Adventures in TNG Sirus

1.1 Ships Log, Rogue 15 recording. Date stamping... now. We have rescued Goldie from the institution on Pittsburg. I can see now why the Liberty Police built that place on such a God-forsaken hole in space. So close to the heart of it all, and yet a galaxy away. But after all that´s happened, I think I might be wishing they had built the Institution in Alaska. Because Nothing would have made me go back there again. Preytor did think it was a good idea to get Goldie out, and I guess we couldn´t have let him rot, regardless. But he has already cost me everything I had in personal profit on this jaunt. He freakin played Iron Chef with my cardamine. And smoked the remains! If he didn´t need to be in a loony bin before, he´s gonna need to be in one soon. At this point, all I need to do is get Goldie to oone of his ships stashed in New York, where ever he left it. But he is in no position to remember his name, let alone the access codes. Then maybe I can get Ageira to throw some gatelane parts my way, so I can recoup my losses. I can´t believe... "Hawkins! Will you shut up and help me get this hatch open? I don´t want to rip it out of the frame" "Look, Prey... can you just finish suckin up all these blobs of beer so I can turn the gravity back on? We will worry about the door later" "Yeah, but I don´t hear nuthin back there." "And this is a bad thing..." "If he jammed the door, how we gonna get him out?" I pointed to the Emergency Hatch release again. "We don´t want to kill him, just want to get in there." "Look, I´ll head to Denver, we´ll blow the hatch on re-entry. The pressure will rip it away from the ship, and by the time we land, it will all be OK." 1.1 Edited by - Hawkinz on 3/22/2005 3:08:30 PM

1.2 Preytor quivered violently in restrained frustration for a moment "Why don´t you just use your ship to ship transporter to move us to your eagle, 15?" "Do you see the ship to ship transporter?" Preytor looked around the small cabin. The sliced upholstery still smoking slightly where the large clean gashes stood out like wounds on a carcas. A communications panel sparking from a large vertical hole. Tantalizing golden globes of liquid floating here and there, waiting to be consumed. Chaos in a cockpit. "Ok, you got me. Where is it?" I thumbed backwards towards the jammed door to the hold. "This is a freighter cab. We don´t have modern convienences like transporters and bathrooms up front. Or food replicators. Hell, I´ve only got 6 beers left in the cooling unit." Preytor renewed his attempt at opening the door, vigorously pressing the release button and tugging at the frame. A frightening creak rewarded him, spurring him on to more frantic pulling "Only a six pack left? Are you insane? I thought you had planned this thing better?" 1.2 Edited by - Hawkinz on 3/22/2005 3:08:08 PM

1.3 It was all quickly going downhill. Then again, that was Situation Normal. All Frelled Up. "I smell something burning." "Prey, that´s my chair." "No, something else. I know what burned upholstry smells like." I glanced around the cockpit. "Then it´s the system com panel." The shockwave of silence forced me to look back at Preytor. Even with his helmet on I could see the raised eyebrow." "I´m telling you, something is burning." "It´ll keep. I got to get us somewhere we won´t be arrested upon landing" I turned back to my tasks at hand. "Hawk, you are going to buy another ship." I looked up from the nav panel, half way through entering coordinates for the Colorado gate. I had just overhauled this freighter. "I am?" WIth barely a flex, and almost no other sign of visible effort, Preytor shoved the pressure door back into the hold. It creaked, hung for a moment, and floated away into the hold. The cabin immediately filled with familiar, milky smoke. "Crap. This can´t be good." I reached under my seat for an OxyMask, knowing this was not the time to get high on Cardamine. Prey stepped into the hold, magnetic boots ringing on the floor. Through the twisted hatch I could see the bodies of a few of the Heavobeasts. From my angle of view, it looked like the fire was in the middle of the hold. "By Crete! He started a frelling camp fire out of cardamine! And he was roasting Heavobeast. Has he no taste? And he´s not even... wait... Hawk, we have trouble. Check your Oxygen generators." I pulled up the display, only to see all three working at max capacity. Looking around, I could see a slight current to the smoke. It swirled with motion that was not caused by Preytor´s activity. Preytor stuck his head back through the hatch. In unison he and I both said "He pierced the hull". "Well, the smoke should make it easy to find." Preytor lept about the hold for a moment. "How many pressure patches do you have on board?" "There should be a box near the transport com panel." He vanished from my view for a moment. A crashing sound followed. "Hey! Be careful back there. "I told you, you are selling this ship!" 1.3 Edited by - Hawkinz on 3/22/2005 3:07:36 PM

