his tongue off the back of his teeth. "The Star Army? Such bad luck I have. First mission out of the slave yards, and I attack a Star Army shuttle? Oh well, I can't be choosy. I warn you as well, that at the moment, your lives are in my hands. So if you wish to live, I would advise you to put a bit more respect in your tone."

Tyriel leaned close to Yuuko, "do you WANT him to turn us over to them?" He asked in a whisper. Tyr looked back at the man and smirked. "Yes actually I do enjoy it." He quipped.

Yuuko thrust her pistol out so that the muzzle was nearly against the man's forehead. "And you do the same!" she said, speaking quickly. Yuuko wasn't the most tactful girl around.

Tyr gently took hold of Yuuko's hand and tried to pull it down. "Now now Yuuko, this man DID save us from a worse fate if we'd gotten to Nepleslia more than likely. We should thank him for that at least." He pointed out.

"Shut up!" Yuuko turned to Tyriel. He had said too much already.

"And believe me. It can be a very lonely life living your last moments in a shuttle bay. If you were to kill me, there would be no way out of this bay. You could repair your ship, and try to blow your way out, but the explosion would take you out as well...and this door behind me does not open unless I give the command....So I guess we're at an impasse." Shadow said. Then with a cant of his head, he pressed on, "What was waiting for you and Nepleslia?"

"Riots." Tyriel said. "It's always a live riot there and not that safe."

"Yeah..." Yuuko scowled.

"There is something else though, isn't there?" A wily grin came to Shadow's face. He was starting to get the pieces put together. The woman was upset about something, and didn't want the male to talk....There was something they were not telling.

"Not really." Tyriel said with a casual shrug.

Yuuko lowered her weapon but didn't put it in its holster, since the belt wasn't there. Normally, she wore a real one. "What's you're name? I'm Juni Sakai Yuuko," she changed the subject.

Shadow looked over at Yuuko, and his features seemed to ease slightly. Guns were a very bad way to negotiate, and seeing her relax hers put him a little more at ease. He wouldn't fall into her trap however, and made up a name on the spot, "My name is Captain Scott Morgain. And this is my ship, the Tenyal"

PAUSE

[Wes]

ON: Shadow's Ship

Tyriel's gaze ran over the surroundings of the shuttlebay then back to this "Scott." He holstered his GP-13 but was ready at a moment's notice to have it out again. "Pleasure to meet you Captain Morgain." he said, extending a hand to shake. The Elysian wanted to avoid any further fighting; he had had enough of it for this week.

"The pleasure is mine to have guests. It's rare of me to even find another ship out here." Shadow said, then looked at the extended hand, and shook his head. "Please excuse me if I don't shake hands, I was just working in my lab, and since I don't know anything about you two, genetically speaking, I don't know if you would get sick from something I have on my hands." A smile came to his lips as he tugged on the black half gloves on his hands.

Yuuko made a face that looked like a combination of worry and suspicion, but only for a moment. "Do you," she asked slowly, "normally shoot passing shuttles?"
Tyriel nodded and withdrew his hand and put it into a pocket in his jacket and looked at Yuuko out of the corner of his eye. Her expression told of her worry and suspicion, that was to be expected; but Tyriel was just glad to be on a ship and stretch at the moment.

Shadow took a deep breath, and then looked at Yuuko. "Yes." He then laughed. "I'm kidding. I don't usually shoot passing shuttles, but yours already looked in such terrible shape that I thought there could be no one on it. So I shot iit with the intention of stopping it's endless flying through space, and possibly get some new technology or food stores...

He could see Yuuko's anger rising. She'd prided her self in maintaining her ship and shuttles in top condition, especially her personal one that had been left behind on the Ongaku. The one Tyriel had taken had actually never been used before...it was a brand new shuttle of the fleet yard's newest model. She didn't buy his story at all. Yuuko, however, remained silent.

Tyr rolled his eyes, in the end it was the leaving of the shuttle that saved both of their lives; due to the hurry they were in there wasn't time to be picky. He waited for Yuuko, as the commanding officer of the two to make a decision: get along with this man or remain standoffish. Tyriel in his mind couldn't care less about what she was mad about.

Shadow could see that little bit of anger flaring in the woman's eyes, and could tell that his charade was not going to hold up much longer. Hospitality would have to work, in this case. "I'm sorry, I will give all the help I can in getting your ship back flying, and then I will let you go. Until then, may I offer you two something to eat in the galley? Perhaps a tour of my ship?"

"I would prefer to remain in this bay with my shuttle until I repair it," Yuuko told him. "We were on urgent business and can't afford to doddle." She walked back towards the shuttle.

"Maybe you can't." Tyr said under his breath, his eyes checking out Yuuko's body as she walked for a moment before he turned back to "Scott." He had a suspicion it wasn't the guy's real name, he was a bit too quick about it when he said it. "I'd appreciate having a short tour of ship." Tyriel said.

Shadow grit his teeth at Yuuko's turning him down, and slowly followed after her, pulling out the stun gun which he had modified to be stronger, and pack more punch to it. "Please, Ma'am, surely you wouldn't insult me by turning down my hospitality."

Yuuko's body spun sideways without and she turned in midair, relying on her anti-gravity rather than muscles to support her. She'd watched him pull out the weapon even while facing away, using the millions of tiny "eyes" on her back that watched the surrounding world. The Type 27 in her hand quickly came to bear on him, aimed automatically at his center mass by her secondary mind, the one responsible for combat situations. Click-Click! She switched the pistol into stun mode and fired in one fluid motion.

Shadow sidestepped as she pulled the gun and fired the stunning shot, looking at her. "Oh, so that is going to be the way you want it? Tenyal, please remove all oxygen from the shuttle bay, and prepare to jettison all contents upon my order."

