ZOMBIE FORUMS

"what," the woman asks, "exactly are we waiting for?"

Still leaning on the comfortable sofa, staring at the wood paneled ceiling, wood, woild have been expensive...This Sherm fella's doing alright. Mad answers simply, all the flash and passion seeming to have momentarily gone out of him.

"we wait here for a little while, for things to calm down, or for some kind of a signal from Clay. whichever comes first."


"when we leave, we split up. Sean, you will go to a location i'll give you just before we go, and in a little more privacy.." mad looks at the woman sitting tiredly in the chair. and the Freyan still scribbling in the worn notebook he seems to carry everywhere. "i don't trust either of you yet, strangers. i'm not taking any chances."

"And what makes you think we can't read this information straight out of your head?" the woman replies.

"Mental Training and augmentation. one doesn't work in my line of business, sometimes dealing with very sensitive information without knowing how to keep it protected." Mad's exotic eyes give a flat, lifeless stare at the woman.

"ever heard of the Hindsberg Technique?"

The woman pales, only slightly.The white haired freyan's reaction is a little more extreme, by Freyan stanards, at least. "i...have had some experience with it."

The mercenary on the couch grins, a dark humor curling the corners of his mouth, as the freyan man bends over to pick up the small notebook he's been writing in.. "then be my guest and read me. if you can find the information, withouit clawing at your face, then by hell, you deserve it."

Mad turns back to his cybernetic partner. "you'll go to this location, and meet with a representative of our employers. you'll deliver an update on our progress, and send Clay and i any changes in orders they have for us."

"Amanda, you will go with sean. You, orca, you come with me." Mad adresses this at both the woman in the chair and the blue skinned male.

"And what about you?" Vandal asks madadric. "i do what i'm paid to do. which depends on how things go for Clay. If he fails, or if he dies, we do things MY way."

"The messy way." Amanda states sourly.

"Yep."

OOC: i dunno how you guys are going to get mad's trust..he's a suspicious, paranoid mercenary, and he doesn't trust easily...especially strangers off the street.

The only reason Amanda and Orca are in this room is because he didn't want them anywhere where they could talk with authorities or Rand, or any one of the other factions that would mean trouble for mad, Clay and Vandal. Whilst mad probably won't have any drastic plans for Orca, he may well drug the guy and either tie him to a bed, or shove him on a shuttle off the planet, just for saftey's sake. mad is as yet undecided.


The Hindsberg Technique
The Hindsberg Technique is a mental training techniqe for repelling or confusing telepaths who may try to read one's mind. it takes a very strong mind to master, and can be very unpleasant for telepaths who attempt to read someone using it.

Basically, the telepath will suffer traumatic images and sensations, of the most disturbing nature. these sensations cover all the senses, touch, sound, vision, smell, taste, and are very distressing and unpleasant, even to trained and hardened warriors. learning the technique is a disturbing and arduous task, and the images are planted in a seperate consciousness that runs paralelle to any main though process.

An unexperienced telepath may well suffer convulsions, vomiting, asphyxia, and many other symptoms of an acute anxiety attack. others who have become accustomed to the images and sensations weill still undoubtedly feel nausea, but will still not be able to get past the Hindsberg screen of images.

Many who learn this technique suffer from incredibly horrific night terrors, and must induce dreamless sleep with drugs for any rest, and have their phyche permanently scarred. the practice has officially been prohibited for 30 years.

/OOC

Clay sat back in a chair in the corner of the room that he and Oula and the Neko were being held in.
"Oula, my dear, you really shoud know better than to argue with a drunk pathological liar with delusions of grandeur. He could get you killed trying to get you off planet, sure. He would be glad to do so. But he doesn't plan anything, he doesn't plan for anything. He depends on being young and full of piss to get the job done. He knows nothing more about Adric than that he was in a movie with me. If the boy pushes him he'll be drowned in blood."

He walked two circles around the room thinking before wheeling on Kash.

"You. I don't know who you are, or why you are here. but yopu are along for the ride now and you might as well listen to the rules. Rule One: Pay attention. Rule Two: Don't do anything until I do. Rule Three: Follow my lead and you may get out of here alive."

Before the Neko prizefighter could respond, there was a sudden explosion of noise downstairs followed by the unmistakable sound of gunfire.

Clay put a finger to his lips and crouched behind the door. A man burst in almost immediately, holding a submachinegun, leveled on the room.

"I don't see Allison, just the psychic and a cat!" The man yelled back toward the hall.