1.4 My vision began to get fuzzier. Was my mask leaking? I was NOT in the mood for drug induced unconsciousness. Looking around, I noted the lack of dizziness. Then it hit me. The smoke was getting thicker. Preytor had patched the holes. "Can you do something about the fire? It´s getting hard to see up here" More crashing sounds. "Use the fire extinguisher." Everything went silent for a moment, followed by boots ringing on the deck. The whoosh of the foam canister sounded abnormally loud, but I was more worried about where he would throw the empty canister. There was no way Preytor was happy about how this went. "Screw Colorado. Head for Rochester." "You do realize the scrubbers are toast. This smoke is not going to clear." Preytor grabbed my chin and turned my head to face him. I could barely see through the eye shields in his helmet, and it was clear that his eyes had been tearing up. His combat shield was not a sealed mask after all. "Ok, so you know the smoke isn´t clearing. Rochester it is. How you feeling?" "I´ve got about twenty minutes of useable brain power before I am high as a kite, 15. How do you think I´m doing? Shall I remove your mask to even things out?" I couldn´t help but laugh. He let go of my chin and punched me in the shoulder, more than likely leaving a nasty bruise. It felt like I was going to feel that one for days. "You want to make sure GH..." He cut me off with a wave of his hand. I shrugged, winced, and punched in the coordinates for Rochester. "What the hell ever made you buy a Rhino anyway? "It was cheap, it was available, and I was broke. Did I mention it was cheap?" The cruise engines kicked in, and we were soon dodging debris on the way to the Junker base, Rochester. Preytor sat breathing heavily, gripping the arm rests tightly. "Man, you should just hold your breath. That Can´t be good for you." "If I´m gonna get frelled up, I might as well get frelled up." Approaching the base, I sent a pirated IFF card signal, as Junkers were no friends of mine. Too much bad blood in the past. Coming around to the back docking bay, I spotted something unusual. "Preytor, you see what I see? "He leaned forward up close to the viewport. There, moored outside the base by the docking port was what appeared to be a standard LDP4. But we could both see the insignia emblazoned on the lower stabilizer. Preytor turned to look at me, as I turned to him. "He´s dead." "That was never proven, Hawk." "That ship was lost in Tau31. Everybody saw the fire in the cockpit. Everyone heard the crew dying on the radio. No way Captain Cross survived." "I wonder why they brought it all the way back here for salvage?" Preytor shook his head to clear it. I smiled. "I wonder if they are selling it" 1.4 Edited by - Hawkinz on 3/22/2005 3:07:10 PM

1.5 After leaving the Rhino smoking in the docking bay, Preytor and I stumbled out to the turbo shaft up to the bar. I needed information about that LDP4, fast. I had no idea if the Junkers, a normally superstitious lot, had gone over that ship with a fine toothed comb, or if it had been hauled down here to be sold at auction for the LibPols to put on display in on Manhattan. They WOULD want to make a show of that carcass. "Aww man... the colors. The colors." We were lucky that Rochester had been our destination, for being in a cardamine stupor was nothing new for these spacers to see. Not that they indulged themselves, mind you. But they dealt in the stuff. I was just worried about how much Preytor had sucked into his lungs. He was likely to start giving away money. "Are we moving, Hawk?" In fact, the turboshaft had just stopped. I was so lost in hope, I hadn´t paid attention. "Nope. We are here. You gonna drink something, or you just wanna hang out for a second?" "I´m all set right here man." "I can´t just leave you on the shaft. Someone is gonna want to use it eventually." "It´s ok. I´ll be their elevator boy. You go find some vegetables and a cat or two. I´ll be alright." I couldn´t tell if he was hungry or just really that far gone. I honestly didn´t know all that much about Preytor, or his eating habits. Entering the bar, I went straight to the first Junker I saw. "Hi" "Hey there freelancer. Haven´t seen you around. You new here?" "Uhh, yeah" "Well we´re the Junkers. We own this base. I don´t know you. Let me see your card." I gave him the pirated IFF card. He looked it over and looked me up and down. "I guess you´re alright. What can I do for you today?" "Whatcha got?" "Well... we recently