RP: LSDF Akahar [Chapter 1.1] - Staring Back Again

"Got it, Mars," replied Vathr'dral. He jogged out of the Wayfarer, and locked the ship tightly. He wanted to make sure that the Freespacer didn't get worried about its server.

"Don't worry, big guy, no one's getting in there. Your collective is safe," he reassured the machine as Horizon joined the group. He held his Arbitrator at the ready, so if any of these things attacking the Akahar got too close to him it would find itself with a few extra holes.

"I'm good to go when you are," said the pilot.

Mist approached the exit of the bay. Stopping to listen to the hallway for a moment. Convinced that there wasn't a threat he poked his head around the corner for a moment before drawing it back in. The Lmanel looked around the bay for a moment waiting to see if anything happened before kneeling and looking around the corner again.

"So we going to get to murdering or what?" He certainly looked the part. M-Cel in one hand and one of his blades in the other.

As Keib was crawling through the compacted space, he was monitoring his breathing, trying to get into a meditative state despite the fact that he was on his hands and knees, looking into Vithr's behind and sighing. He made the choice to conduct this, he had to live with the consequences, however great or small they were (for now anyway).

His movement slowed down as Vithr continued ahead grimly, and his consciousness begun to branch out and look for the intruding spirits that were in his beloved ship. It was something he'd only do when he had to find someone with the utmost importance. His mind walked through the corridors of the Akahar like a ghost in a decrepit mansion. He eventually found himself standing at the Armoury. He saw an outline of a person, about an inch from the ground and appearing to be carrying an unseen rifle becoming increasingly frustrated with the security.

His consciousness was rubber-banded back to him when Aiesu bumped into him. He gasped and took a few deep breaths before moving ahead grimly. "Oops, sorry," he said before continuing through the twisting passage, getting closer to the armoury inch by inch.

-

Mars nodded to Mist. He was right, there was too much time wasted. She waved at the others to follow her. "Okay Mist," She said as she walked towards the exit. "We are moving for the armoury. You are on point, Merril will be behind you. THen me and our guest and pilot will cover our back. Vathr'dal, don't play hero!" With that the merry group could be on their way.

Mars herself felt good. Even though a bad things was happening on her ship, she finally got to do what was in her blood. Fight. She was a fyunnen! The adrenaline level rose in her veins. She was ready.

"Point. Got it." Mist turned the corner and took off down the side of the hallway. Stopping at bulkheads and using their cover to check the hall before moving on. The empty, deadlocked and dimly lit corridors of the Akahar, once familiar were now foreign. Moving ahead, he could hear the footsteps of others. One footfall was precluded by another slowly and steadily, he could almost guess them to be wary steps as they echoed through the corridors. Pit... Pat... Pit... Pat... The steps sounded like boots, not armour. Three sets of them.

"Why the fuck are we here again?" One voice asked in Trade, breaking the silence.
"Because this ship is miles from anywhere." The other replied, in the same tongue. "Easy target."
"Easy target my ass." The sound of equipment rattling could be heard as one of them bristled with indignation. "I haven't seen Riley or Jameson since we dropped down." Four Six could lay claim to their bodies.

After listening in on the voices, Shrie'keng could conclude that they were coming closer, and heading towards them from around the corner, blissfully unaware.

Mist crouched at the corner making sure his weapon was ready to fire and readying his knife. He'd wait till one of them was about to step around the corner before he would make his rush. Knife the first then shoot the others. Seemed simple enough in his head at least.

Mars moved as third in the group. Her rifle was braced in her shoulder, but aimed at the ground. If needed she could raise it and shoot in a blink of an eye. If it would be needed, but so far Mist moved forward without reporting anything.

And then one of them was close enough for Mist to practically smell it. A boot crossed into his view. The window of time opened.

The Lmanel came out of his cover low and fast, knife looking for a nice spot in the side of the rib cage and stabbing through his weave body armour and into his organs, breath forced out of him with a sharp gasp. As for the second intruder Mist brought his M-Cel up along his first victims side and fired at them from near point blank - the feeling was as though he was being punched, lengthwise, by a telephone pole as he was thrown backwards by the force of the slug.

However, with a knife stuck in one man's ribcage and an empty M'Cel, Shrie'Keng was immobilised. The third man snapped to combat readiness and swung the butt of his rifle at Shrie'Keng's head with a sharp crack, rattling his skull beneath his helmet and knocking him off balance and to the floor; in view of Mars and the others with the pirate's rifle now pointing the business end towards the Llmanel.

Four inhaled deeply, flaring her small nostrils. She could smell a lot of things on the air; sweat, and dust from the ventilation were the two most prominant. But if she closed her eyes and moved a little slower, really concentrated, there were other things to see and hear. From somewhere far off, she could hear boots shuffling, and the heavy tread of somebody in armor. And from nearby, beneath the constant shuffling of her less lightly built companions, the mumbling and a strange tinge of smoke on the air.

She spread her hands across the sides of the ventilation duct and glanced around. Ahead of her, the exit was obvious; it was one of several, since the other branches probably ended the same way. But it wouldn't be precise. They would come out to one side or another of the armory entrance. There would be no telling which way they would be looking and Four could not remember the layout of the ship very well, now that she tried. At least the tunnel might end on the opposite bulkhead to the door; it wouldn't be over or around the armory, precisely because it could be exploited as a security breech.

So they might be behind anyone standing in front of the door. She couldn't smell very well through solid metal, though, or get a good idea of how many people might be standing around waiting on the Mumbler.

