RP: The Fringe [Chapter 1.0] - New Hires

Concordia Veil - Central Airlock Chamber

Amelia muttered a 'thanks' to Crash before she caught herself rubbing her sore wrists after her bonds were cut, feeling the blood started to circulate on her hands normally. "No, I don't have anything. And I don't think venting the ship will work either, since they had vacuum suits when they came in." She argued as she moved around the room looking for anything. She doubted she had any chance of taking either of the two men in a straight-up fight, let alone both of them at once.

She started pacing, thinking, still in the airlock chamber where the intercom cast a weak red light on everything inside. "Maybe they keep more guns in here somewhere." She said, both to herself and to Crash, either way, she needed to get out of the airlock chamber as it was, or she simply wouldn't get anywhere. With renewed purpose, Amelia started moving.

Ye Old Den

With the hail of minugun fire ceasing, Six Four poked its head up over the the remaining half of the table it was using as cover.

"Annoyed: Effecient but messy; this one feels sorry for whoever has to clean this mess up."

It said to noone in particular as it scanned the gory scene laid out before it. Wiping its helmet visor with the back of its bloody sleeve, a somewhat pointless measure, Six Four began to put back on its medical gloves. After slipping on one of the heavy duty medical gloves it took a moment to stare at the now incapacitated Irohmuke laying prone beneith it. Before putting on its other glove it swiched one of digits for yet another needle and put it into its neck draining a clear liquid into him. As the syringe depleted itself, Six Four removed the needle and ejected it before switching the digit back over to a normal finger and putting on the protective medical glove.

The servos in Six Four's legs whined as it got up, grabbing the Irohmuke by its collar as it did so, and began to drag it across the now warzone like bar towards subjects 324 and 325. Stopping in front of the large nepleslian male, Six Four grabbed the presumably dead dancing girl from him and dropped her onto the floor where it landed with a wet thud. Poking her a few times with its booted foot, Six Four shrugged and hefted the person it was dragging over and replaced the dead hooker in his arms.

"One shouldn't hold onto dead things," It said, wiping off its hands, "Please keep him upright until he comes too. A percausion however, attempt to keep him facing away from you, the adrenaline has a few side effects including nausia and induced stomach wrenching."

Dusting off its arms, Six Four turned to leave, a technological mumble coming out of its helmet accompanied by few hand motions as if it was talking to itself.

Concordia Veil - Central Airlock

Despite her best efforts, Amelia found nothing in the way of spare weapons inside the lockers, only several extra Dusk suits hanging in them. Aside from them, herself, and Crash, the only other things she managed to come across was the now severed cable which had bound her wrists together before the spider-bot freed her, and a jagged piece of the latch which had broken off when she kicked open the door to the locker in which the hijackers had imprisoned her.

It occurred to her by then that wherever the men were, it was likely they had heard the racket she had made when she broke out, although whether or not they considered it worth investigating, she wasn't sure. They had sealed the hatch from inside the ship when they left her, and there was no way to open it from within the airlock, so it was reasonable to assume that they probably would still consider her contained, but what if they didn't? She could hear one of them moving about in the darkness towards the bow of the ship, and her eyes were slowly adjusting enough to make out a dim light coming from up there, likely coming through the cockpit hatch's window.

The sound of another hatch opening in that direction, followed by quick bootsteps on the metal decking made her blood run cold. Then another hatch opened, and the light ahead got slightly brighter, although still not nearly enough to illuminate anything very well. She could easily assume the light was coming from the displays in the cockpit; although it seemed the interior lamps were all knocked out, the cockpit still had power.

Before she had time to act, she realized she could hear her captors talking to one another in moderately hushed voices.

"...think I can bypass the lockouts, but it isn't going to be easy," Paul was saying, sounding clearly rattled. "The computer's so old I'm amazed it even still works. And aside from that, it's like something--"

"God damn it, why the hell are you telling me all this?" Datsan snapped, cutting him off. "Tell me something good or get your ass back in there and back to work!"

"No, listen," Paul retorted defensively. "I can get around the lockout on the controls, but we got a bigger problem than that. The diagnostic is showing a fault in one of the main relays. Now that's not something I can fix from the terminal, it's a mechanical problem."