picked up an interesting piece of salvage. In the hands of the right salesman, someone could make a good profit. You might do well to sell it directly on Manhattan if you are of a mind to." He handed me an info card. $25,000 credits! Holy ****! They had no idea what was tethered to their base. It was all I could do to keep from shouting, crying, dropping the info card, and hugging the guy. All I could hear in my head was the little voice of my conscience whooping for joy. "Sounds good." Beep Boop Beeeeeep. Damn that paging system. Every time you made a deal, everyone on the base had to hear about it. It was the most insane credit transfer system, yet every base used it. Atleast the designers had the intelligence to have the waypoint information sent directly to your ship´s navcomp. Announcing it over the loudspeakers would have been a direct invite to trouble. But I wasn´t all that concerned. In this case, there were no waypoints. No one was gonna be following me anywhere. I took the info card, trembling slightly in my hand and headed nonchalantly to the shaft. The turbocar, and Preytor were nowhere to be seen. I called up another, and wondered where I, if I was completely out of my mind on more high grade cardamine than a family could use in a week, would go. In search of something to eat. I took the car to the trade bays, and sure enough, a worried trade master was standing credit chit in hand next to a frightening Preytor. My companion was tearing apart a cargo pod of food divinate, the standard material replicators used to make the variety of food stuffs. It had a consistancy of clay. This was not deterring him in the least. I walked up to him and whispered near his ear. "I got it." "MMph?" I couldn´t contain myself. I screamed. "I GOT IT! WOOOHOOO!" "Mmfrh." His battlemask was pulled up, and thankfully his face was partially obscured by being covered with divinate. "Umm.. have that delivered to the Rhino in bay 3." "Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr..." Preytor growled low for a moment as the trade master began to reach for the remains of the crate, then straightened. He adjusted his armor, wiped his face mostly clean with his hand and pulled the mask back in place. "Er... Yes. Have that delivered to the smoking hulk of a crap pile in bay 3. Good divinate, by the way. You should be proud." "You feel better now?" I was torn between grinning like an idiot and being worried. "Absolutely. I´m good to go for another thirty minutes at least. Of couorse, I´ll crash after that. That was some good cardamine, by the way. Malta?" I barely heard him. We reached the turboshaft, and my hands shook as I punched in the shipmaster at the docking bay. I know they were going to change their mind, and go back on the deal. Or this info card was fake. Or my IFF was going to be recognized. Or there would be an Outcast that would recognize me around the next corner. Something was gonna screw the pooch for me. At the ship master´s desk, I handed him the info card. He gave it a look, and punched up the info for my Rhino. "You got some interesting damage here. Gonna cost extra to dispose of those bodies. You want I should install those weapons crates too?" "NO... er.. no. I´ll handle the weapons crates myself." No way I was gonna let these Junkers handle my Cray´s. I just hoped they wouldn´t notice they weighed more than the Punisher´s they were tagged as. "And the human body, isn´t a corpse. It goes on the LDP4." "I can give you some credit on the remains of the Cardamine, but not much." "Yeah, yeah.. whatever. Can we get this going?" "You in some kind of rush, son?" That stopped me. I was way too eager. Think, Hawkinz... Think... "My friend here... he was in the hold with most of that card when it was burning." Truth never hurt anyone. "And he´s not gonna remain standing for long. I think he´s gonna be sick, actually." That hit a nerve. This guy didn´t want to have to clean up some spacer´s vomit. "Ok. Well, with your trades, that´s $23700." I reached into my pocket. Nothing. DAMINT ALL TO HELL GH!!!!! All my profit. All my credits. Up in smoke. "Preytor. I need money." "Hmm? Money? How much?" "$24k." Preytor stepped up to the man, divinate still slightly encrusting the edge of his mask. "You want $24k?" The shipmaster eyed him warily, then switched to a pair of fearful eyes very quickly. "Uhh.. yep. $23, 700 actually. Well... $21000 really." Preytor shrugged. "Ok." and dropped a credit chit on the counter. The man nervously passed it through the scanner automatically setting it up for deduction. "Actually, I´m only taking $20500, since that Rhino´d damage isn´t really combat related." Sometimes it really pays to have a friend scary enough to win a fight without ever swinging a