Being very careful not to let her boots make too much of a sound, Four came as upright in the tunnel as she could, rising off of her knees and crouching. She felt the iron bars of the hatch's rocker bars, focusing just for a few moments on the cool metal - the feel, the smell. Then, very carefully, flicking her ears forward and trying to fool even her own sensitive hearing, she pulled Mister Keib's long knife from her jacket, shifted around in the tunnel, and placed her boot on one of the ridges behind her as a jumping start.

Carefully, she began to ease the iron dogs that secured the door at the edges loose. She might have a few seconds of surprise and would have to use it wisely.

Before the pirate could do anything, several bursts of fire tore across his chest. Merril had reacted a little slowly, but no less eagerly than expected, spending almost the full clip on the villian.

"Siddown!" She barked.

Slowly and steadily, the metal lugs on the opposite hatch that lead into the armoury were being undone - like individual fingers peeled, dooming those within to the cliff below.

Keib imagined as though he was a child tiptoeing through a hallway and memorising where the noisy parts of the floor are - just as Four Six was slowly and steadily undoing the lugs. Eventually, the hatch popped open and swung open, lightly tapping the wall. She was met with blackness.

The armoury, since it was in lockdown from the pirate invaders had no need for light. Not even the emergency lighting. If someone was to get in here, they'd be fumbling and stumbling - with their newly found treasure and with no way to locate it.

Vithr was the second person to move up into the gloom, out of the safety light-strips of the maintenance passage. "Wow. Really in lock down here..." He commented as he poked his head out, the freedom from the earliest licks of claustrophobia a wash of relief through his features. Met with darkness, he immediately began fiddling in his pocket for something to light the room.

He opened a communicator, and managed the flashlight on it, lighting up the racks, lockers and drawers of weapons, armour, accessories and computers.

"First thing the pirates always go for." Keib replied as he waited near the floor hatch, looking behind himself to look at the other two. "Its like a roach motel."

"Makes sense," Aiesu said, finally feeling her nerves start to settle. She hadn't said anything in a while. "I'm going first."

Keib moved through the hatch, and held it open for her, with Vithr illuminating a path. "After you."

In Vithr's movement of the torch around the room before settling on the floor in front of Aiesu, the light shone on an idle combat computer for a split second, catching Aiesu's eye as the command prompt's white-on-dark-blue haze was temporarily drowned by the white light.

Aiesu carefully making her way to the edge of the hatch. Slowly, she unzipped her boots, leaving them with the others and stepped out - surprisingly quietly into the inky black, sinking and drowning out of existence. No foot-steps, no sounds. Nothing. She was only visible again when she stepped into the white of his torchlight.

"You can turn it off, if you want. I don't need it"

Vithr turned the light off indignantly for a moment. The sound of someone being tapped in the head could be heard, and the light came back on. Keib did not seem impressed by Vithr's cheek in the dire situation.

As light returned to the chamber, she was already positioned in front of the dull light of the combat computer. Growing nearer, the thing purred every few seconds, a cooling fan audible as she got closer.

She eyed the screen thoughtfully.

"She's on lockdown. Anyone here have permissions?"

Keib could be heard coughing loudly.

"No?" she grumbled quietly - reaching into her pocket for a series of discs. She felt something else, fishing it out - a pair of coloured jumper-pins from the medicomp.

"Whenever you put something back together, there's always a bit left over" she smiled, slipping them back into her pocket.

Aiesu took delicate steps, almost floating on the tips of her toes. She took a combat-knife from an open locker and scored the edge of a wall-panel with it as she took careful note of the serial number, peeling it off like an oyster. The panel hit the ground with a noisy thud, her hands already in its guts as she held one of the jumpers in her mouth, suckling on it for a moment to get the oxygenation off the super-conducting metal.

She ran her fingers over the live board, pulling several pins from the board with the elegance of removing teeth from dissolving putrid gums and repositioned them, then fished for the extra she had with her, plugging it in. She gave everything one last look before she took the combat knife and traced circuit paths with it delicately - her other hand slipping a disc into the drive with a satisfying click. She bridged the circuit paths, tricking the thing into thinking it had a power-surge.

But it didn't reboot when she removed the blade.

"Fuck."

"What is it?" a voice sounded. Aiesu couldn't tell who's it was.

"Nothing. Hold on."

Aiesu eyed another panel, stripping it off. A high-voltage line. Delicately, the sawed through the insulation and then she took one of her boots, shaking her head before putting it back down. She fished for a pair of combat boots from the armoury and scored a line of rubber from the sole, wrapping the handle of the knife with it, and then bandaging and tape before carefully sawing through the line. Everything went dead. There was a low hum as the fuses cut in and the air-pumps and filters disengaged.

She could feel the warmth of the tang inside the handle, vibrating with the charge running through it, her face lit by stray arced flashes. She could feel a shooting pain along her arm - muscle shivering and then a coldness in her muscles. She felt her synthetic elements working to prevent her arm from pulling the blade out - teeth chattering for a few moments.

Dread sank through the other occupants.

Carefully, she adjusted the angle of the knife, everything coming back online, the combat computer booting up again. It froze at its login screen, rebooting several times before asking for a maintenance disc. She hit enter. As the thing began loading, she twisted the blade, breaking off its tip inside the cable. She then began wrapping it in the rubber that she'd formerly used for the handle, taping it up thickly. The remaining blade glowed a dull orange, even the length of the tang through the knife in the low light.

"Was that you?" Vithr said, venom in his voice.

Soon, the arms-computer was soon reading the contents of the disc she'd fed it - a series of rings branching from the middle of the screen like a bullseye, each with a set of rounded loading bars inside it. Bubbles popped up with loading bars and microterminals as information was written into RAM and the OS was rendered live.

She soon fished up a terminal, the only UI element any of them would be familiar with.

