ZOMBIE FORUMS

Amanda gritted her teeth, her hands tightening around the edge of the table as Vandal removed the bullet. Her eyes were clenched shut, tight, and she had to keep herself from moving when the device stretched the flesh to grip the bullet to remove, and she was noticeably trying to control her breathing to prevent it from becoming pained, sudden, or erratic. When it was finally freed, she arched her shoulders and nearly collapsed on the table from the intensity of the pain. She still shook, even after Sean applied the tube of multi-purpose substance to the wound. The blood that trickled down her back felt cold, and hot at the same time.

When Vandal stepped back, she leaned her head forward against the drawers above the desk and tried to get her breathing back into some kind of regularity. The answer to her companion's question seemed to go without saying. "Thanks..." she managed to respond wearily in a controlled voice. She winced around the words, "I... I'm gonna go change... if anything happens, just yell." Favoring the left side of her body, she walked to the rear of the cockpit, and down the steps that led into the living chambers. Peeling the bloody shirt off, she tossed it into a basket, where sat other dirty articles. Laundry day loomed near...

She turned, and looked in the mirror at her nasty wound. "Ugh..." she muttered, and walked to some more drawers to grab some gauze. Carefully, she wrapped the wounded shoulder, and then pulled another shirt from a hanging closet, pulling it over her head with some difficulty, as she was only using one arm.

Vandal watched her go, vanishing into the other room. turning away, he looked about the cockpit, familiarising himsef with it's layout and control system, realising it's worth immediately. Far supserior to what heh ad worked on and used before meeting up with Clay, and in a lot of ways, ever. All in all a good setup, easily piloted by a single person. He itched to tap into the machine's sensor units so that he could maybe figure out where Clay was, or even find a relay he could use to link to a satellite comms system, and eavesdrop in on the govt comms. Might take a bit to find the exact channel they'd be broadcasting on, but he was fairly certain he could hack the city force's comms without anyone knowing, let alone tracking it. Of course, that might not help him, but it was always a chance.

CLay scaled the side of the Governor's Headquarters easily the gravity on B-C III was only .84 G and there were plenty of handholds. He found a window into a deserted office on the correct floor and cut it open, gluing it back in place with transparaglue after he slipped in. He watched the security personnel go by on their rounds and realized that there were only two security guys on this floor, the rest were concentrated on the lower levels. Clay slowly twisted the office doorknob and waited, as the patrol man walked by the next time, Clay's hand snaked out and touched the back of his neck with one of his microstunners. the man wouldn't wake for another 12 hours. Just to be courteous, though, Clay handcuffed the man with his own cuffs. Better not to have people think you had decided to take a nap. Clay hoped the man was grateful.

The central contro for the security system was on this floor as well, Clay thanked whatever divine force was in charge of these things for that at least. The god of stupidity he decided. He gained entrance with the sleeping guard's security card and entered. The security technician was obviously bored, leaning on one arm and tapping half-heartedly at the keyboard.

"Any legendary heroes out there?" She asked? "I swear the old man has gone looners lately, like a man out of the firggin' movies is gonna bust in the fron door with a tank and start blastin'. Big wasta en..."

"No legends lady," Clay whispered as he lowered her unconscious body to the floor and handcuffed her. "Just me, and that''s more than enough."

In a few seconds he bypassed all external security and sent a loop of the last 45 minutes of video from the Gov's office to all other SecStations.

These two weren't due for relief for another 6 hours. That would be more than enough time.

Clay strolled to the governor's office in his security uniform vest and opened the door, tossing in an EMP grenade ahead of him to disable any panic devices the Gov had. Followed immediately by a flssh minigrenade to blind him and keep him from doing something stupid. Clay's vision blacked out for the briefest instant as his goggles reacted to the overabundance of light.

The governor was blindly pressing an alarm button that was doing nothing, Clay broke his finger.

"Sit down governor, we have to talk."

Kash arched an eyebrow at this.

“Ask them to do something for you?”

Oula nodded.

Kash pondered the question for a moment then shrugging he spoke.

“I don’t see why not, I mean if it’s nothing the good Doctor doesn’t mind doing I don’t see that there’s a problem.

It was Oula’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

“The what?”

Kash sighed and then spoke.
“Well the way I figure it if I’m going to talk about the Lokist I might as well call them something else, so that it won’t raise suspicion in the future. So I’m going to call them “The Doctor” or “Doc” or maybe “Strangelove.” Kash grinned as he said this last name.

Oula simply shrugged and nodded In agreement.

Then the Doctor spoke: this time through the shuttles Speakers.

“There seems to be something amiss at the Governors HQ.” came the computers synthesized male voice.

Kash wheeled to face the, main display. “What you say!”