punch. Back at the Rhino, I gathered the remains of my bedroll and clothing kit, grabbed the sixpack in the front cooler, and we took the ship to ship transporter to the LDP4. I held my breath upon arrival, but there was no acrid smell of smoke or burned flesh. There were no signs of fire, in the mess or crew quarters as we passed through them. I took a quick look in the cargo hold, saw my weapons crates, and noticed it was as clean as a whistle. Preytor continued on down the hall, stopping at the first cabin. With a kick the door was open, and he was falling over the threshhold to hopefully land on a bunk. I´d let him sleep. I hesitated at the door to the bridge. What gruesom sight awaited me? The door slid open on it´s pneumatics to a dimly lit, but spotless interior. It was not only damage free, but it was cherry! Every flat surface without a control was upholstered in leather! The seats! The sides of panels! The beercan holders! The control stick was wrapped in leather. All dark browns and blacks. It took me a minute to realize they had dumped Goldie in the communication´s seat. The frelling bathroom door was covered in leather. Gods, I could bounce around this room inZero G and love every second of it. I gingerly slid into the pilot´s seat. It felt like orgasmic butter. Like a glove. The seat cradled me, calling... wriggle in me.. wriggle in me... so I wriggled in it. Everything was too perfect. Wait. would she even start? 1.5 Edited by - Hawkinz on 3/22/2005 3:06:39 PM

1.6 Hours later, I realized I had no idea if she would fly. I had no idea how to start the beast. All the controls were black. Not unpowered. Black. Black buttons. Black switches. Black panels surrounded by more black buttons. What wasn´t black, was dark grey. Frell. Insanity. The bridge was quite spacious for a ship of this size. At least the replicator was easy to find. It was right next to the bathroom. So several beers later I was quite comfortable in my cluelessness as to how to use my new ship. Back in the pilot seat having my backside caressed, I renewed pouring over the controls. At least Goldie was still comatose. Thank the maker for small blessings. Who would design a ship like this? Was it something Captain Cross had done custom, or were they all like this. Grabbing fistfulls of hair in frustration, Ileaned back and gritted my teeth. "I need a frelling manual!" Bing! A light warmed over my chair. WIth a welcome whir, a swing panel smoothly arced down from the ceiling and stopped at eye level. The black panel lit softly revealing some navigation touchscreen buttons, and a few words of text. LDP4 Marine Dropship Revision 4d. Military? I thumbed forward through the table of contents and stopped at the first page of content. **Warning. Voice Activated Help system is the only voice activated system on board. Accidentally using the word "manual" outloud may result in impared vision and movement during battle conditions. See appendix C for options regarding disabling this system. Caution. Disabling Voice Activated Help system may result in failure to access this system in times of need, resulting in a necessary hard boot of Macro Advanced Operating System. See appendix F for options regarding hard booting of Macro Advanced Operating System. Welcome to the LDP4 proprietary MAOS.** ...The hell? Military. If nothing else, the manual was detailed. I proceeded to dive in, speed reading it all, soaking in as much as I could. Right off the bat, I found I would have to forget with taking the sections in order. The system needed a hard boot. Up to the appendix F. **To Hard boot the MAOS, remove the booting stylus from it´s clip and insert into the boot cavity, located 4 inches below and 4 inches to the left of the upper hinge on the door to the head. Upon feeling resistance, press with adequate, but not undue force until such resistance has abated. Hold for 5 seconds. If hard boot has not commenced, remove stylus, open and close the door to the head to reset the internal catch inside the boot cavity and repeat procedure.** ...What moron devised this system.. and where was this boot stylus? I slid from the chair, and moved to the bathroom door, feeling around the hinge for the hole. Sure enough, it was there. And it was about the size of a pen. So, taking my trusty zero-g pen from it´s protected pocket, I jammed it in the hole. There may have been a little resistance, but I wasn´t really in the mood to play nice. One.. two... three... 