Keib's bunny-slippered footsteps could be heard across the floor, shortly punctuated by a bump, some stifled cursing, and the footsteps resuming. Keib's face was reflecting into the monitor and looking into Aiesu's eyes when she looked back up, half illuminated, framed in shadow.

She peered back, a luminescent quality about them, not unlike cat's eyes or those of a rabbit as the sun disappears over the horizon. Despite her goofed aspectation, she did get a few things right.

"Are you alright?" Aiesu asked, eyeing Keib with concern. She could still feel the twinge in her arm from the knife, her hand smoking, flesh burnt along her left palm - capillaries burst along the length of her arm. A blueish color clouded her features. It took her a moment to realise her heart had likely stopped, taking a moment to force it into a normal rhythm with a twitch of muscle - yet her skeleton refused to move, the puppeteer beneath the flesh still calm. Soon, she ejected the first disc, popping in another.

He said nothing as his hand hovered over the keyboard and came to rest for a moment as he recalled something. The command line was waiting for him, and then his fingers danced across the keyboard like a concert pianist.
"I'll have to trust you on this one, that's all." He stated as he looked towards the doors of the armoury, hearing pirates still trying to beat the doors down arrhythmically. He'd had his computers on lock down as a precaution in case one of the pirates had bothered to get the skills to fight on the digital battlefield.

The question that wasn't crossing Keib's mind was what she'd do with a user account that had root privileges. "Can I trust you?" He asked, tone of voice wavering between rhetorical and a genuine question. He took steps away from the computer and faded into the blackness behind her.

"Yeah," she said, feeling herself wind into the network slowly as she logged in remotely, wirelessly - an ethereal feeling she'd craved since she got onboard - one that slowly made her heels rise from the deck with a sense of lightness - a cool shiver down he back of her neck. She was perfectly still as she peered up at him - the lights a dim red before flashing with a wet clap of fuses and high voltage into crisp white.

"You can trust me."

The sudden lighting in the room made Keib, Vithr, Four Six and Shimakage cover their eyes as the lights came alive and overstimulated their visual senses.

Aiesu hadn't flinched, still in that perfect stillness. As the blue and purple left her cheeks, it was almost like she wasn't really there when she did these things.

"There are three at the door. I don't recognise what they're using... I won't for another ten minutes" she said, fishing into her pocket for one of the operating discs, eyeing its title for a moment - hesitating a few second with it in her hands as if it were poison before she slid it into the combat computer and issued a few commands, watching something compile - a semantic library of some sort.

"Big, dull worn metal, loud, angry. Big shoulders. Top-heavy. Guns" she tried her best, waiting for it to compile.

"It sounds..." Keib blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes. "...like a Demon." looking at the console and watching whatever she'd put to it compile. He leaned over and looked over her shoulder, unfamiliar with the output that was before him. Keib's eyebrow raised: "What's that supposed to do?" He whispered near Aiesu's ear.

"Its a crisis library," she said between the loud thumps at the door. "So I can work well... In a crisis situation. Gives me permissions and drivers and idiosyncrasies I wasn't issued with."

"Drivers for what?"

"Everything," she said. "Its going to take hours. And to be frank with you, half my operational lifespan."

Keib looked at the doors and noticed that they were starting to deform. He swallowed a lump in his throat, nudged her and made an upwards nod towards the deformations in the door before looking towards a M'Cel that was in a locker.

She soon returned to the screen, eyeing the evolving mess of shaded blocks as they changed. "Alright, alright" she said, making her way to the display, looking over it. "No, you're not done yet... Neither are you... Or you..." she skimmed, looking for something useful in the blur of pixels and patterns on the display for possible recruits for her cause.

Keib had walked off and thumb-printed a locker open and withdrew a M'Cel with a shoulder stock attached to it. He inspected the action and flexed it a couple of times before snapping it shut and determining that it was in working order.

"Not you... Not you... You haven't started yet... Still cooking... Ooh! Do we have any of those.... Yeeeaaahno. Well. This isn't going well. Let's try... Antiquated... Antiquated..." Aiesu muttered to herself, thinking aloud.

"Keib, I ask you one thing and one thing alone in this moment of peril and I want to be frank" she said, visibly excited but jumpy to boot, still getting used to the network.

"Hm?"

"Do you even HAVE a quartermaster?"

He turned around with with the weapon in hand, inspecting it. "The last one got a promotion from higher up and the first thing they did was show their gratitude by leaving without thanking me." He snapped the action shut and tossed it to Shimakage. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing. He just took PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING WITH HIM" she shouted. "What good is a combat ship if it isn't ARMED? Even Nepleslian TERMITES are more favourable than a man who takes your... Oooh what do we have here~?"

She then eyed the door, wondering if the invaders had heard that. But then something caught her eye.

"Nepleslian termites shit bullets." Keib murmured aloud in Trade as he grabbed another M'Cel from the same locker.

"Yes, yes, this looks good... " Aiesu's voice immediately softened. She'd almost forgotten he was there. She said, before glancing at the console and cursing in at least three languages Keib didn't recognise and two he did, at least one of them high Elysian.

She watched the display, the interface moving without input now as she tried to narrow something down. "More specific... More specific... Keib, any idea where-"

"Hold on, let me see how Away team is doing." He held a hand to his earpiece. "We're in the armoury, what's your status?"

-

"Siddown!"

Shrie'keng had some full metal jacket friends heading towards him and the pirate, given lease and license to kill from Merril's My'hyz. BRAKKABRAKKABRAKKA! Her initial shots struck the pirate in the hip and shattered his hip bone, before the recoil made her weapon climb up and bullets hit their marks in the ribs and arms of the pirate before hitting the ceiling.