The Computer displayed lines of code, and Kash sighed.

“That doesn’t help me, what does it mean…in English.”

The computer paused for a second and then spoke again.

“There seems to be a feedback loop playing, I had previously hacked this system when you brought up the Governor but now all I am getting is a loop.”

Kash cursed under his breath. So much for a break now.

“Right, engage cloak, engage engines at Max. Make for the Gov. HQ at fastest possible time.”

As the computer did this Kash began to walk to the back of the shuttle. Keying open a door near the rear of the shuttle he stepped through, Oula followed him, at the least to see what he was doing, the sight that met her eyes astounded her for a moment; the entire room was covered in what appeared to be Milspec. Heavy weapons of varying design. She had never seen so many amassed in one place, much less by someone who claimed to be a mere boxer. Kash looked over his shoulder and with a rakish grin said.

“Well dear I wasn’t always a boxer.” And then chuckled to himself as he went about his preparations.

Struggling the clean shirt on, she sat down on her bed, and leaned against a propped up pillow, closing her eyes and breathing carefully. One of her genetically controlled enhancements had been heal time, as well as resistance to pain, but hell, getting shot can slow anyone down, even someone with such advantages as she had. She moved a little, repositiioning herself to get more comfortable, and then groaned, as she had accidentally put unwanted pressure on her arm.

Sighing, she stood, and walked over to a sink and mirror and threw some cold water on her face, scrubbing away dirt and blood, and peering at herself in the mirror. She grabbed some clean pants from her closet and changed into them, collapsing on her bed afterward... she was exhausted, and Vandal would let her know if anything went wrong, or if he saw anything... She winced at the pain in her shoulder, and readjusted herself as to minimize it.

Her blonde hair falling around her face, over her neck and cascading down her pillow, she closed her eyes, and rested herself for a little while.

A short while later, Vandal began to worry a bit. Only to find out that Amanda had dropped off to sleep. Shruggin, he decided it best to let her sleep, and returned to the cockpit, taking a seat. In his thoughts, he began to wonder about mad and Clay, various scenarios going through his head. Everything from Clay being blown away by the governor's troops, to the lot of them being caught in the middle of a full scale anarchic revolt. Sighing, he began studying the layout and equipment of the ship more thoroughly, finally deciding it best to access the survielance equipment, and diagnostics in case he had to get this thing moving in a hurry. After a few moments of searching, he finally found what he needed, a port jack. Designed to to be used with large diagnostic equipment, it was also a way to access things from an external control, incase something had happened to the main controls. Not something you could use to pilot the ship of course, but accessing information from the computer's system was a snap.

Pushing back his left shirt sleeve, Vandal slid back a small cover on the inside of his forearm. From inside, he extracted a small metal device, attached to a thin wire running back into the arm. Plugging the device was al lthat was neccesary, and he was connected. Closing his right eye, he could see iconic images of programs and files, and systems. Soon, he was sorting through them quickly, as only an experienced tech can do, his hands moving as if conducting an orchestra as he slid and pulled and pushed the icons about, reading and understanding them.

Eventually, he came upon an odd thing. It was a link, to an off ship system. Oddly enough, it was also not a normal link, but a backdoor, made to be able to access the system covertly. His natural curiosity aroused, Vandal poked inside, to see what he could see. The information inside was fascinating. Information stored by the ton. Much of it secret, none of it things he should have been able to access. But between the already existent pathway, and his own technical knowledge and skill, he was inside the Collective's system. And some amazing things he learned therein....

Obviously this backdoor into the Collective's main system was something that had been labored over; the Collective security system was increasingly becoming more secure, more exclusive, and more secretive, but one way or another Amanda had configured her computers to have all - but ALL - access into the system.

Wandering around with free will, bypassing all security checks and invisible to the rovers that sniffed out hackers in the system, Vandal made his way deeper and deeper into the "Classified" sections of increasing restriction. As the text rolled across his vision, one file folder caught his eye. "root/CLASSIFIED/Amanda d'Selvaryn : MISSING". Curious, he clicked on it, and it opened up an elaborate file on the genetic experiment that came to be the girl that slept in the other room. It started out with her basic information, blood type, date of creation (not birth), et cetera. Then it became more elaborate and equally more strange, with the alterations her genes had experienced and the effects they had had on her, along with a detailed explanation of her gifted abilities. It chronicled every fact about her up until the age of 15, including pictures and video clips and audio waves, when it ended abruptly with "D'Selvaryn has escaped; she has disappeared. All efforts have been put into retrieving her with no avail. Despite all our hopes, she was still more human than anything, and still had a free will. We could not control her. She has disappeared." And then the file ended.

Clay sat on the chair opposite the governor's desk and covered the governor with his pistol.