20 seconds later, Every light and panel on the bridge flashed. Then flashed again. Success! Each display panel lit softly, from the com station to the pilot´s chair. Rushing back to my seat, I whacked my head on the help display. Flipping angrily to appendix C, I read the instructions carefully, and found the indicated pair of soft buttons on the underside of the help panel. It slid softly and silently back into its place. Calling up status displays my joy quickly turned to dispair. I had no power generator. At least, the power I was running on was from storage reserves. I wasn´t going to solve this problem from here. All the indicators said I was missing a power supply. I turned around, momentarily shocked to see Preytor standing in the doorway. "Sweet Cockpit. Better than the fabric you had put on your last one." "Prey, you have no idea what I have been going through." "Yeah, but you have no idea what I found in the back. Come take a look." It seemed Preytor had been busy while I had been pulling my hair out. There were empty food packets all over crew table in the mess. Every locker was open, and what few contents they had contained were strewn on the floor. Half a case of empty beer cans littered corners and underneath tables. "Uurp.... yeah, not much in here worth while, but the replicator´s got a crappy selection. Some kind of standard rations." "The manual indicates this was a Military Dropship at one time." "That would explain it. But that doesn´t explain these." He took me back into the hold, where I could see he had opened all my weapons crates and spread them around the hold. He had also pried up several floor panels. From the resulting holes in the floor, a silver light was eminating. He swung an arm wide over my weapons. "Liberty CRAY´s? I thought you had more exotic tastes, Hawk." "Hey... they work well, and are surprisingly potent. What´s with tearing up the place?" "I smelled something, and found the locked storage compartments. Well, they WERE locked at any rate. But it is what was in them that I think you should see." He led me over, and inside were two open square metal boxes. Inside each box was a glowing silver globe. After my eyes adjusted, I could see standard coupliers on either end. Power couplers. "What are they?" He looked me up and down, looked back at the globes, and shrugged. "From the design and cabling ends, I´d say batteries, or power supplies. But like none I´ve ever seen. They aren´t even Nomad. These are something either very new, or very old." "By coincidence, we are missing a power supply. You don´t think..." I could tell he was grinning by the way his shoulders suddenly flew back that he might have been laughing to himeslf. Damn that mask. "Oh, I do think," he said, "I think right now. Where do we plug these babies in? 1.6 Edited by - Hawkinz on 3/22/2005 3:05:44 PM

1.7 One frantic scramble and several shifted panels later, Preytor and I were staring at the crispy remains of a standard G14 Powerboy civillian power supply. All the connections were standard style couplers, but the unit itself had been burnt out long ago. Burnt out, set on fire, and melted with a blowtorch, apparently. "Think we should fire it up?" Preytor hit me on my other shoulder, creating a matching bruise on that side. "Or has it been fired up one too many times?" Sigh. "There are two of those globes over there." We were still in the hold. Our search had taken us all over the interior of the ship and had eventually led us back to a wall panel not 5 feet from the storage compartment that held the orbs. "Only one of them is going to hook up here." "They are your balls Hawk. Which one you gonna play with first?" Sigh. I was tired, he was refreshed. This day just kept getting longer. "One is as good as another. They both appear to be the same. So closest is best." I moved over to the hole in the floor. "You disconnect the junk, I´ll get the thing." Gingerly reaching into the hole, I took hold of each side of the box holding one of the silver globes. Expecting it to be heavy, I was surprised and almost lost my balance lifting it. It weighted nothing more than packing material. As I moved it away from it´s identical twin, the glow diminished significantly. Noticing this, I swing it back toward it´s mate. The glow increased. Once again being torn between elation and fear, I mentally shrugged off the phenomenon and put the globe on the floor next to the power hatch. "This thing is going to fall apart if I wrestle with it too much." "I don´t know where the broom is yet, so you might want to be careful then." Shooting what I suspected was a dirty look over his shoulder at me, Preytor finished disconnecting a coupler. Looking around, he spotted and picked up one of the lids to the packing crates my CRAY´s had come in. Gingerly tilting the battered power unit backwards, he slid the lid underneath it just in time for the portion under his hand to crumble. The power generator dropped with a thud, scattering charred remains in every direction. "Meh. Just open the hatch when