"Kill 'em both!" Came the reply

Before the man coiuld reply clay came out from behind the door with a stunner disguised as a pen. As soon as it touched the back of the man's neck he slumped to the floor.

"Goddamn should have seen this coming." Clay growled.

"HEY! I said kll 'em! I know what you're thinkin' and you can get a whore to do that for you on your own time!"

"Right!" Clay shouted back and switched his captuered weapon to single fire and shot the unconscious soldier twice in the back of the head, splattering blood, skull fragments and brain tissue on Oula in the process.

"Hey, conserved ammo for once, I got my camera, we could do some fetish pics of the Freyan while we're here, that'll bring REAL money!"

As the man stepped into the room he lost his mind, against the back wall of the hallway. Clay picked up the extra Submachine Gun and Service Pistol tossed them to Kash, but kept the extra backup magazines.

"That's 30 rounds. Cover our backs. if you need another mag, I'll give it to you."

Clay took the uniform vest and weapons harness from the second man, along with his hat and, miaculously untouched protective glasses. and put them on, his coveralls were close enough to theirs that it didn't matter. there were two grenades each. He gave one to Kash, it was a smoke grenade.

"If I give the order to run, throw it behind us."

After a quick pat-down of the second casualty, Clay found a small holdout gun. Low caliber, no recoil, but a nicely balanced killer if you took the right shots, he gave that to Oula.

"OK, we move."

With Oula scanning for enemies and and telling Clay where they were telepathically, they worked their way through to the side exit, over the dead bodies of nine of the governor's private cops. As he peeked out of the exit. he saw the Thug Squad's assault vehicle. Guarded by one man who had awarded himself a smoke break. He was not paying the exit much attention, so Clay corrected his mistake by stepping out and painting the side of the Humvee with the man's brain.

They entered the Hummer and Clay turned on the radio.

"....favorable turn of events. The new labor accored signed by the governor and the head of the unions met with overwhelming support from the working populace, Ending rumors that Union-Boss Gowalt had lost control to an outsider, that former Earth Military and Terrorists had been hired to take care of the situation. The governor was quoted as blaming the new movie for the rumors and said quote 'Allison and Adric the Mad will not be surfacing here any time soon'..."*Click*

Clay didn't speak at first. he just discarded the almost-empty magazine in his submachinegun and grabbed several more from the back of the vehicle and hung enough grenades on his weapons harness to cause an infntry unit to blink and rethink hostilities.

"OK, I don't like the kid but we both just got fucked over, so I'm going back in to get him out. Lock up the vehicle and wait for me down the street. I need to get some real killing underway."

Pulling up into a small side road, the three got out of the vehicle "alright" Clay started, "I want you with me,..."

"Oula, and no. I'm not going back in there" she said as she removed her coat, revealing the tattoo that rested on her shoulder, Clay looked at it for a moment, and then continued "No, I need you to come with me, you're useful, I can use your..."

"Exactly, use me for your own means as I have been used ever since I got sent down to this planet." She retorted loudly, seemingly gathering up a rage, Clay was silent, "look" she continued, her level voice returning "I know I can be of help, but, well look, I'm covered in what little remains of that man you happily disposed of, and it's beginning to burn"

"Burn?" asked Kash

"Yes, it must be his bloods acidity, to much alcohol, just like everyone else here" as she said this she put the gun Clay had given her into a holder from the vehicle, and wore it. "There must be a hostel near by, or at least somewhere I can clean up. It is too dangerous to go home now, they will both be looking for me now"

"who? The governor and the Union boss? Why would they be looking for you, unless you...shit! He got you to tail me? Fuck, I should have known, shit!" Clay slammed his fist down onto the hood of the large car. After a short silence, ha said "alright, meet me here after you get clean, but make it quick! We don't have much time as it is, and we'll have less when they start coming after us, ok?!" Oula nodded, and turned to the Neko

"You can come with me, I could do with some assistance" the Neko stuttered and nodded, as they left, Clay got back into the car, mumbling as he caned the engine, and roared off down the way they came.

After Clay tore off down the road, Kash turned to Oula.

“Shall we then?” Kash said with a wave towards what appeared to be a slightly more urban part of town up the road. As they walked the in silence Kash kept his mind a blank as possible, preferring not to think about his plans till he could have a place to sit and get a drink. After a short walk they arrived at what appeared to be a decent looking hotel. After entering Kash told Oula he would wait in the lounge while she got cleaned up, and they parted company for a few minutes.