"Governor, I must say I am dissapointed in you. If you wanted us to dissapear, you could have bought us off for a small part of our contract. Now you are paying double."

Clay had rigged the automatic transfer to pay out the entire contract to both him and mad, both into his private accounts on Frey.

"It would be a good thing for you that I don't believe in killing over a think like this."

The governor visibly relaxed.

"It WOULD be good, except something else has come to my attention that makes it a moot point."

The governor bleached white. "N-no. p-p-please!"

"The Freyan girl." Clay continued darkly, voice like a frozen sea.

"Wh-what?!"

"Did you know that exploitation of an intelligent extraterrestrial is a violation of the Intergovernmental Pact of Free Space? And as I am a Colonel Emiritius of the Police Action Forces, I am required to execise Capitol Authority in abscence of a Capital Court. Meaning that the ppunishment for your crime is execution by the means that lie at hand."

With this he levelled his handgun on the weeping governor. his finger tightened ever so slightly to take up the trigger slack.

"Die with dignity governor."

Kash grined like a wild man as his shuttle tore over the wall of the Governor's Headquarters. He had finished arming himself and had gone to the Side door of the shuttle as it followed the flight plan and was about to pass by the Governor's offices window. Kash opened the Door and let the Lokist do the rest, much to the shock and horror of Oula Kash leaped from the Shuttle, which was still moving with a good deal of speed, and Crashed through the Plate-glasses windows of the Office, rolling to rest against the sofa. taking a quick glance at the large desk to his right, he saw the two figures, and moved into action. Leaping into the air he arced across the space to the desk and landed on it, facing Clay, as clay raised his gun to fire he recognized Kash and lowered it , aiming again at the Governor.

"Yo Clay! thought you could use a ride, sorry about not waiting and all but I got antsy" quiped Kash, as he wheeled on the governor.

"AND YOU!" Kash roared. "You fucked up majorly! Do you know what kind of shit you have caused for me!? My boxing Career is out the window, and now im going to have trouble even getting out of this system. In fact, i should kill you right here!"

Despite the fact clay had already told him he was about to Die the fact that this deranged newcomer who moment before had flown though his window and was now leveling what appeared to be a 30mm fletchlett Cannon on him pushed to Governor into a new burst of pleading.

"Please! don't kill me! I'll give you anything you want as long as you spare me! please!!!!" the man whimpered.

"OHH realllllyyy?" sneered Kash.

'YES! whatever you want please!" the man blubered.

This was what Kash had been waiting for. "Well I might be presuaded to let you live if you gave me the codes a man of your status would have access to, like maybe the Military band codes, or anything that might be usefull."

The mans eyes brightened. "ohh yes! yes i have thoese!" he exclaimed, bringing up the file codes on his computer. "there they are! take them!"

Using his Lokist Kash made quick photo-copy memories on the files and destroyed the computer with one massive blast of his cannon. He then hopped off the desk and began walking towards the door.

"Thank-you!" the Governor called, then looking at Clay, "excuse me Sir. but what are you going to do about him?"

Kash glanced back at Clay then shruged. "What about him?" then he added: "ohh yah Clay the shuttle will be in the courtyard when you get done."

Then turning, kash walked through the office door...

Watching Kash jump out the door, she gripped on the side of the exit to see him crash through a window of the building "J'sein wept" she uttered to herself, heart pounding in her fragile chest. The realisation that she was now in the ship, alone worried her for a moment, before she asked "can you land us near an entrance, please?"

"Of course" came a synthesized voice from hidden speakers; the ship swooped over to a gardened area within the perimeters of the Governor’s land. "This, is not a safe area to land"

"We will be fine" came a reply, "we will, cover you" a hint of amusement entered her thoughts. Oula ran out of the ship when it landed, as she made for the doors of the building Kash had entered "Sto..ARHG!" came a voice from behind her, as a guard raised a weapon to her, the Lokist fired an electric shock at him. Turning to see the smoking body of the guard, she entered the building.

Moving at a fast walking pace, she moved around the building she knew to well, as she neared her destination, she sensed the governor. She began to run through the corridors, and as she turned the last corner, she was confronted by Kash, and cannoned into him. Unmoved by her, Kash, looked down, "wha? Hey, you came to see me, whoa! Wait!" she nimbly lowered and moved under his grasp and past him into the govenor's room.

Pushing the door aside, she saw Clay with his gun raised, and everything slowed down. Before she could stop him, Clay had squeezed the trigger to its breaking point and the gun fired. The governor’s body fell to the ground an Oula flew to his side "DO NOT DIE! NOT YET!" she screamed to him, Clay holstered his gun, "what? I thought you wanted him dead?"