There was a dull thump, probably from Datsan pounding his fist on something in frustration. "God damn rusty hunk of junk," he spat. There was a racket, likely from him hoisting himself out of the pilot's couch. "You get back in there and keep working on the lock outs. I'll go back to the engines."

"Wait, you're gonna leave me up here alone!?" Paul asked incredulously.

There was the sound of a solid smack, followed by a yelp of surprise and mild pain from Paul. "Computer room. Now," Datsan commanded.

Amelia then heard more movement, and then bootsteps descending the stairs from the cockpit, heading in her direction.


Ye Olde Den

Sienna was hunkered down behind the kicked-over table, sitting on the floor with her back to it and tilted onto one hip, her legs sprawled out in front of her and pistol in hand. After the hail of massive bullets ceased, she waited until the booming ultimatum finished resonating through the bar (and the following, delayed crumbling sounds of destroyed furniture collapsing and pulverized rock from the walls clattering to the floor), then gingerly peeked out around the side of her cover. What she saw made her eyebrows raise slowly - it was a bloodbath. She'd been in her share of scrapes before, but she could never remember being involved in something so grisly.

She muttered a quiet curse under her breath as she turned her head back to look at Oreza, crouched nearby and holding a dead girl, just a few feet from the man she had shot dead moments before. She nodded at her companion questioningly, as if seeking confirmation that the ordeal was over, and slowly slid her pistol back into its holster.

She watched the Freespacer "medic" take the dead girl off of Oreza's hands, and prop the horned Iromakuanhe up in her place in front of him. Involuntarily she frowned, partially at the way the odd Freespacer was using Oreza as a nurse, but mostly in irritation at the stupidity of the Iromakuanhe that had started all of this. Were it not for the threat of a trigger-happy minigun-wielding four-armed bartender watching over the blown-apart war zone, she would have strolled straight over to the newcomer and pistol-whipped him, not because of the unnecessary death and destruction he'd caused, but because his cowboy antics had probably driven away their lead for work, likely for good.

Six Four turned to leave, but Sienna wasn't about to let him just dump his mess on them. "Hey, wait just a damn minute, you," she said in a voiced, terse whisper, pointing at the limp Iromakuanhe. "We don't know this guy, and he ain't our problem. Don't just--"

The bartender's voice came over the loudspeaker again, and the group suddenly became very aware once again of the sound of the minigun's barrel still spinning and primed to fire. "Doctor Unit," the bartender demanded of Six Four. "Your services are required here. Attend to the wounded immediately, and assist in disposing of the corpses. All others, remain where you are. Failure to comply will be met with deadly force."

Ye Old Den

Six Four looked up at the loud speaker for a moment before turning back to Sienna "Strangers." It began pausing for a moment picking out the right words to say,

"You all are new, strangers, unknown relations between you. This one reasoned that it would be safer to group you together. Less chance of mutual harm."

Grabbing the dead dancing girl, Six Four dragged her into the center of the carnage before letting her arm flop on the floor. The freespacer didn't worry to much about the wounded, knowing how the moon worked the sound of gun fire would bring the other local doctors and surgeons like vultures to a kill. Gunfights and brawls were the bread and butter for most freelance doctors after all.

Six Four worked fast, dragging over the mutilated bodies and severed limbs onto the pile.. It wasn't the first time Six Four was on clean up duty, the free spacer was used to the occasional carnage and death didn't really phase it being indoctrinated in its cloning tank to not worry about it seeing as it was an inevitable thing. Before the doctor tossed a severed leg onto the pile it rifled though its pockets, pulling out a few items and tossed them onto a growing pile of credits, wallets, trinkets, and guns. A rule of sorts that Six Four understood was that if there was a fight in an establishment and someone was killed, the affects of any deceased went to the owner to pay for any damages. The Doctor thought this was a logical thing and followed the rule with ease.

The corpse pile slowly grew as six four made circles around it, moving the dead to the pile and the wounded towards the back edge of the room where they could be taken care of by the other medical personnel of the station that were slowly starting to show up.