“Ok, what now.” Kash thought to himself, “A fine job of keeping the peace this turned out to be; now I got the feds and the Union boss after me as well.”

His Lokist compatriot cut in. “I would suggest retrieving your equipment and transportation from orbit.”
Kash nodded to himself, and without responding went to the main desk and asked to use the phone, The Lokist hacked through the lines and gained a Sat. uplink, which it used to transmit the proper codes to Kash’s ship, the “Mourning Star”. Kash hung up the phone and got a drink from the bar before finding a place to sit and wait for Oula to come back down.

“Well then now that we took care of that, how about I sit back and relax a bit no?”

“There is one more thing I would like to do. The Lokist quipped.

Kash sighed, “And what is that?”

“Activate the Psi-dampener; you are traveling with a telepath now.”

Kash shook his head. “No, no, no, that thing gives me a killer headache, not that you care.”

“A headache is a small price to pay to keep someone out of your head.” The Machine retorted. “Besides remember your Clans motto: From nothing, we gain everything…and From nothing…we still…Rise!”

Kash laughed. “As if you care about Clans and family anyway, what you’re saying is a headache is nothing if it allows me to rise above the situation and gain and edge?”

“Exactly” Kash grinned, “Then Do it.”

Kash popped his neck as he felt a slight pressure build up in his sinuses, as the Psi-dampener warmed up.


Unknown to Kash, above the planet in high orbit, as his cloaked shuttle left the bay and began descending to the rendezvous point; another ship not unlike Kash’s picked up the ships trail and identified it. In that ship a Neko Smiles broadly as the ships AI alerts him to the discovery. Then he speaks.

“It’s been 5 years…but finally, after all that time, I have found you.”

The Neko stands and walks toward the ships shuttle bay, and slaps her clawed hand against the bulkhead above the bridge. The Inscription Reads: “Alea iacta est”

Vandal was growing bored. Absently scratching his chin where a small growth of beard had begun, he began to pace, his eyes staring off at nothing in particular, his lips moving slightly as he mumbled to himself.

"Mad, I'm starting to get a might curious. We havn't heard jack shit from Clay yet. And no explosions cries of 'kill the outsider', or anything like that either. What the hell is goin on in there.... " It was a rhetorical question, knowing that no one in the room could answer him. With a sigh he slumped down into a chair, slipping a small handheld device from one of them any pockets on his outfit, soft beeps sounding as he pushed the buttons.

"Negotiations take time, vandal...we may not hear a yae or nay for a few days yet...we'll wait here for another hour or so befor...." The mercenary stops, as has most of the other occupants of the room, straining with their ears, and other senses to pick up something happening outside the room.

When Luci picks up on the new vibes in the room, she goes to speak, but mad silences her with a finger to his lips.

Using hand signals, Mad tells Vanmdal to go with Amanda and Orca, and get out of here and go right down the hall iutside, mad and luci wiould go left.

Pulling a handgun and from his shoulder holster, Mad inches up to the door listening, straining his ghenetically enhanced hearing to it's limits. his ears may not be as good as the Neko's is rumoured to be, or Vandal's digital enhancements, but it's better than many human's, by a good degree.

Still it is Vandal who warns him, a split second before he hears the click of the detonator, to get back from the door, as the small charges blow the hinges and lock, and it falls into the room, closely followed by a smoke grenade.

Silently cursing to himself, mad tries to squint through all the smoke, and spot the first figure coming through the door. Despite the smoke, all seven bullets that are fired by various membwers in the room find their mark, and the would-be attacker slumps down onto the fallen door.

Closely behind him, a short hail of bullets flies through the opening, hoping to tag one or more of it's occupants.

OOC: i have the other half of this post done, which i have posted in the OOC thread for reference, but it's really only an intention, if you guys want to take this battle in another direction or do something with your characters, go for it. Basically my only real goal is to get mad and luci by themselves and out of here, how it happens isn't to much of a worry. /OOC

Vandal fired a second three round burst through the door, his machine pistol kicking in recoil. Dropping back from the return fire, a small clink at his feet was all that gave him time to see and recognise the small device thrown into the room.

"Screamer!"

The device exploded a fraction of a second later, his sensory devices trying in vain to kick into defensive mode. The screamer exploded, inundating the room with a blinding flash of light, accompanied by it's trademark high pitched shriek, enough to deafen the unguarded temporarily. The synthesized mental shriek was at least as bad for the mentally sensitive.