"Yes, but not, ugh..." she let out, frustrated, and grabbed the now Governor’s head in her delicate fingers, closing her eyes and creasing her brow, she delved into his rapidly dying mind. Watching this, Clay suddenly realised what was happening and quickly moved over to remove her from him, but before he could, Oula had let go and fell limply backwards and begun to spasm.

"Ah, fuckit" Clay muttered to himself as he picked her up from the ground, reaching into a pocket he pulled out a small injection device and used it on her neck. Almost instantly, her convulsing stopped but she remained still. Checking she was still alive Clay looked over his shoulder at Kash "what did you do to her?" Raising an eyebrow at the Neko, Clay grunted and picked her up, "nothing, she did it herself" with a doubtful look on his face, Kash looked at the prone body in the Mercenaries arms. "Sure, whatever, looks like she needs help, come with me" Kash said as he left the room again

Kash moved to the end of the T-intersection and paused for a moment, Clay stoped behind him, and the two knelt at Kash listened with his improved hearing. With the help of the Lokist he quicly located the sounds of the incomming guards and their postion. then he whispered to clay over his shoulder:

"Six guards comming, four from the left two from the right, Cover me."

Clay would have protested but seeing as how he had a lot of extra weight to haul he didn't. Kash then Dashed around the corner and with a enhanced burst of speed ran down the hall to the left as fast as he could, as he did so he shifted his Cannon to his right side. His timming was perfect, the first guard rounded that rounded the corner had just enough time to widen his eyes at the sight of Kash flying towards him before the impact.

Kash Palm struck the man square in his chest with his left hand,this had the dual effect of stoping Kash in about three feet and sending the man flying about ten through the window at the far end of the Hall, which led to a six story fall to the Courtyard below. The second man had time to start rasing his rifle before he found Kash's 30mm F-cannon aimed at his chest. The round which burst from this tore through the mans armor and his chest, Splashing Kash with Blood, before smashing into the man comming up behind him, the two smashed backwards into the floor in a pool of gore. The last man turned and began running for the stairwell.

This was when the sound of gunfire erupted behind Kash, half turning he saw one guard, a bullet riddled mess against the far end of the Hall that he came from, and the other trying to backpeddle away from Clay's fire.

Kash yelled down the hall to Clay.

"I'll go ahead to clear the ground floor, meet you in the courtyard!"

Clay yelled back an Ack. and Kash turned to go.

The man had almost got to stairs by the time Kash caught up with him, leaping through the doors Kash smashed the man over the rails and used the Screaming Fool as a cushion for his landing on the ground floor of the stairwell...

Clay looked ran th opposite way, back to his window. He kicked it out and drove a take into the wall, attatching his belt-cable to it. He knew he had more than enought 10,000 Kilo Test wire to get him to the ground, but he wasn't keen on being shot at on the way down. Fortunately, Kash was creating so much Havok that noone was watching the walls. Still he made his descent extra fast and without dropping the unconscious girl he had in a fireman's carry.

He made his way around to the courtyard, thinking to himself that it was a damned good thing that Freyans are small. keeping close to the wall of the building, he made it without beind spostted and slipped himself and Oula into a manhole access for the plumbers to maintain the pipes that fed water to the buildinghe liad her down in the small walkway and climbed back up the ladder to look through the peepholes for Kash's arrival.

After rising from the bloody mess that was the man he had landed on, Kash quickly hopped to the Side of the door an listened to the sounds comming from the Interior Plaza that lead to the courtyard. A quick count told him there was about twelve to twenty men out there, the plaza was full of all kinds of potted plants and low wall, a nasty place for an ambush.

"Great, well Lets say we get outa this with a Bang? ehh?" Kash thought.

"That would be my advisement considering their numbers..." the lokist responded.

A wide, if not a little beastial grin grew across Kash's lips.

"Well when out running a bomb blast I'll leave the foot work to you."

Kash instructed the Lokist to take over motor controls for the action.

"As you wish." was the response, and Kash felt his body tense in preperation to move. He never liked not being in control of his own body, but under the circumstances not even his endurance would survive a missed step.

The Lokist opened the movement by throwing 6 Flash bang/shriekers out in a arc over the Plaza as Kash burst out from the side hallway. This bought Kash enough time to make it to the center of the room where, after removing the device from his back, He slamed a massive black metal box into the marble floor, it auto-secured itself with several spikes which shot from the boxes corners. Kash then back fliped away from the device and made like a bat out of hell for the large sliding glass doors to the Courtyard. It was at about this time the guards recovered from their stun and looked at the fleeing Neko, none noticed the Box, instead they focused on gunning down the escaping attacker. Kash dodged as best he could, but even the Lokist are not perfect, and a rifle round caught him cleanly in the thigh above the Knee guards, tearing completly through his leg and sending him crashing to the ground.