As the pirate was falling over with his finger over the trigger, his hand clutched in pain and he pulled it. Two rifle rounds flew past Shrie'keng and hit the floor beneath him, while one bullet struck him in the biceps and another in the right breast, forcing the breath out of him as they deformed against the Stone Thread weave.

The sounds of falling bullet casings were all that punctuated these events.

-

Aiesu slowly looked over, grimacing as she heard gunfire - and also the communication. The echo of the two was a strange experience for her.

"Not good?"

Keib shook his head with a frown as he passed the next piece to Vithr.

"Grenades here." Keib stated as he unlocked another locker and took one of the grenades, an armour piercing high explosive, and loaded it into the breech of his weapon. He put a hand to his earpiece, hoping that things had cleared up.

"Away Team, we're in the armoury - and they know."

"You... Really don't want to be using those" Aiesu said, already knowing the contents of the locker. "We're in an armoury, remember? Everything here goes boom. The chain reaction and resulting compression blast-waves would cripple the ships critical systems and kill us... Oh, I'd say pretty much instantly."

The door had begun to crack and strain under whatever assault the pirates were doing to it.

"Then what? Hurry up, or steak night is going to be indefinitely cancelled." Out of place and out of context, the phrase wouldn't have held much weight, seeming ridiculous given the circumstances. Bastion knew, however that only a handful of things could cancel steak night on the Akahar - the death of Keib.

"Steak night?" she said in confusion. "Oh. I need another... Oh... About one-hundred eighty seconds. Arms up, guns down."

"What?"

"I said arms up. Guns down. Its a simple instruction."

I seriously doubt they'd want to talk with their mouths." Vithr observed dryly.

"Let me put it into perspective for you: In a fire-fight, you specifically have a 13.661% chance of survival. As a group, the odds are less than 3%."

They stared flatly at her. She was almost an entirely different person now.

"Oooh dat hardware! Dat predictive modelling!" she said, her voice loud again. "Oh yes~ It feels good finally having some horsepower. Of a full ship, my rig and even another ARIA, no less! Isn't that something?"

"Wait, what?"

"Okay look." she thought for a moment. "Pirates... Don't take the brains of an operation with them, especially not to a combat vessel. The people who do the thinking and the fixing and the cracky and the hacky sit nice and cozy because they're valuable. They're too important. No brains, no booty. Same goes for the big cheese. No cheese, no strategy, no tactics, no control. Pirates have no brains and usually no cheese."

"A sentiment I can agree with."

"Good. If you can show you're a brain, that makes you an asset, because brains hate being taken onboard a ship, especially a combat ship. They like doing things by remote and... Because of the lockouts I just made, they uh... Sort of can't." she said, on a roll now, her voice becoming theatrical. "They're going to be really mad, aren't they?"

"Er..."

"So they'll do what they can to resolve the issue without bringing any brains or the big cheese onboard. For six hundred, what do pirates do with bounty~?" she said, pointing at Vithr now with both hands.

"Collect?"

"Gold star to team Akahar!"

Vithr rolled his eyes.

"Get to the point."

"Pirates are simple. Binary, even. Good, bad. You're either spoils or a problems. If you're spoils, that's good. If you're a problem... That's... Not so good. Guns, death, screaming. But why in that order? Anyway. You need to convince them that you're useful. Ideally, that the ship needs proof you're alive before it'll surrender control to them. Or better yet, a keybond. Brains hate working with keybonds, you know? Or cake. Pirates love cake. Whatever it takes, convince them."

"Then what?"

"Barter. Convince them so we have something to barter with."

"You can't negotiate with pirates. Everybody knows that."

"Correct. You can't negotiate successfully. But you can still negotiate."

"Stalling?"

"Gold star to the doctor!"

"Stalling for time. Right. And what good is time?" Vithr watched in horror, trying to break the girl's argument. What really got him was the way just Keib listened. So attentively.

"Oh, time is everything. But that's my department. Now, promise me: Whatever you do, don't run. Don't even move. If the lights go dead, I want you to stay perfectly still and keep your arms up."

"But why?"

"For your own safety."

"From what?" Vithr said, examining her small frame.

"I'm... Not entirely sure yet. Isn't it all exciting?"

Perhaps not the word he would have used.

The sound of a weapon being put down and kicked away could be heard from Keib as he stood with his arms behind his back.

"I hope you know what you're doing."

"So do I." Aiesu said to herself - smiling with a strange confidence.

Mars was on the move. She had few words she wanted to say to Mist, but that could wait until they find out if he is actually stil alive. Mars hurried forward, just behind Merril going over the corner to see if that hallways was clear or not. The pirates were clearly dead. One was full of holes from Merril's hosing, other had Mist's knife in his chest. He was still on the ground tossing about. Third one had a crater in his chest the size of the size of Brainfart's ego.

The hall was clear otherwise. Mars stomped on the head of the marine with knife in his chest to finish him off. "Merril take care of Mist," she said as she covered them. "If he is still alive, punch him and tell him that if he is on point he is supposed to gesture to us that he spotted bloody targets, before rushing off like an idiot. Good shooting both of you though."

"Already onnit, Bastion!" Merril replied to the order, pulling to Mist's side and turning him so he faced her. From what she could tell, nothing really pierced the armor, though there was a bit of bad denting in the chest plate. A secondary inspection of his helmet was in place, with her hands lightly twisting his head this way and that to check for damage.

"Shrie, they didn't knock you stupid, did they?" She asked, peering around the metal.

Mist propped himself up on his elbows and let Merril go about her business checking him for injuries. "Nothing some time meditating won't fix by the feel of it. When did pirates start making it a point to sneak around on ships they invade anyways? Only picked up on two of them."

The Lmanel made it a point not to move around too much until Merril finished up. Didn't seem like drawing the Fyunnen's attention to himself with movement was a great idea at the moment.