Thankfully, the bar wasn't that crowded and the lack of bodies and parts helped with Six Fours cleanup process. After short while there was a decent sized pile of corpses and parts piled up about 15 feet from where the bartender had started shooting. Satisfied with its work Six Four took the Flamethrower off of its back and activated it. Sliding its arm into the slot of the chunky looking weapon, Six Four wrapped its hand around the trigger mechinisim before grabbing the front handle, watching the charge display quickly light up.

"Cleansing Operation Protocols commencing." It said before unleasing a torrent of white hot plasma onto the pile of bodies. The smell of burning flesh quickly spread throughout the bar as Six Four pasted the pile on all sides with the burning plasma. Once the pile was sufficiently going Six Four made its way towards the back of the room to see if any of the other medics needed help, or If one of the wounded had expired and needed to be thrown onto the pile.

Concordia Veil - Main Hallway

Amelia hurriedly pushed the hatch closed as soon as she left the chamber, but didn't actually manage to seal it once she heard the noise coming from the cockpit. She wanted to consider the possibility that they heard her after all the noise she made, so giving them the idea that she was still contained inside was her first priority. She gave a glance towards the cockpit, then at the hatch again, before making her mind about the matter.
'Oh shit,' Amelia thought as she heard the steps clanging on the metallic surface coming closer to her direction. "I thought you said they were locked down!" Amelia said in a hushed tone to Crash as she started moving away, heart pounding on her chests and eyes wide.

Ye Olde Den

As the adrenaline caused his heart to start pounding and drew him back into consciousness. He was lucky enough that he only suffered from some minor nausea, which from the smell of burned flesh turned into major nausea that he choked down and was forced to cover his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt before he could think to look around.

What he seen around the bar disgusted him. 'All of the wasted potential' he thought before his mind cleared enough to remember that he was injected from behind and a mixture of panic and curiosity welled in him. He tried to remember who did it but could only come up with a blank, his thoughts were interrupted by the barkeepers orders. "I guess things have calmed down some." he said finally noticing the man and woman behind him

Ye Olde Den

Oreza had been shocked by the dead girl landing in his arms, someone so young killed needlessly by the bartender and his minigun, then again by the Freespacer removing her and placing the horned troublemaker there. The threat of continued violence or arrest when he and Sienna had done no more than walk in to meet their contact. Then there was fire as the Freespacer torched the dead.

"We leave now. Back to the ship" he said to Sienna. It was not a suggestion, not a request. It was an order.

The stench of burning bodies hammered his senses, making the retired naval officer want to wretch. The stench brought back bad memories, lots of them and he fought off the reaction that tried to kick in.

Oreza grabbed a hold of the Irohmuke that had been deposited on him, someone Oreza would deal with later, and started off, slipping out of the wrecked establishment, glancing back to make sure Sienna was on his heels.

Concordia Veil - Main Corridor

No further away from where she stood than the cockpit was, it didn't take but a few seconds for the footfalls to approach. Moving quietly was difficult on the metal flooring, and every step Amelia took made her hold her breath in anticipation of the tiniest noise she might make that would give her away. Datsan's voice became audible, grumbling incoherently to himself, and his shadow became briefly visible in the dim backlight from the cockpit as he circled around the main corridor that circled the central airlock. Before his form was lost in the darkness, there was a soft click and a white beam of light burst from a small penlight in his hand, the luminous shaft hovering in the blackness like some kind of ghostly presence. It swept over the floor a few times, and Amelia's heartrate skyrocketed, knowing that she was about to be discovered.

A few tense second later, however, Datsan's light circled around the other direction, heading aft, leaving Amelia and Crash alone... for the moment.


Ye Olde Den

Sienna watched in muted astonishment as Six Four passionlessly immolated the pile of corpses, her eyebrows crawling high up on her forehead. Even more intriguing to her was the fact that the four-armed bartender wielding the minigun across the way didn't at all seem bothered by the Freespacer's interpretation of "disposing of the corpses," almost as if building a sticky bonfire out of them right there in the middle of his bar was exactly what he'd meant. If what she'd heard about this place was in fact true, Ye Olde Den would be back to business as usual as if nothing had happened in only a few hours. Although it was in her nature already, Sienna made a mental note to herself to tread particularly lightly on the Black Moon, lest she vanish without so much as a trace over some imagined slight, reduced to flakes of blackened bone and ash to be swept up by a maintenance bot and forgotten.