Kash felt the searing white heat, for a moment despite the lokists efforts to kill the never connections to the wound, however as he atempted to rise, all thoughts of his wound were cleared by the blindingly bright white light comming past him, unable to hear (since the Lokists had turned off his hearing for the shriekers) he simply saw the flash.

From Clay's vantage point he could see the Neko fall, and was watching him rise when He too was blinded by the flash, and deafened by the following blast. He watched with strange fascination as the the entire front of the building collapsed from the damage and slid foward, a massive cloud of dust blew over were Kash had fallen. However through the dust he could see the lights of the shuttle, it's door open and waiting for him, A voice called to him from the ships speaker.

"The host will not Die, you can not help him now...Come now before they see you...."

"Holy shit..." Vandal rubbed his eye wearily, having finished reading file after file. The one on his sleeping companion had taken the cake though. explained a lot, like why she gave off such odd readings to his scanners, but raised so many more of them it was hardly a trade off.

Having activated the external sensors of the ship, as well as having patched into some of the cities communications bands and security systems, it was fairly quickly after the fact when Vandal learned of the explosion. He spun up from the chair, and took the short distance to the living quarters in a few long strides. Reluctant to touch her for being unsure of her reaction, Vandal let his voice wake Amanda up.

"Amanda... hey wake up.. I think someone just blew up the governor's mansion...."

Clay scooped up Oula and double-timed up the ramp into the ship, before the troops' persistance of vision cleared. The ramp closed behind him.

His contacts had gone opaque when the bomb wento off and saved his eyes, the earplugs had saved his hearing.

"Let's get out of here before we get dead too!" Clay suggested roughly to the computer.

The ship lifted off and zoomed off under radar out of the city and into the trackless waste that was most of BC-III. The mining world had no satellite tracking, so they were safe. He secured Oula and ordered the ship into orbit so it could dock with the Mothership. He set Oula in the AutoDoc and turned it to "Monitor And Diagnose" mode. Then patched his phone into the Mothership's broadcaster.

"Mad you sonovabitch." He said, after dialing his access code to his partner's private line.

"This is Clay! We got transportation off this rock, where are you? Over."

"Mad you sonovabitch." He said, after dialing his access code to his partner's private line.

"This is Clay! We got transportation off this rock, where are you? Over."

"about fucking time," madadric snarls in subvocal, letting the commpiece stuck to the side of his throat pick up and amplify the vibrations.

"what the hell is going on? i get to my entry point, there fucking cops everywhere, Hell knows who else, an your signal is virtually silent."

"i gather you're a little pissed then,"

"Clay allison, you are a master of understatement."

"well, forget that. The kid is irrelevant, the govoner is dead, and wev'e been renumerated hjandsomely. time to get of this pathetic shitball."

Now it's time for Mad to spring something on Clay. "You go ahead. i have another contract to fulfill still."

"What?! What's going on, asshole?"

"Another ...interested party approached me at our last stopoff, and payed me for a little job that ran paralelle to our main objective. For double what we're getting paid for this one."

"and what in Known Space could be worth that much on this shithole?"

"The murder of Jaeron Rand, and the placing of evidence that it was a collective-sanctioned kill. Someone's paying big money for a custom-made martyr."

Clay says that he can't wait for the mercenary, and Mad responds curtly.

"not a problem, i have another way offworld. You go ahead to the rendevous point, and i'll meet you there in no less than half a day."

"Mad out."

With that, Mad turns off his comm device with a tap on the subvocalization unit.

"time to do things my way."

the red haired mercenary draws a compact pistol in his right hand, and weilds his NeoDamascus blade in his left, and stealthily creeps out of the small closet full of cleaning chemicals he'd been hiding in, as a thich pall of white smoke begins pouring into the hall fr9om the closet, Mad pulls a thin piece of dark cloth up over the bottom of his face. The advanced filter blocks the toxic chemicals from his lungs, and the IR mode of his compact multi-purpose visual enhancement glasses cuts through the smoke, giving him an unobscured view of the corridoor, and the two 'cops' coming towards him.

"unit twoAlpha, smoke in corridoor west3...investigating." Mad didn't hear the cop's C&C respond, but then he didn't wait either. silently, he moved dorectly for the men, coming in at a low vecor, and then when he is but a breath away, he strikes up with his blade, silently eviscerating the man from pelvis to sternum, and shooting the other cop in the face twice with his pistol.

Before the strike force members had hit the ground, the mercenary is moving again.

These guys are pathetic. the fucking cheapskate govornment of this planet could have afforded better guard dogs than this... the merc thinks to himself as he snipes three more men with his pistol from around the corner. After fighting the military precision of The Collective's home security forces for most of his adult life, these fools were like a field of wheat to the hardened killer, and most of the bled and fell and died before they even saw him.