Crying out in response, the cyborg triggered his pistol again, having no clue if he had struck anything in the process. Staggering half blind, bursts of static and snow randomly blinding his now single eyed vision, Vandal's cybernetic hand clamped onto a wall anchored shelf, containing a number of heavy books the proprieter would more than likely be very pissed if anythign should happen to them. A shove and a jerk tore the shelf from the wall, sending it toppling in front of the door, forming an effective if only temporary barrier to entrance.

The wall next to him was empty, though to be truthful he wasn't sure which wall it was, or where it would lead. Firing a last burst towards the door, he palmed a small device in his left hand, slapping it against the wall. On impact, four small devices stretched outward from the device, clamping down to the wall, each at a poistion diagonal frmo the center, forming a perfect square. Red light blazed out to form a connection, completing the sides of the square. A burning sound and smoke was next, soon followed by the chunk of wall falloing outwards, a perfect square cut completely through.

Still hampered by smoke and static, Vandal pushed someone through the opening, unsure of who it was, soon following them with a most likely unheard yell for the others to follow as he stepped into the unknown.

"Assholes," Amanda muttered under her breath, drawing a black .45 from her jacket and discharging three bullets before the the oncomer could get a single shot off. She was firing off more rounds into the smoke, being careful that they went over the heads of Madadric and Luci instead of into them, when the "screamer" was thrown into the room. Her hyperalert senses were assaulted by the overload of visual and audio stimulus, and that was nothing compared to the scream she heard in her head. The whole world seemed to shake, and Amanda, purposely or not, dropped to her knees, her hands over her head, doubled over in pain. The scream only lasted a moment or two, and she heard a crash and a yell. Her gray-blue eyes peered through the smoke, and she saw someone coming up behind the debris that had been thrown at the entrance. The red line of a laser-sight broke through the foggy air, and passed over her, centering on Vandal as he had his back turned, where the last bullet had come from.

Muttering something incoherent, she took aim and fired a bullet right between the eyes of the anonymous figure, and pulled herself to her feet. She made her way over to where Vandal stood by the wall, no sooner to be indignantly hurried through an opening created by the small cutter he'd had.

Fumbling in the darkness, Amanda groped for the wall. Her ears were still ringing, her eyes unadjusted to the dark, and her head ached. She moved along the stone cut wall, leading herself and Vandal, and whoever else had followed.

Clay encountered little resistance as he entered the building and little difficulty in finding Rand. He and a few of his loyalists had made it to a repair bay And were pinned down by heavy fire behind several large engines and other heavy equipment. The "Cause" loyalists were only lightly armed and poorly trained for this sort of thing.

Things had been going well for the governor's bully boys up until Clay arrived.

Then they got decidedly ugly.

Clay appeared from behind and killed nine of them before they realized where the fire was coming from. Three more scrambled for cover into fire from Rand and his men Clay shot the last three down as they ran for a side exit. It was all over in less than a minute.

"I'm calling for a truce for now, kid!" Clay yelled from behind cover.

"The old union boss and the governor struck a deal behind our backs and decided to kill us both and anyone nearby to cover up any embarrassment. We've been fucked over and we have other enemies to worry about right now. The new labor agreement was popular enough you've lost most of your support. I suggest we payback those we owe and get off this fucking rock in short order."

Vandal followed behind quickly, his pistol covering the area behind him to take out any followers. Oddly enough, none showed up. Someone should have showed up to at least attempt to pursue them, yet none did. Something must have happened to them. He only hoped it was madadric, and the man was safe.

Catching up to Amanda, he looked around them, shifting his sight into a few other spectrums, seeing with a monocular vision for the moment.

"You have any clue where we are now? Didn't hav enough time to check out all the maps of this town, and most of em were crap anyways, from what I could tell."

He glanced over at her, noting how bad she was starting to look. Still spotted with blood and cuts from the bar fight before, now covered in dust from the collapsed wall and the old passage they followed.

"How's your head? You doin ok?"

Amanda just shook her head to his first question; she had no idea where they were. She hadn't had any idea in the first place where she was going when she had fled from the gang of thugs that had attempted to assault her. "No, but I think there's another door up ahead. Unless this passage is just a dead-end, which I doubt..."

They continued to follow the old corridor for a few moments when the silence was broken by yet another question.

"How's your head? You doin ok?" Vandal asked, a tone of concern in his voice.

The blonde pilot nodded simply without looking back. "Yea, yea I'm fine," she responded. "It can all heal."