Almost on cue, Oreza authoritatively told her it was time to go, and even though his command wasn't shouted or growled, the presence of his booming voice was enough to convey the urgency of their situation. She didn't bother arguing or "pulling rank," instead, she kept her head low and followed behind her first mate as he made his way to the door. She didn't even question why he saw fit to drag the Iromakuanhe with them; in fact, she was somewhat grateful for it, because she had a few venomous words of her own for the troublemaker that had cost them their first job.

As she slunk out of the wrecked establishment, hunched forward, the business card fell out from where the Freespacer "doctor" had unceremoniously stuffed in the front of her suit. At first she paid it no mind, but crouched behind a pile of shattered chairs and the bleeding, heaving, dismembered ID-SOL, she hesitated, glancing over her shoulder at the flamethrower-wielding near-maniac. Her eyes darted towards the bar, noting that the minigun panning around the scene like some deadly surveillance device did not have a clear bead on her, then back to the card on the ground. Cautiously she reached out, making sure not to make any sudden movements, and snatched the card before turning for the only exit behind Oreza.

Once they were clear and back out in the massive ebony tunnels that crisscrossed the Black Moon underground, she sped up to a trot to catch up. "Oreza, hold up," she called, shoving the business card back in her suit. "Wait just a second." When the big man heard her, before she saw whether or not he was actually going to stop, she looked back over her shoulder at the smoke billowing from the bar, being sucked into the ceiling by noisy, barely-functional ventilation shafts. "I want to see how this plays out," she said, then turned around, her eyes now locked with a unsettling firmness on Vel. "Before I have a few 'words' with this asshole here."

As they exited the Den Vel drew his Faelraig activated a single blade and, with accuracy that could only come from years of practice, severed the back collar of his jacket, leaving Orenza with a scrap of leather in his hand, then with the new momentum as his back fell to the floor, he roll onto his feet while deactivating the blade and sliding it back into its sheath but was stopped by the surprising intensity of the look he received from the Nepleslian woman. He held up his empty hands towards her, palms forward. "I cannot help but feel that you have the wrong impression of me due to... recent events," he said in a rather calm tone despite what had occurred.

Concordia Veil - Main Hallway

Still staring wide-eyed as one of the hijackers walked away, Amelia exhaled, slowly letting her breath out as if she had just remembered how to breathe again. The Astrogator had her back pressed firmly against the 'inner' wall of the main hallway, and once one of the would-be officials was out of sight, she started moving again further into the darkness; While she was obviously looking scared, her mind was going at full throttle, and she still tried to form a plan on her head despite the pounding headache; It in fact just made her more angry and determined to see through that. Furthermore, the hijackers had split, and that gave her somewhat of an advantage, in fact, she had just had it with hiding.

"Alright." She said to Crash, looking over her shoulder to regard the spiderbot with a plan already drawn, "I need you to sound exactly like the old guy. The other one is probably still inside there, if we can draw him out it should be easy to catch him off guard." She said to the bot. Its -freakish- hability to mimic other people's voice would come very in handy, as much as she didn't like to admit it.

Concordia Veil - Main Hallway

"I don't know what you mean... I'm not capable of mimicking others voices..." the 'bot said quietly in Sienna's voice, before chiming up over the ships intercoms again.

"I have been more then calm and reasonable so far... But your time is up..." the sinister Amelia voice echoed through out the ship. Crash chittered lightly against her cheek before skittering to the fl0or and down the passage way towards the cockpit. Just out side it blended into some equipment before it spoke up in the older one's voice. "Err.. Screw this... You're right lets go... Something is just wrong here... Hurry and get your ass moving." Crash made sure to direct the audio directly into the cockpit and modulated it so that it would not Echo back down the passageway to much. Crash thought to itself that if its pet did well it would warn her about the bunk.