the hold is empty. Use Nature´s vacuum." He shrugged. He gave the lid a tug and a push, completely removing the junk unit from the cavity. I lifted the globe from the box, and connected the cables. Each fit perfectly, and no couplers were left unconnected. For a moment, Preytor and I stood and stared, expectant. Slowly, the lights in the cargo hold began to get brighter. neither of us had realized just how dark it had been by the time the light level evened off. I blinked, readjusting to the omnidirectional molecularfilament bulbs. Even in full light, the hold didn´t look to be in bad shape. It had an air of use to it, small nicks and dents on most surfaces. But it did appear to be well cared for. "Well? You gonna go kick this lady in the pants? Feeling drained, my shoulders slumped in resignation. "Yeah. Big deal we just hooked some alien artifact into a decomissioned military vessle from an era that died off long ago. What´s the worst that can happen. We blow up, right?" I think I stumped Preytor. He hadn´t really considered it. "You know, if it works, and it has any nice side effects, the beauty of you finding two of them means you get to have one. Which reminds me. You are going to need a ship too, eventually." Preytor took my shoulder in his hand, once again reminding me not only of his stength, but of where he had hit me before. The pressure he applied let me know in no uncertain terms I was to begin moving in the direction he indicated. I complied. "I´ve been thinking about that. A lot. Quite a lot, actually. I might just take that Eagle you have stored somewhere." "Yeah, Prey... about that Eagle. It is sitting in Unioner docking bay at the moment." "You hate Unioners! More importantly, they hate you." "Long story short, it is part of how I ended up broke in a Rhino. I did find out the limit of forged Idents tho." We crossed through the crew mess. I looked around. "You gonna clean this place up?" He shook his head. "Why? It´s a mess, isn´t it?" I lacked the strength to groan. Entering the bridge, we both noticed immediately that Goldie was no longer unconscious. He was, in fact, wearing the HoloCom headset, deeply engrossed in some conversation. He appeared to be beyond the point of noticing us. But as he was using lipspeak, the standard form of noiseless HoloCom communication, neither of us knew what he was talking about. I shrugged, and Prey shrugged as he took the copilots chair. Activating the Replicator, I called up 4 beers, and gave 2 to Preytor. Taking my comfy seat, I began to buzz through the control panels, adusting the brightnesses and angle displays. With power, all of the black controls now had lit indicators as to function for fixed controls, and all panels included a basic menu setup. It was all quite intuitive actually. I punched the release for the mooring cable, flipped the switch to open the system channel, and swung her out away from Rochester. She handled a little slowly, but otherwise very smoothly. I reached over to the NavComp, and punched in Pueblo Station in Colorado. Puzzled, Prey shot me a sideways glance. "Why Pueblo? Isn´t that a little far?" "You want to dock somewhere in this system with a wanted, escaped lunatic? At least on Pueblo, he can´t do much damage. Ageira love me." 1.7 Edited by - Hawkinz on 3/22/2005 3:05:04 PM

1.8 (Written by Preytor, thus the differences in style) “Hmmm, ok good point.” Now slowly moving away from Rochester station, with a gorgeous view of Manhattan to our right, we were wondering who was GH talking to and how long?? Preytor looked at Hawkins with a what’s with him shrug thumbing back to GH. Hawkings said, “dunno”. And pointed to a display panel at the back right side of the cockpit room, three feat in from the hatch. Preytor unsure of what he was getting at walked over the the display. It was a general systems control center. You could bring up different aspects of the ship; Engines, Weps, shield, hull, power system, stabilizers etc. Preytor routed it through to GH’s Lipspeak helmet to see what’s up. While doing this GH jolted for a second like something startled him, but he seemed fine. Preytor finally got logged in and saw that GH had it on mirror! He was sitting there just blabbing (lipspeaking) away to himself!!! “Hawkins! We gotta do something, he worse than we thought! He has been talking to himself in that thing the whole time!” “What do you mean??” Hawkins said with a disbelieved confused look. “I mean he has the damm viewer on mirror! He watching himself talk to himself!” Oh dear, Hawkins thought. “That cardamine really did some damage. Hmmm, I know what we gotta do, just keep him in check till we get to pueblo k Preytor” “Him? Bah, no problem!” It took us a while to reach the Colorado Jump hole at