Tyriel hadn't made a move to stop him, he knew Yuuko's ability to defend herself and wouldn't insult her by doing anything. But now things were different; Shadow felt the tip of Tyriel's GP-13 up against his back, the Elysian had pulled it out in a fluid motion.

"That'll kill you too. But how about you just respect her wishes and let her try and repair her shuttle? We can all get along here. I really don't want to fight here, I've had enough of it for a while. I'll cooperate with you if you leave her be." He said calmly, his finger not on the trigger, but it could get there in a flash.

Shadow put his stun pistol away, shrugging. "Fine, but I she will still not be allowed to leave this bay. I do not take well to people insulting my hospitality. Especially if it were a mistake. And since the two of you seem so close. You too, my winged friend, will not be allowed to leave your girlfriend here. As for me, you need not worry about me...I don't breathe. Also, I would advise against any plans to assassinate me as I leave, if I die, this ship has a failsafe to self distruct....Good day." The man turned and moved past Tyr, a scowl on his face. "unlock the doors, but let only me out of this bay. And if they try anything, Tenyal, kill them."

Yuuko disappeared into the shuttle, spitting curses and apparently having a small nervous breakdown. She couldn't bring herself to believe that she could have possibly missed the man, especially from such short range and with the element of surprise. It made her look like "a big fucking failure" in her eyes.

Tyriel blinked then shrugged, putting the pistol away with a sigh. At the moment, he was unsure what to do.

Shadow was to the doors, but stopped to look back at Tyr, "Your friend there might just have screwed any chances you might have had of ever getting off this ship....I would advise you to tell her that....and that if she wants food, or her life, that begging is always in fashion." He laughed softly to himself, shaking his head at his own joke, and then passed through the doors of the bay, the doors locking behind him.

"Tyriel, this guy is evil," Yuuko said from inside the shuttle. "I'm going to get this thing working again and we are going to destroy his ship with our shuttle. It's the only course of action I'm seeing here. First, I'll get to work on the aether generator, which should be the main thing we need to repair. I'll bet the circuit overloaded..." she started to ramble in technical speak.

"You know, it's not likely to work if he's as smart as I think he is." Tyr said, leaning up against the shuttle.

"There is no way it won't," Yuuko said, and then suddenly burst into tears, still extremely upset over missing the pistol shot.

He perked a brow at hearing her cry, something he'd NEVER heard ANY neko do; it got to him a little. It wasn't clear if he was more shocked or disbelieving as he walked around the shuttle and went to where Yuuko was. Without warning Tyriel gently embraced her in an attempt to comfort her and calm her down. "Hey, calm down Yuuko..."

Yuuko was still extremely angry, mostly at herself, but also at Tyriel. The thousands and thousands of deaths he'd caused were not forgotten. She pushed him away and started yelling incoherently mixed Geshrin and Japanese at him.

Shadow walked out to the bay and to the bridge, where he flopped down in the captain's chair. "Watch the shuttle bays, I don't want them trying anything. If their ship looks to be powering up, jettison them out, and fire everything we have at that shuttle. NO ONE disrespects me like that. I tried to apologize for a mistake, and that bitch shot at me. Thank the gods above I have the ability to shift, or that shot would have hit me." The shifter scowled at the view screen showing the space ahead of them. "And get us out of here....FAR away." The pilot nodded and powered up the engines to send them on a course heading, of all directions, back towards Yamatai.

Tyriel grumbled, his hand trembling; his hot Elysian blood and heritage were yelling at him to strike her with all his strength. "How dare you." The black angel growled. "I coulda just left you on the Ongaku to those Mishhu! But no. I risked my life to save you ass, without thought to myself. I try and be diplomatic here and you RUIN IT! We could have just been patient and eventually escaped." He snarls at her, Tyriel's blood was dripping from clenched fists as he walked away from her and out into the shuttle bay.

"Shut up, traitor." Yuuko pointed her pistol at his back and fired a stun pulse.

"On second thought, let's just head home. Set a course for the lab, and we will deal with our....'guests', when we get there, and have more security forces to deal with the hot tempered one." Shadow said, slowly getting up and walking over to the security station and pulled up the in-ship sensors for the shuttle bay. He only caught the end of the disagreement, and watched the pulse hit tyr in the back. A sick smile came to his lips as he spoke softly, "So there is dissention within the ranks now....excellent...."

The pulse hit him sending the moving tyriel sliding across the floor toward the doors. Thankfully it was a stun pulse but he'd be out for a while.

Shadow smiled and looked over his shoulder to the large Ops officer, and the only security sentry brought along. "A'Ron, Wade, go pick up the winged one from the shuttle bay, and put him in my lab. Tube 2D should be free....I have some things to talk to him about...and some experiments that need testing...." The two officers saluted and then headed out the door. Shadow turned back to the screen and smiled at the fallen angel. "You and I are going to be good friends.....and you will tell me all I need to know...."

Yuuko walked out of the shuttle and over to Tyriel, kneeling at his side and taking his holster and GP-13 pistol. It was a belt set for a male, but it was better than nothing. She returned to the shuttle, putting it around her waist, and then slid under the control panel and under the shuttle's "hood" to get a look at the generator system.

Wade unlocked the doors and slowly walked into the bay. He turned quickly, clearing the room with his assault rifle. Finding Yuuko working on the shuttle, he waved A'Ron in quickly, and they each took hold of a shoulder of Tyr's uniform, and pulled him up to lean between them, an arm over each of the men's shoulders. Slowly, and as silently as they could, they dragged the Elysian out of the bay, and into the lab.
Tyriel wasn't that heavy but was a little bulky due to his wings.

Unfortunately, Yuuko was too caught up in trying to fix the shuttle to notice, and as the men carried the Elysian out, the neko was left all alone, frightened and desperate.