As he nears where the now deopsed Union leader and his loyal followers are holed up, the invading police forces are in a panic, knowing here is SOMETHING coming for them, but not what.

coming to the last corner, Mad grabs the last of his flashbang/smokescreen combination grenades, activates it, and tosses it around the corner. several of the cops turn to see what the rolling sound is, and are blinded by the photonic surge, and the others are quickly obscured by the smoke pouring from the device.

It is now when the Merc strikes, lunging out from behind his cover into the hail of billets fired in fright, and only aimed at him in the most general of senses. pickong off the figures indicated nad enhanced by his hi-spec glasses, mad moves toward the resisting union men with frightening speed, ducking, leaping, firing, fighting and slashing like something that has been created for the specific purpose of killing as many things as possible in the most efficient way possible.

And Then he stands before and above the young ex-leader of the Union, and survivor of the cause.

Before the young man can fire upon him, the mercenary slices at his weapon with his NeoDamascus blade, the gun falling into two useless halves.

"Then kill, me, Servant of The Collective! i'm not going to beg." The boy stares defiantly up at the red-haired mercenary, his conviction clear in his eyes.

The red-haired looks down at the boy, and he smiles, his mouth curled with amusement at some private joke.

"Jareon Rand is going to die here, and it's going to be the collective that lkills him...But your story won't end today. Now, Which is your favourite arm?"

Surpirised, the boy hesitates for a moment, and then finds himself responding. With the same speed he'd displayed in slicing up the gun, mad cuts off the other arm, and then lunges at the boy with a hypo, delivering a painkiller/tranqilizer into the lad's bloodstream.

without hesitating for a moment, Mad rmoves his backpack, and bandages the boy's stump. Seathing the blade, and holstering his pistol, mad throws rand over his shoulder, and picks up the severed arm.

Moving as quickly as his burden will allow him, Adric makes his way to his entry point, and drops the boy's lifeless arm, and leaping out of the window into a pile of stinking trash.

as the mercenary makes his way to the waiting shuttle, with Luci inside, Mad turns on his comm unit and checking that the freyan girl has everything ready. he then presses the button on the device in his pocket, and the building behind him erupts in flame ande noise.


OOC: a big return post, any details that are out, PM me or put it in the OOC thread, and i'll get to fixing up.

Kash awoke...or at least he was aware that he was alive, the fact that he wasn't able to move bothered him for a few seconds untill he relized that the Lokists were responsible. A small timer clicked by in the darkness of his clossed eyes, it was the ETA untill they finished fixing him up enough to get moving, it read at 3 mintues, he wondered how long he had been out and was told in his mind that he had been out a good half hour. Kash then realised that his hearing was working again, he could here the drips of water comming from a broken main that had been shut off. The lokist unlocked his left eye, as it was undamaged, and he opened it only to close it again at the painfull glare of the yellow light in the tunnel. Opening his eye again slowly he took stock of his location, It seemed the the force of the falling debris had smashed through the court yard into the accsses tunnels below, he was curently lying half burried under some lose chunks of concrete. His left arm had been badly injured, and the lokists told him he would have to get back to the ship to fix that up, his right arm was only broken in one place and they had reset it, and fused the fracture.
His right leg was in bad shape, being as it was the one that had been shot, his left had suffered some deep gashes but nothing the lokists couldn't patch up. He had had several broken ribs but they had since been mended. Things seemed to be looking up...then he heard a loud voice yelling "STOP DON"T MOVE SCUM!!"

Kash laughed to himself, as if I could move. He turned his head slightly to get a better view of the man, he appeared to be regular government security he had a rather bright flashlight trained on Kash, and a Pistol. He set the Flashlight down and reached for his comm. set. "Well it was fun while it lasted." thought Kash. Then much to his surprise the man stoped, the comm. set only halfway to his head, Kash couldn't see the man very well, as he was blinded by both the flashlight and the glaring emergency lights. But he seemed to shake a little, then with a sickening sound and a spray of Blackness from his mouth a long about 3 inch wide curved blade slashed outward through the mans neck, then the blade flicked to the left tearing out of his neck, and as the man sank to the ground in a pool of widening blood Kash tried to refocus on the figure standing behind him.

From what he could tell from the figure outline in the glaring light, it was she, that much he knew from the curves, and from the ears and swishing tail he knew it to be a Neko, but little more could he tell threw the glare. He was about to thank her when she spoke, in a cold voice full of distaste.

"You are an...IDIOT Kash." The force with which she spoke the last part gave him pause before he replied.

"You could be right miss." Kash said with his best attempt at a smile. "But how is it that you know my name?"