Concordia Veil - Main Hallway

Despite the tension, Amelia couldn't help but to roll her eyes at the spiderbot's shenanigans; even in a situation like that it still found the humor to crack out jokes. She quickly followed it along the main hallway, crouched and somewhat running, until she pressed herself against the corner between the cockpit and the ship's computer room. Knowing she would only have one shot at that, the Astrogator tensed and prepared herself.

Concordia Veil - Main Corridor

Amelia could hear rustling inside the computer room as she got into position. Her footfalls were quite a bit lighter than Datsan's had been, and although she wasn't completely silent, she managed to move quietly enough not to attract attention, or at least as far as she could tell. As hard as she pressed herself back against the wall, she was still more or less right in front of the door, although she was able to conceal herself more or less in the shadow of the dim light coming from the window in the cockpit hatch.

There was a dull clunk from within the wall around the hatch to the computer room, and with the muted sound of hydraulic pistons actuating, the door slid open to the side. Were it not for the penlight's beam directed at the floor, Amelia would probably have been able to see Paul's dim silhouette in the doorway, but it was lost in the relatively bright light. The "inspector" stepped through the hatch before it had finished opening the rest of the way, his breathing quick and alarmed...

...and his shoulder bumped into Amelia.

Instantly the light's beam whipped upwards to illuminate her face, blinding her temporarily. "What the--!?" Paul exclaimed in shock, and she could hear him fumbling with his free hand for the stun baton at his waist.

Instead of bringing her arms up to shield herself from the light, Amelia advanced against the hijacker, she surprised and caught off guard like he was, in fact, she was prepared and ready for him the moment he came through the computer room. She knew she couldn't overpower him, she didn't have the strength for it, so she had to try something else while she still had the initiative that would put her opponent down.

With unusual speed, she sprung towards the light, one hand moving to hit its source with an open palm, while her other hand reached lower and to the side, where she judged the belt to be. She aimed for where she had seen the stun-baton earlier, when the two men boarded the ship, and she hardly doubted it had changed its position in the meantime. More specifically, she was aiming for the activation stud on it, hoping that activating it suddenly while it was still buckled to the belt would end up stunning the carrier.

Concordia Veil - Main Corridor

Having not expected to encounter their prisoner already outside of her temporary cell, Paul wasn't fast enough to get the baton free, and as Amelia's hand smacked into the light, it flew from his hand and skidded across the deck with a clattering sound, the beam of light spinning wildly in all directions before settling to a stop, pointing down the port side of the circular corridor away from the scuffling pair. However, in the darkness, Amelia wasn't accurate enough to get a solid grip on where she thought the baton was, and instead ended up groping Paul's thigh. The "inspector" jerked away, shoving her off of him with a violent shove, knocking her against the wall, thankfully not roughly enough to knock her head against the metal.

Her eyes still trying to adjust from the light shining in her face, all was total blackness to Amelia, but the faint spark and hum of the baton being activated was quite easy to hear. A whitish-blue arc of electricity illuminated Paul's blue-eyed face for a second before he jabbed it forward. The instant before it found its mark in her ribs, even though she was protected by the Dusk suit, Amelia slipped to the side, causing the baton to clank against the bulkhead and turn sideways, jamming Paul's wrist in an evidently uncomfortable direction, judging from his yelp of pain and frustration.

Amelia let out a low grunt once she hit the wall, then dodged the subsequent blow completely on reflex; She didn't have time to think, just to act. Seeing -or rather hearing- another opening when he missed his blow and the resounding sound of metal on metal echoed out, she pivoted on the balls of her feet, exhaling as she also cursed the fact that the heavy plate from he vest was slowing her down, then backpedaled from her attacker, moving away from him and towards the penlight.

Crash had watched the beginnings to this fight. It wasn't really built to join in from the start but once Amelia lost the upper hand It sprang into action. As it skittered up the wall and along the ceiling It played out a loud maniacal laughter out of the ship's intercoms, with hope it would cover any sounds It would create. Once above the "Inspector's" head Crash paused and shifted as if It was taking a deep breath before releasing it's grip with the celling and flipping over upright as It fell.