The next while passed in further dark, silence, though she was not worried of anything sneaking up on them, not with her hearing and Vandal's multi-spectrum sight, not to mention that she would have recognized the presence of another person in her mind; she would have picked it up.

They did eventually come to another door, and Amanda tested it before swinging it open. It required a good kick - the hinges were rusted shut - but it opened, and put them in front of a gray building - the same building Rand and Clay were currently battling their asses off inside of, but she didn't know that. Beyond the building she saw the hangar where her ship was. "This is not cool, this is not cool at all," she said as a few bullets flew out of the windows from the upper floors in the building.

She turned to Vandal, "My ship is in that hangar over there. I'm going to it, you can come with me or you can stay here." She waited for his response.

Vandal gave her a long look, collecting his thoughts, deciding the best course of action. Finally, he nodded, coming to a conclusion. He only hoped it was the right one.

"Alright, I'll come with you. I can probably do more from up there than down here anyways. I'm not a soldier, no matter what I look like."

Glass shattered above them as the sound of automatic weapons fire echoed through the small street. Still carrying weapons in hand, the two of them moved down the alley, taking scant cover when debris fell from above. It wasn't long before they made the hangar, ducking inside, Vandal covering their retreat as Amanda went to the ship.

They moved towards the edge of the city, after which only half a mile of painfully wide open space stood between the hangar and the duo. The sound of weapons firing reverberated off the buildings of the alleyway, and they both knew the sounds were getting closer. They got closer still to the edge of the city, after which their cover of broken down buildings would end, and they'd be out in the clearing for the half mile sprint to the hangar. The sound of bullets firing and men's voices came nearer, and Amanda reached out and grabbed Vandal's shoulder. Triggering the teleportation device with a mere thought, the two of them disappeared just as a spray of bullets ripped by.

They reappeared just inside the hangar, not thirty feet away from Amanda's looming ship. The words "Star Breaker" were written in massive letters across the silver hull of the ship. Amanda reached around towards her back and pulled back, her fingers covered in blood, simultaneously her grip on Vandal's shoulder increased alot, until she at last released him. Exhaling deeply, she walked, with some degree of pain, alongside Vandal to the side of the ship. "Lower main hull ramp," she commanded, and from what appeared to be seamless, a ramp lowered, leading to a white door bordered by a silver frame and a keypad. She tapped a few keys on the pad, held the last button and gave a command, activated by voice recognition. "Open main deck door, start main thrusters." The door slid open with an automatic sound and the two went inside.

Once inside the cockpit, Amanda sat down in the pilot's seat and punched in some commands on one of the several keyboards, several windows popping up on the transparent screen that was adjacent to the front window view of the ship. "Raise main hull ramp, secure hull, activate shields at 100%. Prepare Mach-XX Boosters," Amanda gave lists of orders to the ship's computer, all of which were complied with instantly. In short order, the ship was out of the hangar, and safe in orbit. "We can wait, from here... if Madadric or Clay show up, we can get them... we don't have to leave, now, but we had to get out of immediate harm's way... no good dead." She said, standing up from the chair and walking over to her desk. She peeled her dirty jacket off, revealing the bullet wound in her left shoulder, and the radius of blood that surrounded the circular tear in her shirt. She held up her leather jacket and stuck her finger through the bullet hole. She seemed more concerned with the decrepit state of her jacket than the wound.

Stretching her left arm, she winced. "Owowowow, that's deep," she muttered. Opening the drawers of her desk, she searched for something, and then found it. It was a surgical tool, for removing... foreign objects, basically. She set it on the desk and then retrieved something else, a small gel cap. She threw it back into her mouth and swallowed it; apparently, some kind of heavy-duty pain reliever. Reaching over her shoulder, she attempted to remove the bullet; unfortunately, she could only stretch so far, and the bullet had hit her shoulder in such a way she couldn't reach it directly, as deep as it was. Reluctantly, she asked for help; not because of who she was asking, but just because she didn't like to be dependent.

"Sean," she said, addressing him for the first time since they had reached the ship. "Help me." She gestured for him to come over from his seat with a nod of her head, and held up the small device. "Press, it closes, release, it opens." Shrugging, she handed it to him. "It's fairly... ah, deep in there," she informed him as she turned around, exposing her back to him as he stood there, a little awkwardly, holding the device like it was a dead fish. She pulled her blonde hair out of the way and put her hand on the edge of the table - so she could grip it when it really began to hurt.