Indeed, the fact that she knew his name was odd, he belived, as he had for over 10 years, that his whole Clan of Neko's had been wiped out, but then again she might have heard of him from somewhere else.

The Neko snorted in disgust. "Pppfffttt Just like you to not remeber anything of importance." she quiped in the same cutting voice.

Kash was getting angry. what right had this interloper to come up and start cutting him down? What the hell did she know!?

"Listen here missy! I have had a bad day and I don't know where you come off thinking you have the right to tell me how to live, but if your not to busy mocking my maybe you could at least tell me who the hell you are!" Kash growled.

It was the newcomers turn to pause, she looked down at kash, he could see the glint of her eyes through the glare, and then the glint of her teeth joined them. She knelt down near kash's face as she spoke:

"What right have I? I have every right...and my name is Crysen..but you should already know that...little brother." She spoke the last part as her face came out of the glare, Her light green eyes relfecting Kash's.

No! No fucking way! kash thought, she died! She died with the rest of them on that ship, I was the only surviver, I was the only one the lokist found alive! As Kash's thoughts raced his sister stood back up.

"At a loss for words brother?" She quiped and then laughed. "Well thats ok, we can talk on the way back to your ship." With that his sister reached down with one hand and, rather uncerimonusily hauled him out of the rubble and put a shoulder under his arm and started walking with him down the tunnel.

Kash couldn't think straight, maybe it was aside effect ofthe blast, or...ARGG think damnit. How the hell did your sister live? The Lokist would have told you if they had saved her too wouldn't they?...

As the two walked in silence, kash pondered the recent turn of events, and barely noticed when the reached the surface a few minutes later. It was only when they were about 50 feet away from it did Kash notice the shuttle's apparence, it looked very familair, in fact it looked like his own.

"You used my shuttle?" Kash asked, a confused look on his face.

Crysen laughed before she spoke. " Now little brother this is MY Shuttle, yours is in orbit docked with your ship from what my sensors tell me."

Kash mulled this over as he sat down in the seat next to Crysen for the trip to orbit. This was the first time he took to really look at his sister, he ahd not seen here for 10 years, but she didn't seem to have aged that much. She was still Lithe and strong, with an athletic build, She had the same color hair and eyes that he did, infact, they looked rather like twins, however, his sister was about a year older then he was. He sat back in his chair and watched the clouds go by, his sister silent beside him.
It was only when they got to space that she spoke again.

"Little brother..." Kash nodded absently."I have somethign important to tell you...it's about what happened to our Clan." Kash looked at her fully, she seemed to be upset on the verge of crying even.

"what about it?" Kash spoke in a soft voice.

"The sickness that killed them..." she said her voice craking a bit..."Was not natural...someone killed our Clan brother." He face hardened again as she spoke the last words.

"And I think I know who..."

As the heated conversation of Clay and Madadric came to a close, the steady, rhythmic beeping of the AutoDoc suddenly began to pick up. Oula, who had previously been deathly still, suddenly jumped into life with an ear-piecing scream, scrabbling on the medical bed, she attempted to escape something that wasn't there,

<"WHERE AM I?!"> She screamed <"Wha?!...What Is This Place?! Mama?!"> She continued, falling off the table and crawling backwards,

"Whoa! Fuck, Calm down, it's me Clay! Remember?" he said, leaping round and approaching her. Oula's wild gaze passed over Clay and saw him advancing <"NO! KEEP AWAY"> she screamed again as she creased her brow, Clay's head was suddenly full of a violent noise "Shit! No! Calm down!" he shouted to her not able to hear his own voice, Oula continued as curled up into a tight ball as Clay fell to his knees clutching at his head. Just then a loud spark arced across to Oula, and she once again fell silent "ha.... ha...." Clay wheezed as the pain began to subside "damn, dampeners, ugh, I need to get them upgraded" he muttered to himself as he brought himself to his feet, feeling like he was going to be sick "are you ok, Mr. Allison?" came a voice from the speakers, letting out a muffled chuckle, he replied "yeah sure, but please, Clay"

"Of course, Clay. We are sorry we did not act earlier; the docking procedure was our main priority. Ms. Sei Reun is quite alright, although the power may have been a bit to much..." came an almost embarrassed tone from the speakers "when will she wake up again?" Clay asked

"Place her upon the bed, we will wake her" Clay scooped Oula up again and placed her on the bed, after a quick bodily jolt, she began to gently come around

"Hey there" beamed Clay "you gave us quite a fright there!"

"Hmm? What, I." she trailed off as some memories came flooding into her mind and she fell back onto the bed

"Whoa, careful there, that was some stunt you pulled in the governor's building, mind explainig why you did it?" wincing and pulling a hand to her head, she gently stroked her temple "...not, just yet. My head still hurts, what happened?"