Four Six's first instincts upon hearing an unspoken plan between the wiry ROM-Construct and the man that she trusted was to hide. On the way out, she grabbed a sub-machine gun, an old Zen-Arms one with an odd looking bullpup configuration. She went back the way the group came and hissed a request to close the hatch behind her.

Keib kept his hands on his head nervously. He could feel the beads of sweat emerging from his underarms and rolling into his singlet, as well as the sweat starting to give his forehead a sheen. I hope she knows what she's doing... He repeated in his mind's ear as he watched the Armoury's doors finally give in and break. There was only a minute left on the clock Aiesu had given him.

Aiesu was right - they did not have brains nor cheese but they did have brute strength. All they had to do was haggle. Three armed men; a Yamataian, a Nepleslian and what could've been another Lorath were the first people to walk inside the hole made for them. Their orders were clear: "GET DOWN ON THE GROUND, NOW!"

Keib complied. Vithr still had his M'cel in his hands and looked at Keib, who nodded towards him to silently tell him to follow suit. He complied with his XO's orders and put the grenade launcher down. Aiesu seemed to remain at her work station. The Lorath pirate moved towards her, weapon raised and finger off trigger. "Hey, are you deaf?" He asked in a crude sub-dialect of Lorath.

"She's not armed." The Yamataian pirate observed as he stood over Keib. Looking down with a sneer at the New Tur'listan XO, he lifted the .45 Pistol that Keib loved and tossed it away after getting his grubby meathooks on it. Keib's expression remained stalwart in the face of his belongings being hurled about. "So, you don't look like a quartermaster or armourer, hm." He then leaned to one side and saw the bunny slippers he was wearing through this whole ordeal. He raised an eyebrow, grinned, turned around and called out: "Hey V, get a load of this clown!"

"What, the clown throwing shit everywhere when he's going to be the one to pick it up again?" An annoyed female voice sounded from outside the room. A rather muscular looking Geshrin woman stepped into the room, hair bright purple and tied back into a ponytail that explodes in all directions after the tie in a most unruly way. "Yeah, yeah, cute. Here, take the card to the caro bulkhead we're using for prisoners. Put 'em in there and I'll do 'orientation' Now stop being a fucking neko with a laser light and making a fucking mess. Asshat."

She didn't seem particularly cheerful today. Or she just didn't like this pirate in particular. Further displayed by her beaning the pirate in the side of the head with the keycard and stepped back out to return to their ship.

"Ow - fine, fine, whatever," The easily-amused Yamataian brushed off V's comments. "C'mon, up you get!" The pirate told Keib, Vithr and Shimakage. What caught Keib's eye was the key card.

"You too!" The Lorath pirate tried to grab Aiesu - seemingly completely nonresponsive to outside stimuli. Upon being disturbed by the Lorath's hand, she fell from her chair and hit the floor as though she was a rag doll. Surprised, the Lorath took a step back and eyed the other three occupants. He mouthed a curse or two. "What the fuck is this?"

"What's her problem?" The Nepleslian inquired as he waited for the three to comply with their order.

"Oh," Keib piped up. "She's pigeon livered."

The Yamataian pirate was about to swivel their weapon over and tell Keib where to shove it, but laughed aloud at the bird-centric pun. The Lorath pirate rolled his eyes. "For fuck's sake. Alright, take the legs." He motioned towards the Nepleslian pirate, who complied as the Lorath reached down to try and grab her arms.

Keib, Vithr and Shimakage did not move, though.

"Are you fucking kidding me? We just boarded the damn thing and you want us to start scrapping now?" Veronica seemed aggravated out in the hallway, presumably talking to someone on her earpiece since there was no audible reply. "We're being bossed around by a retard, I swear. What the fuck are you all still doing in there? You can have an orgy on your own time." She came stomping back in, looking like her fuse was shorter than normal.

"Fucking move your feathered asses already. That goes for you too." She glared at the Lorath pirate. She walked over and picked up Aiesu with one arm, hoisting her over her shoulder almost effortlessly. "You can use your legs to get moving, or I can break them and we'll drag you there."

One hundred and eighty seconds had passed since Aiesu had told them all. Keib had not moved at all. Vithr, whilst shaking, had not moved from his position as had Shimakage.

The lights went out all across the LSDF Akahar for one second, then two seconds, and then three seconds, and then four, counting onwards with the mercury rising. The three still had not moved.

The computer in the middle of the room was still on, and it emitted a happy chirp.

As soon as the lights went out, there were startled reactions amongst all of the pirates, but not a second later, Veronica's grumbling voice sounded "Ah fuck it." The sound of someone, presumably the Yamataian pirate, falling into the gun lockers sounded. A brief flash of light emitted in the middle of the room as a shot fired and a gasp turned into a gurgle. A brief struggle sounded and the sound of muscle and bone snapping echoed in the room before hasty footsteps could be heard until they echoed into the empty hallway.

The lights turned back on. The Yamataian pirate was face down on the floor with his head on backwards, face starting to turn blue; while the Lorath pirate had was clutching his neck, gurgling and kicking before ceasing slowly and quietly. Strangely, lying beside the Yamataian was Aiesu.

The Nepleslian pirate had a simple question: "Who the fuck did that?!" He raised his rifle at Keib, Vithr and Shimakage, swinging the barrel between the trio. The pirate's concentration broke to look at what'd been done, and as he connected the dots. "...Fuckin' V!"

The Pirate was about to turn around and deal with his traitorous shipmate, when one of the armours resting in a rack became alive. A Tenshi No Yoru made around the time the UOC was in its prime was standing up on its own two legs, and raising the My-M1-W3001 Anti-Neutron Gun in its hands and firing it at the pirate on lethal and sprayed across the room in an arc - but avoiding Keib, Vithr and Shimakage with mathematical precision.