Having to step quickly to keep up with the human mercenary's quick, efficient strids, luci moves at a half-run, looking at the strange man and their surroundings slightly fearfully. She'd known her boss, sherm had been a part of some dangerous bussiness, but it had all seemed abstract until urban warfare had broken out right there in the pub.

it had been terribly frigtening, and her ears were still ringing from the loud noises and shots, but it had also been somewhat exhilirating to be so close to danger, and escape alive.

Suddenly the mercenary changes direction down a dirty little street, and through a door that looks like all the other doors on the street.

once the two are inside, Mad locks the door, and moves swiftly about the small, single room, collecting the bags and equipment He and Clay had not even had the opportunity to unpack.

The freyan girl starts when mad speaks, his grim, buissness like tone sending small shivers down her spine. "Luci, i need you to get someone your boss trusted to deliver most of this stuff and yourself to a private dock. i need you to get all this gear on the shuttle waiting there, and then i need you to prep the infirmary for treating bullet wounds and a severed limb."

the man stops for a moment and turns to her. The look in his genetically altered eyes is one of the most disturbinmg the cosmopolitan girl had seen in her entire life, eyes full of racing activity, something wild and barely kept in check. like a wild animal that's about to fight the girl thinks to herself.

"do you think you can do this?" the man says, his voice not showing any of the feral activity in his eyes, and sounding somewhat calm, and even warm to a point.

The girl hesitates for a moment, her mind racing to keep up with all that had happened. part of her just wants to shut down, curl in a ball, and cry till it all goes away, but she hadn't travelled as much as she had, and survived for so long by dumb luck.

Drawing on a quiet well of strength, the girl nods firmly, the look she returns to the frightening killer solemn. then a though strikes her.

"but why do you trust me? you made it pretty clear you didn't trust that woman with the blonde hair, and you left Orca lost back in those streets somewhere." Luci feels some regret over this. Orca had been one of the few of her people that had treated her as a person, and not some handicapped cripple. he had always been frienly nd warm to her, and she would miss the fellow quite a bit.

Madadric returns to packing up the gear and putting it near the door, leaving some equipment seperate, which he then starts arming himself with. Two medium calibre pistols, 4 clips of ammo, a compact fully atomatic shotgun, with two clips of rounds, several types o grenade, four knives, and a short, wide sword made of a swtrange metal, with a pattern on the blade that resembles two liquids mixing.

"i trust you because of who you worked for. that man had been a part of the organizations i'd worked for before i was caught. a great part of their honor code is based around professionalisim and not conflicting interests of clients. you wouldn't work for such a man if he didn't think you would work with those ideals in mind."

luci thinks about this as the mercenary places a compact set of goggles on his forhead, puts a small device in an ear, and then puts what looks like a med-patch on his throat. Sherm had often talked about what the people he'd fought with had stood for, individuality, loyalty to those you fought with, honor for those you fought against, and not switching sides because all of a sudden the other team offered you more money. A lot of what the old man had affected her deeply, and she had come to respect his ideals as though they were her own.

"okay then."

"good." Mad says, throwing a large, obscuring overcoat on and hiding the goggles under an old earth-style baseball cap. "here is the address for our shuttle, here is the entry code, and here's some Tyrian Credits to pay for your delivery."

Luci looks at the wad of cash. "this is too much."

"that's also your pay. i'm your client now, and i expect the utmost professionalisim." Mad grins as he says this, an infectios grin that the girl can't help joining in on.

"done, then!" she responds, and sticks her hand out for the human custom of shaking. Still grinning, the mercenary shakes it.

"then i'm going. Clay sent me the trigger, but the signals aren't what i was expecting from him. it looks like thaere's more going on here that most people suspected, and some of our employers are playing dirty."

With that, the mercenary unlocks the door, and exits, locking it behind him. Luci doesn't wasre any time calling Hammond, a courier that Sherm had used almost exclusively, and someone she not only trusted, but liked.

______________________


Moving quickly through the streets on foot, mad stretches unnoticably , getting used to the tight feeling as his lightweight Hard Skin armour warms up. It'd been hell wearing it all day on this hellhole of a rock, but he's glad that he had. it'd meant he was ready for this all the quicker.

they've moved faster than i thought they would. this little counter-coup seems like something my employer would want as a cover and explaination for Jaeron Rand's 'assassination", and it'll help the martydom they seem to want. this isn't only going to shake up BCIII, it's going to have repurcussions all over the system, maybe even reach Collective space...