"Well after diving into the mind of a dying man, I brought you onto this ship, you woke, panicked, passed out and woke again, just now. Oh, and the building got destroyed, the Neko is, well, dead I think"

"Kash is fine, we are monitoring his signals"

"This is, too much, I..." she winced again, pressing harder with her fingers

"Alright, it's alright, just rest, I'll take care of Kash, and hopefully that Bogan lover Mad to..." he sneered. A weak smile flickered across Oula's face, as the bed brought her to a sitting position "oh, and you might like to know, we're off planet, we can go back to you're home world anytime you like" he said more cheerfully. Oula paused as she sipped the glass of water that appeared from a small recess in the wall next to her, looking at Clay who was busying himself with the controls, her dark eyes betrayed the heavy thinking behind them, as she continued to drink from the glass.

[OOC]oh so out of date post which I should have done a long time ago. By the by the speech marked like so <"werd"> is translated from Freyan, or whatever they call their language...[/OOC]

Kash looked at his sister as he listened to her basic overview of what she had found out. He simply nodded a few times and then took the data crystal she handed him, this was all still too new for him and he was still in pretty bad shape from the explosion.

"I konw this is hard for you to take in all at once," his sister was saying, "but it is all true I assure you, the facts are all on that data crystal I handed you."

Kash looked at the large blue gem, but his train of thought was interupted by the sound of the shuttle docking. looking up at his sister, she smiled and spoke again.

"This is your stop little brother, I have some thing I need to attend to elsewhere. I will try to stay in touch."

Kash got to his feet and walked to the hatch, then he spoke in a low voice, saying something he had never got the chance too last time they had parted.

"bye sis, love yah."

Crysen Smiled at himand said in return: "Love yah too brother, don't let any more building fall on you, I might not be there to bail you out."

Kash grinned and steped though the hatch, It closed and auto-sealed, he watch his sister's shuttle break away and head off along into the darkness. Sighing Kash eyed the crystal again, turning it over in his hand before walking in the direction of sick bay. The Lokist informed him of his passengers and their status, he made a quick detour to his office and threw the crystal into the safe there before going to get medical treatment himself. Walking into the room he saw Clay standing and Oula lying on on ofthe examination tables.

"Yo Clay, Sup man. The lokist tell me you thought I was dead, shame on you! no faith geeze.." Kash quiped in a comical tone of voice, befor hoping onto on of the table himself.

Clay scratched the back of his head and then responded. "Well most people don't get up after a building falls on them, just how did you survive?"

Kash smiled and responded. " Trade secret....ahh hell I'll tell yah in a minute, first I gotta get something taken care of."

Looking to the celling Kash called . "Fix me up Doc. I got a lot thats busted up at the moment."

The voice of the doctor, a smooth male with a heavy german accent responded. "Yesz Indeed you are in bad shape Kash."

The table came to life seaming to ozze over Kash's body entering wounds and covering abrasions. As the Nanites worked Kash turned his attention to Oula.

"feeling better, my dear?" Kash offered from his table before grimicing in pain as the nanites dislodged something from his Femur. "GAW! can't you little bastards be more careful, I mean damn that hurts..ppffft."

Oula tried to hide a laugh with her glass of water, but failed.

"Yes I feel my better now, thank-you Kash, although you gave us all quite a scare, getting pinned under a building and all." Said Oyula in a still rather groggy voice.

"Ahhh It was nothing." quiped kash with a dismissive hand gesture." Happens all the ti....YYOWW! Damnit you little buggers warn me before you do that!"

Sighing Kash layed back down on the table.

"Maybe i should just let them work and we all have a talk after they are done, alrighty?"

Both Clay and Oula nodded In agreement. Both would have agreed If asked that Kashes yowls of pain were earsplittling enough to warrent the wait, Besides Oula was still recovering and Clay had a lot of planning to do..

Clay turned up the dampers in his ears all the way to blot out Kash's screams, he had a headache already. He looked over his monitors and surveyed the star charts, looking for the nearest "interesting" systems then he got on to StelNet and surveyed the list of jobs, both open and hinted at. Ten or Fifteen minutes later he read off an article.

Position Vacancy: Certain Hazardous Debris to be cleared, may require considerable applied force. Applied Foprce Engineer required. Pay Negotiable, apply with Labor Union Main Office, Demitrus VI.

Clay read the job oopening aloud. "Well, that sounds like us, are you two interested in a lucrative job offer so we can return to Frey in style? Frey is alot more enjoyable when you arrive with money to spend. Ah, you think about it and give me an answer later."

He got up out of his seat and walked back over to Oula.

"Perhaps instead you'd like to explain your diving into the brain of a dying man. I am not a telepath, but I know enough not to attempt that. The possible consequences are extremely dangerous."