Keib froze as he watched the air ionise as the laser pulses hammered the Pirate, who convulsed violently as his nerves were shocked by electromagnetic radiation and flesh and clothing seared incredible heat. The lasers struck the walls of the armoury, each scorch mark forming a line. Whatever was standing in the room and not standing in just the right spot would've been killed.

She stopped eventually. Vithr was shaking all over from just how sudden and uncanny the occurrence was. Shimakage could've swore that he felt the heat from a laser pass by his face, while Keib found that there was a new hole in his labcoat's coat-tails.

"Ms. Kalopsia, I-I presume?" Keib asked the Tenshi, voice slightly trembling, blinking from the laser beams and still standing in the same place as Aiesu instructed earlier.

"What's going on in there?" A voice from behind a loudspeaker yelled as the Demon armour poked its face into the room, spotted three (maybe four) dead bodies, and then turned around in full to point his Type 1 rifle into the room.

"Bastion, armoury. NOW." Keib hissed over radio to his most trusted Trooper.

Mars sighed in relief. It seemed Mist was okay. "Shrie'keng are you fine?" She asked him, still covering the hallway. "Are you up for staying on point? Just please warn us with a gesture next time. It might have saved you a bullet in the chest. You are lucky your armour took it."

Then the light went off. Mars did not look up, instead her helmet started its night-vision on its own, showing the hallways in bright green and black. In matter of seconds the lights flickered back on and her vision returned to normal.

"We need to move," Mars said with strong voice. "Merril give him something for the pain. Just get him on his feet fast. We cannot let those bastards get into the armoury."

As Bastion and company advanced towards the armoury, they could spot another target ahead amidst the flickering emergency lights. It was an power armour standing just twelve metres away from the four-way intersection the team was heading towards, back facing the group and walking towards the armoury too.

They could take cover from the Power Armour's weaponry using the other two directions of the intersection, and they already had the drop on it thanks to having its back to the group, and it hadn't noticed them yet.

This was an advantageous development if there was one, but it wouldn't last long unless they struck suddenly.

The wildcat was first to strike. The head was always fairly well protected, but the neck was a joint and by default less armoured. She leveled her rifle, lined up the sights, and fired twice, hopefully decapitating or incapacitating her target in one go.

Mars would like to smack Merryl, but there way no time for that. Leaving her rifle in her left hand, she fast-drew her M'cell. Aiming just in front of the PA she fired an HE grenade. The hallway can take it, and the team should be far enough. What it will do with the Demon? Well that was different question.

"Get in cover," Mars shouted just before she fired. She herself jumping from the free sight of the Demon.

The funny thing about explosions was that in enclosed spaces, you would hear it. You would definitely hear it, and if that was impossible, you would feel it - in your bones or in your face as the pressure waves bounced off of each surface through the corridor. Until it found a softer surface to dissipate on, it'd continue travelling...

...so far that it got to the ears of the Demon that was pointing its gun at Keib. Its attention dropped and the Type 1 Rifle spun down. Keib could hear the pilot yelling an expletive beneath his helmet, and not broadcasting it to him or the others. Aiesu had an opportunity to strike, while Keib made a sudden interjection for his companions: "DUCK!"

Keib knew that the only pieces of solid, hard cover inside the armoury were the footlockers and the computer terminals. Everything else could be moved around to the Captain's preference. He was hoping that whatever was left in the armoury was at least one set of lockers, one armour rack and at least one computer, because the next refit was either a couple of months away or never going to happen.

Meanwhile, back where the Away Team was, their ears were all ringing in symphony as the cloud of smoke cleared, and they could see a Demon power armour lying face down on the floor - indicating that its pilot was still alive by writhing in pain and openly grumbling about its predicament - having being thumped in the back of the head not once, nor twice, but three times, and the third one was a doozy.

"Oh? He's still alive? I'm fixin' that!" Merril merrily cackled, hardly harried by the chaotic cacaphony thanks to her suit. The wildcat in WIND armor whisked herself to the other PA's position, then lightly hopped and hailed down her foot like a gratuitous guillotine, crushing the man's clavicle and neck nefariously. For good measure, if it wasn't crushed enough, she fired a few point blank rounds.

"Heh, I was surprised he's- was - still rolling around after all we threw at him!" She snickered, shouldering her rifle.

As Keib was crouching down to find hard cover, he could hear the Demon moving into the room and probably preparing to unleash its payload. His biology was starting to go into overdrive. Scanners would've picked up an excess of adrenaline, and excess amounts of cortisol. Cortisol is the biological basis for fear. Vithr screamed, grabbing Shimakage and dropping to the floor. For the three of them, the world seemed to slow down, and their long lives were not flashing before their eyes. Their immediate concerns superseded the sum of their lives. If they died now, their most immediate thoughts would be the last thing they felt, not what they'd leave behind.

Aiesu was unable to feel.

• Radiohead - "Weird Fishes

Slowly, the lumbering thing turned about as the lights flickered off again. Its sensors went active, a dim glow in its eyes as its helmet hung open, almost like a jaw: its ribs like some side-ward jaw, mechanical linkages almost laughing as the thing shook, stabilising itself against involuntary movement: taking its first baby-steps into the world alone. A cracking sound filled the air - armour plating along its arms and back adjusting: split like ripped muscle dislocated and torn as its arms sunk as if on burnt rubber, fists meeting the ground with a deep thwunk of metal, legs limber as the thing grew in slender proportions that would kill a living pilot - exposing silvery plating beneath of its graviton emitters that normally only sung in the fetal position. Bare to the air, they could really work their magic - glistening with specular glistening glistening highlight it hadn't earned from the room - white stripe earned from the room - white stripes through rubbery black and grey metal plating.