Mad shakes his head again at the instructions that his second employer, the one Clay himself didn't know about.

i hope their information was accurate...i hate when jobs go south like this.

a short time later, the mercenary is climbing onto the roof of a building near where fighting can be heard, and before jumping, Mad takes a second to note the complete lack of policing authorities in the vicinity.

oh yeah, this goes a LONG way up.

And then, without further hesitation, the mercenary pulls the pin on a smoke grenade, and lobs it into the second story window of the building, lowering his goggles, and switching them to IR mode, before he throws aside the cumbersome coat and leaps through the wondow, rolling along the glass=strewn floor and coming to a stop with the NeoDamascus sword in his hand. turning on the comm equipment, in his ear and on his throat, mad mutters.

"Clay this is mad. what the hell is going on? where are you, and is the boy there?"

Walking out of the shower room, Oula smiles and nods politely to the attendant behind the desk, as she makes her way towards Kash, pulling the hair from insider her coat, and straightening the belt holster, now worn as a shoulder strap, she looks at the Neko and says, "I will be so relieved when I finally get away from here, hmm" she smiles "I can't remember the last time I saw a body of water larger then a cup. We should...go..." Her voice trails off slightly as she looks at Kash with an odd, quizzical look.

"Hmm, uh, yeah sure, lets go. Are, you ok?" he asked as he got up

"oh, nothing, it's just, I was reminiscing, ahem" she turned away and began for the exit

he has gone silent, how? He was emitting when we got here, what has changed?

"We have to meet Mr. Allison where we were before, although, the wait may prove slightly hazardous we will have to be careful"

Kash nodded to the Freyan as they exited the building, and were met with people running in the streets, with smatters of conversation reaching them, it seemed a man hunt was on. "This is bad, they're looking for Allison and his companions, but not us luckily enough..."

Keeping close the buildings and off the main roadways, they began to make their way back toward the rendezvous point.

…Kash Smiled as Oula returned, nice and clean from her shower, and looking a little less worn. He also noted the odd look on her face for a moment.

“Well it seems to be working then.” Kash thought to his Companion. The computer simply gave him a long explanation of how Lokist technology always works…blah blah blah. Kash tuned him out as he followed Oula from the Building.

As they walked through the streets of the City everything was indeed in a hustle, guards, Union men, and what looked like G-men in their suits were running all over the place, looking for someone. As they approached the rendezvous point Kash cut off the Lokist in his ramblings.

“Well it seems it has all gone to hell here, I say we get off this rock.” Kash thought. “What’s the ETA on my shuttle?”

The Lokist responded: “Yes we should get off the ground at least…you shuttle will arrive at the designated point 3 minutes after you do.”

Kash grinned as he stopped in the middle of the Cross roads they had left Clay’s company at. Stretching he turned to Oula.

“It seems Clay has gotten himself into a lot of trouble.” Said Kash. “I doubt he will be by to pick us up.”

Oula simply nodded at this, still disturbed by the fact he was not putting out anything.

Kash continued, “As such, I have arranged transportation, it will be here soon.”

Kash popped his neck as he looked around, he hadn’t arranged his shuttle arriving with this in mind but it seemed to be a fine turn of events. Looking back at Oula he spoke.

“You know you could just ask, instead of staring at me oddly.” Kash said with a wry grin.

Vandal nodded, taking the instrument from her hand. He sighed as he cycled through a number of visual modes, finally finding one that allowed him to see the exact position of the bullet. Man.. why couldn't this be a mchine.. not exactly used to working on humans... or whatever.

"Alright, here we go. "

The small device fit inside the bullet wound, stretching the flesh around it. The microprocessors inside his left arm kept the limg and device steady, making it as precise as was possible. Vandal could see te two metal objects next to each other as one widened slightly to slip around the projectile. He could feel her body shaking from the pain as he let his left hand grip her shoulder, to keep her from jumping, and hopefuly as some kind of support.

A trickle of blood flowed freely down her back as the instrument emerged, red and silver, mixed in a morbid reminder of a blade being drawn from flesh. He felt her stumble slightly at the last jerk of pain as it was free of er back. But her own strength shown through as she caught herself before he had to.

Metal clattered against the desk as he dropped the device and bullet to the surface, the pulling a small cylinder of a gel like substance from his leg pocket, popping the top with his teeth, still holding her shoulder with his bare flesh hand. The substance smeared on easily, seeming to evaporate in no time, the skin cooling on contact. The bleeding was stopped now as the anasthetic/antibiotic/coagulant took effect, leaving only a nasty looking hole.