The very micro-second Crash intercepted the position it calculated the man's head would be It jabbed in it's sharp metal legs, just like Crash had been so very careful not to do when climbing on Amelia. In a deep rough male voice Crash spoke disjointedly, "SHE toLD YoU I wAS CoMINg! OH thE ThiNGS I plAN To dO!!"

Ye Old Den

With the black smoke from the corpse pile darkening the already dark room, Six Four was a barely silhouetted by the flicker flames that it stood in front of. As the light danced off of its reflective mask, the freespacer deemed the task at hand completed and turned to leave, disarming its plasma spreader and slinging it back up onto its back. Making its way towards the exit, Six Four picked up the tatters of a gold jacket, judging from the condition and the blood near the minigun sized holes in it the former owner was most likely somewhere on the burning pile and wouldn't miss it to much. Taking advantage of the situation Six Four bundled the cloth into a ball, doing its best to keep the soiled areas to the inside.

"Disengage helmet locks" Six Four voiced as it neared the exit of the bar, 'Disengaging' a computerized voice from inside the helmet replied, 'Hemo conductors disengaging'. Six For winced a bit as the six needles helped power its helmet withdrew themselves from the soft tissue behind its ears. 'Hemo conductors retracted, hardware safe to remove.' Six Four watched its normally lit up screens and various displays wink out from its vision before placing its hands on either side of its head, pulling the now red smeared helmet off of its head.

Once outside, helmet in hand, Six Four began to wipe the helmet clean of the bio matter that was staining its normal clean and pristine white color. As it walked forward, Six Four came within about five feet of Sienna and Vel before almost running into them.

"Querry: Do you require assistance?" Six Four said to neither of them in particular in a very feminine voice whist blinking its bright read and dark gold heterochromian eyes Without its helmet on the others would notice its ridiculously pale skin framed by short pink hair with the occasional streak of white. The small stream of blood from behind either of its ears might put them off a bit as well.

Outside Ye Olde Den

Due to his increased hearing from his horns Vel turned in time to greet the, apperently female, freespacer but was stopped half way through the turn as he remembered the same mannerisms from the one that injected him between his neck plates "Were you the one that injected me in the bar?" He asked his memorablely baretone did not hold a hostile tone, but neither did it hold a friendly one either. He notes the blood on the neck of Six-Four and began wondering what kind of implants she had and how they connected without bio-ports or if, like his own, they were covered in exoskeletal plates.

Concordia Veil - Main Corridor

As Amelia backpedalled, her eyes slowly began to adjust to the darkness, allowing her to faintly make out Paul's dim outline turning to follow her. Just as he reared back to lunge with his stun baton again, however, the "inspector" suddenly howled in alarm, and began to thrash about uncontrollably, bouncing off of the bulkhead a few times as he wildly swatted at something on his head. Judging from the metallic clanks the baton was making with each impact, as well as the erratic and disturbing modulated voice threatening him, Crash had decided to join in the fray.

By the time Amelia reached the light, she heard two things. One was the clumsy thud of Paul as he, in his panicked flailing, tripped over the row of seats fixed along the wall just aft of the entrance to the computer room. And two, the sound of the engineering bay hatch cycling closed.


Black Moon - Tunnels Outside Ye Olde Den

When Vel cut himself free, Sienna's nonplussed gaze never left him as he rolled away, nor did she move in any direction, aside from casually drawing the pistol on her side. By the time he made it back up onto his feet and turned to face her, he found himself staring down the barrel of her pistol, standing well out of arm's reach. She gave him a slow, concessive nod, although the sardonic look it her eyes made it clear she was actually less than impressed. "That's the trouble with first impressions," she said coolly, her weapon never deviating from its mark. "You only get one."

When Six-Four approached, her gaze flitted over to him for a brief instant before returning to watch the Iromakuanhe, although she couldn't help but double-take at the Freespacer's eerie, borderline grotesque appearance. If its blood-streaked, pallid skin wasn't off-putting enough, the striking contrast of its voice and the very recent memory of its emotionless incineration of dozens of bullet-riddled corpses completed the image. Sienna didn't immediately respond, instead focusing as much of her attention she could tear away from it on the Iromakuanhe that had started the firefight.