The thing gave a guttural growl - wretching audibly - taking a single step toward the Demon.

The Demon armour that'd moved into the room with its Type 1 rifle raised, gave pause as he saw what was before him. He might not have been the brightest bulb in the box, especially when compared to some of the people in this room - but he understood that there were some limitations in the universe - as far as he understood. At that instant, his world view was challenged. Power armours are not supposed to do that! his brain would say. His attention turned from the unarmoured combatants and towards what was before him, shifting the barrel of his rifle towards the lumbering thing.

Behind the Tenshi, the air began to ripple with precision control as the shape of space changed. The thing roared again - the bulkhead behind it buckling as it 'fell' toward the Demon through the air - support-beams of the room crushed, pulling it along at a pace it didn't deserve. It smashed head-first against the Demon - sparks flying.

As the affront to the pirate's senses charged on him, he started firing wildly towards the thing that he could not categorise. The rudimentary and noisy Aether generator and converter on the Demon's back yowled even louder as the Type 1 Rifle begun to spin up.

Keib, meanwhile looked up from where he was lying and his eyes widened again, watching the armour move and sway like an enraged marionette.

Swinging its arm back for power, the thing's hand jutted forward, fingers jamming the weapon's rotary mechanisms - pinning it in place after dislocating the Tenshi's wrist. A slow fizzing sound sung - the revealed innards of the machine beginning to glow like the fires blacksmith's make - almost blinding up close: The performance limiters had been dis-engaged. Any living pilot would have been fried alive - the polymer interior melting, dripping - boiling over the armour of its front in a dull fleshy red. The Tenshi slowly squeezed on the many barrels - fingers like the jaws of life, bringing them closer together, waiting for the sound of that snap as it stared down at the Demon under it with those eyes.

Its own eyes.

The man beneath the Demon was truly afraid for the first time in his life. Whatever he was affronted with simply could not have been, and it was about to end his life. He could be heard panting heavily beneath his armour as he tried to wrestle against something that could not be pinned, dropping his now useless weapon in a fruitless bid to wrestle with a foe that could not be pinned, and could not feel. "Wh-hwhaa..." He was trying to string a sentence together between frantic breaths and a running nose, "are you..."

"Am I...?" a child's voice spoke back in Lorath - repeating 'am' several times - the resolution of the sound glitchy at best. Whoever was there, wasn't actually there.

The rifle shattered in the distorted Tenshi's grip like crushed ice - slabs of metal falling to the ground with piercing thuds. Then the thing did something strange with its right arm: closing the fingers tightly, extending then contracting them into something resembling an ice-pick. It drew the arm back, eyes set on the head of the Demon.

The Demon's pilot raised its right arm to intercept the ice pick as it was rising and attempt to twist the arm away from his body - which it managed with limited success: the Tenshi's arm after the impact impailed into the ground next to the Demon's head. Missed. Something in the Demon's pilot had woken up. Now having come to grips with what was lying on top of him, he headbutted the Tenshi's 'face' and attempted to grapple its midsection and roll over, using the weight of its body, the leverage of a kicking leg and a brief puff of thrust for good measure.

The Tenshi's elbow smashed into the ground as it rolled, shaking the room as it rolled - legs spreading - its right arm still pinned into the floor. The Demon could see clearly now, the musculature beneath the armour - black glistening material pulled thin to its maximum extension like a dislocated crab. The Demon seemed to capitalise on this opening and made a stabbing motion with the points of his fingers into the taut material, attempting to tear it open with sharpened gauntlets.

Several strikes and the rubbery stuff pinged off, darting to meet the impaled glove in the ground at the Tenshi's side - revealing what looked like sinewey muscle or flesh: the inner polymer stretched to breaking. The things left arm rose, hand gripping it and in a single fluid motion - it ripped the complete interior out - gutting itself through its arm in the process as melted polymer plastic flew smoothly from its right wrist, turned inside out.

During this spectacle, the Tenshi butterflied a knee beneath the Demon - a penetrating kick to its gut knocking the thing off, smashing it through an arms cabinet. Something about the Tenshi was angered now as the polymer hit the ground with a slimy thud. Steam rose as it released more inhibitors - the silvery plates a magnesium burn - lighting up the room, blinding. In a smooth motion, the Demon was forced off its feet and smashed through a cabinet, then another before the Tenshi dove after it.

As the Demon regained his senses, he knew that he didn't have enough time to get up, it pulled out a side arm and begun firing at the incoming Tenshi fruitlessly. Rail-propelled rounds from a high-powered, Nepleslian made revolver slammed against it.

The rounds tore through the Tenshi's right shoulder, armour dented, cracked and torn. And then something thick met the neck of the Demon - something warm flowing from the pilot's neck, before he even knew what had happened. The Tenshi had used its torn off hand as a knife.

He kept on pulling the trigger until it went click - all eight rounds fired, and his hand relaxed involuntarily as the pilot lost blood, releasing its grip on the revolver and falling into the rubble beside him.

The last thing the Demon saw was the base of the Tenshi's foot and the strange way the light moved around it - the deck pulled up as its foot came down over the pilot's head - a single fluid motion as his inner display sunk to darkness - and then so did his world.

As the Tenshi's foot came flush to the ground, the thing turned about - those glowing eyes cast on the rest of the room. It was still looking for targets. It lifted its foot away - flesh in thick ribbons of gloop between the sole and the ground as it corrected its balance with a swift hiss and lumbered forward - toward the other occupants.