Releasing his grip, he stepped back. feeling somewhat uncomfortable as he spoke. "Alright, it's out.. and clean too... had a tube of SliceFix on me, have to, running around with those two all the time. Still hurt?"

"To be completely truthful, I am concerned that you have somehow managed to block your natural mental emissions, not that it's really my concern, but it indicates there is more to you than meets the eye, sir, and this worries me as it seems that you do not trust me to be near you" she turned from him an crossed her arms, silence ensued for a moment until she cocked her head and turned toward him again "transport?"

The timing of this couldn't have been better timed as above came a ship into view. Almost dropping to the ground in complete shock Oula stared up at the ship, as it lowered into the middle of the empty cross roads, as Kash walked towards it a entrance opened and he put a foot inside "yes" he said simply, "now come on, you wanted to get away from here, didn't you? We can wait for Clay in orbit" feeling light headed, Oula tried to contemplate the speed at which all this was happening, "but, we, no, I uh.." she breathed uncomfortably, as she started to hyperventilate she fell against the wall of a building nearby, steadying herself with a hand, Kash came over to aid her, but she pushed him away. Kash moved more as a gesture, rather than by the punitive force for which the Freyan did the action. Recollecting herself, she stood up straight, "I, I am sorry, this is, more sudden than I had anticipated" Sighing loudly she turned and looked up at the Neko "we cannot leave yet"

"Why not?" the Neko asked sternly, making sure the impromptu landing of his shuttle wasn't drawing undue attention "Allison said he was going to kill the governor, I need to see him before he dies, he has some information which is valuable, to me, at any rate" Oula looked at the ship, more, she looked at the symbols that lined it's hull "those..." she turned to look at the Neko again, "we have much to discuss, you and I" she said flatly "but for now, we find Governor, before Allison does"

Kash Smiled as he nodded his head at Oula.

“Indeed we do, come along.”

With this Kash turned on his heels and entered his shuttle, as Oula followed him forward he made a quick command to his Lokist.

“De-activate Psi-Dampener” The computer, for the first time today did not protest and simply complied. Kash sighed in relief as the pressure in his sinuses lessened. He then turned to Oula.

“Since you have trusted me with your life…I’ll trust you with the truth.”

Kash then proceeded to give his orders mentally to the shuttle for take off via his Lokist.

Oula was slightly confused by what she read. Kash seemed to be doing a flight check in his head, but the system was responding. Also a faint echo of what would seem to be another being seemed to emanate from Kash’s mind. As the ship took off Kash took a seat, and then waved Oula to sit.

“This ride can be a little rough.” Said Kash. “Engage flight plan!” He commanded.

The ship lifted off, quickly as it had came, and as it got to altitude in a manner of seconds its cloaking device engaged. Kash waited for this, then satisfied turned his attention back to Oula, well then, where shall we begin?

"Lets talk about you, and Lokists" Oula started

"Alright" kash said slighlty uneasy, he had never talked openly about them before, "Are you, a colony, or a host" she asked sensing the latter yielded a natural block from him "a host" he answered. Oula nodded and scanned slightly deeper into his mind, "interesting, you're somewhat of an anomaly, Kash, on that demands many questions, and study"

Sensing the secondary signal from his mind, she began to realise that the same signal emanated from all around her "how, many are there?" she asked looking around uncomfortably "ha, too many if you ask me"

"How, though, I mean, I have heard of it been tried before, with some, disturbing results as I have heard" Kash's mind frame changed, as a blackness swirled through it "that's a story for another time, I think"

"Indeed" she replied, not wanting to press the issue too much "they speak to you I take it"

"All the time, incessant chatting and nonsense information most of the time"

"Hmm" Oula mused. Continuing to look around, she saw a panel "would, you mind?"

"Uh, sure" Kash nodded to it, and it turned on. The image revealed on of the planet that they were now orbiting. Oula stared at it solemnly "strange, for three years, I’ve wanted to get away from there, but now, I feel the need to get back." she continued to stare at the screen "can you locate the governor from here?"

"No, any aggressive scanning would show us up on sensors, but we can receive" Kash flicked a few controls "I found Clay, they're reporting his location. If we wait, we could find the governor when he does"

"By then, it could be to late"

“Aside from going back down and looking ourselves, this is the best alternative.”

“Your right” she replied looking down “Kash?”

“Yes?”

“Can, can I ask the lokists to do something for me?”