Keib was against a wall, having recovered the valued pistol of his and aiming it at the Demon. His grip was shaking, and as his eyes met those of the armour - or where they had been - the remains resembling a burger patty, he lowered his gun and indeed, his whole body relaxed. Vithr, meanwhile was still down on the floor with this arm wrapped around Shimakage, trembling quietly.

Keib could be heard making a very slight hiss under his breath towards the armour as he breathed out each time. The tip of his tongue was resting against the back of his front teeth, as though he was about to say something.

The thing drew to a stop - winding its shoulders back smoothly, pushing them beyond the proportions they were meant to be as it issued another scan. Finding nothing, the thing sealed itself up, closing and then shut down - the low hiss and distortion of light about it drawing silent - even the faint burned glow of its eyes gone.

Elsewhere a figure tried to sit up, hissing as if she'd just broken something - cradling her right hand. "Ow-ow-ow..."

Keib was reluctant to move at first, but looked towards the hole in the door of the armoury and saw nobody coming. He leaned forward and rolled onto the balls of his feet before standing up and walking over to Aiesu, squatting down, hands on knees with his pistol in its holster and making one simple observation. "Showoff." He grinned, echoing their previous moments together in the medical bay. He looked at Aiesu's hand and inspected it for any damage.

"I'm fine. But he has a real temper" she said as she rolled her wrist, eyeing the armour that stood, looking particularly proud of itself in that fixed posture. Keib nodded in agreement, eyebrow rasied before his lips curled and he looked towards Aiesu curiously, as though he was looking for an answer.

"The AI onboard. Mantus. It ... Doesn't like being called Tenshi. Refuses to acknowledge that it even is one. Bit of a head-case."

"I thought I recognised it. Al'ris loves its personality since it agrees with her."

"Oh?" Keib nodded his head sideways towards the splattered head of the Demon.

"That wasn't him." Aiesu said quietly, still cradling her wrist, fingers tensing. Pins and needles?

Keib's face drooped and he pursed his lips. He leaned in and held her forearm softly to inspect her wrist, and remembered that the Tenshi had its right arm removed. He laid her arm out and massaged the wrist to stimulate some ... blood flow, and feel out where the problem was.

"Ow... ow... ow..." she winced. "What are you even doing?" she said, starring up at him.

"Your wrist is perfectly fine, but I don't think your brain has come to grips with that just yet." He observed, pointing to the missing right hand on the armour. "Having come from one place to another."

"Very funny" she said. She could still feel the separation from the Tenshi - the thing holding its own severed right in its left.

"If its all the same, I've beaten someone to death with their own arm. They said they could feel it."

"How could you ask, if you beat him to death?" Aiesu smiled, rolling her fingers now.

"Drugs and a little inventiveness with telepathy, really." His voice was casual about the whole affair, perhaps because there was a man whose head looked like mince lying near him. That sight combined with the trauma of the past half hour minutes had thrust his mind back into its old gears.

"I love your imagination," her smile grew, graduating into a smirk.

-

Merril's boot came down on the Demon's neck with extreme prejudice. The strength assistance from the WIND's armour drove the heel of her boot into the Pirate's cervical vertebrae. The presence of smaller plates of armour in the area for the sake of flexibility were working against him now as they crushed the bones and collapsed the throat behind them. Splatters of red darted across the floor, leaking out from the weave in the Armour.

And then she pulled out her side arm and fired a few more rounds at point blank. The weave was already distorted by the stomping foot, and the bullets found their mark easily. If the pilot wasn't dead, they were definitely dead.

Mars shook her head at the display. She put her rifle under her arm and while shaking her head. She broke open her M'cel and loaded a new shell into it. Step by step she walked to the Demon with smile under her helmet. It was a pretty deadly thing to see, though risky.

"Good job Merril," she said, holstering her grenade launcher and taking her rifle back into both hands. "But use your blade next time. You want to keep your distance. You were lucky it was not an artificial being. Nepleslian cyborg or fyunnen would take the explosion much better and would not loose ability to act. If it would grab your feet you would be probably dead by now. But still good job, a kill is a kill!"

"Naw, because then I woulda snapped their neck!" Merril cackled, steppingoff of the metal-covered corpse. "What next?"

"Kill confirmed." The bridge team said to the Away Team. "There should be one more hiding on the ship somewhere. I'll direct Al'Ris, Yar'Mak and Gough to it. The Armoury seems to be clear..." Her last sentence seemed to trail, and the sound of a video rewinding and playing to repeat a certain section of footage could be heard. "Wow... You've definitely got all clear on Armoury. Go." The sheer rawness of what she was seeing again and again fascinated her.

To say Pratma was uncertain of what was going on would not be an understatement. Pratma was not designed to operate quite this far from it's self, and the information overload was giving it a hard time focusing. It clutched the gun it had been handed convulsively. It heard the screaming and the crunching noises and the fighting sounds.

This sounded unpleasantly like the accident that had claimed it's ship. Panicked it began to dash in an ungainly fashion towards engineering! It must! Save! The ship! At all costs!

Mist had been happy to give up point. It wasn't the hit's he had taken or the danger inherent in being the first to make contact with any enemies as much as it was the danger of having Merryl behind him. As much fun as being caught off guard by the third pirate hadn't been it was probably still a safer bet than being in the middle of angry pirates and the bloodthirsty medic.

Having missed his chance to shoot the Demon armor the Lmanel was left looking around when their visitor took off through the corridors of the ship.
"Hey Bastion, Our guest is wandering off kind of quickly. Should I tail them to see what they're after?"

Vathr'dal, trailing behind the others to bring up the rear, heard what Mist had said and agreed. The synthetic was acting rather oddly, and since no one on this ship really understood it, for all anyone knew that thig could be up to no good.

"Mist is right, Bastion. If you want, I can go with Mist to see what the synthetic is doing," offered the pilot.