cruise, but we finally got there with no delay. As soon as we entered the Worm hole though GH started going crazy! Doing the funky chicken, screaming stuff about cats and cardamine, Aliens, and Military and purple dasies!! “PREYTOR Grab him!!!” Preytor went to reach for GH as GH still having the Vibroblade lashed out at Prey, making a deep cut into his face plate. Preytor stunned for a split second, then maneuvering to get a hold of GH, finally was able to restrain him after a lot of commotion from both of them. How was GH able to put up such a fight? I’ve heard of people have extreme personal strength and no sense of pain when under the influence of cardamine but this was ridiculous! Just after clearing the worm hole there was a patrol of LSF going by! What the heck are they doing here? wondered Hawkins. Hawkins tried to see if he could pick up their coms. He over heard them speaking of some escaped loonie, and that he has important information and is very dangerous. “What’s going on out there?”, Preytor said walking back to the cockpit. While turning to look at Preytor Hawkins said, “There’s some LSF out here and I know they’re looking for GH”. Before he could finish his sentence, Preytor hit the floor. *Crash!!, denting two of the floor panels* While Preytor laying distraught face down on the floor, there was some light emanating from underneath him. Hawkins rolled him over to find a bunch of thick, green glowing liquid exiting Preytors abdomen and chest. “****e! Prey, you’re injured!!” It looked as if GH’s Vibroblade was still working wonderfully. There was huge banging and slaming ringing down the corridor, eminating from one of the two locked crew quarters.GH was yelling, “COME BACK HERE MOFO!!! I’LL RIP THOSE FREAKN’ DREADS OUT OR WHAT EVER THEY ARE YOU FREAK!!!! GIVE ME BACK ME DASIES!!! Preytor was able to point to something strapped to his leg. He touch three buttons, some gas came outta the thing and it unfolded itself to reveal, well what looked like some weird tools. Preytor then handed this kit to Hawkins and pointed at his wounds, his hand then fell to the floor... 1.8 Edited by - Hawkinz on 3/22/2005 3:04:25 PM

1.9 Hawkins started at the kit in his hand. The pounding in the corridor was getting louder, more frantic. He looked at Preytor prone and bleeding on the floor. He looked again to the kit, and back to his friend. "You Freaks have no right to do this to me again! Gimme back my pointy thing!" I know. I´ll just close the bridge internal hatch, and expose the rest of the ship to space. That´s the ticket. Yeah. Then his blood will boil and bubble, and he´ll freeze and go all dead dead deadski inside. I shook my head, realizing I was allowing myself to be driven temporarily insane by external temporary insanity. An odd temporal instance of tempestuousness intact in temples inside the of the mind. Or some bad instant tempura. If Goldie still had his vibrablade, that small room wasn´t going to hold him. I could not assume his asking for it did not mean he had forgotten it was still in his hand. I had to work quickly. Preytor´s medkit expanded revealing an odd assortment of tools. Unlike my ship however, it did not appear to come with an Owner´s Manual. Neither did Preytor. There was an injector, several ampules that looked like they would fit inside it, clamps, assorted vicious implements, a collapseable mixing bowl with mineature flame throwers, and a few very unusual chemicals. This really looked more like a repair kit than a med kit. Find the wound. Clamp. Insert Ampule A into Injector B. Insert Injector B into flesh C. Now what? No laser sealer.. not even sutures. Maybe some of these chemicals worked like glue. But what was the heating gizmo for? Screw this. I stood, moved out into the corridor and gave the shaking door a long stare. Then, moving among the scattered contents of the lockers, I gathered as much of the old uniforms and clothing as looked clean and in good condition. Leaving it in a pile on the table, I mived back into the hold, in search of the Hullbreach packs. There, next to the secondary STS (ship to ship) was a pair of lockers, each filled to the vents with all three standard hullbreach packs. Liquid Aluminum, StayPuft plugs, and the much more expensive SeekerNites (nanites that when released would seek out holes and construct temporary patches). The Liquid Aluminum was what I was hoping for. Once released from it´s suspension squeeze tube, it would flow and harden into study, guaranteed crack-free aluminum (or your money back in 9 systems). Back at Preytor´s side, the pool of luminescent blood has not gotten any bigger. That crap had better not stain the floor. So the clamp appeared to be doing it´s job. But I knew I couldn´t leave it on there. I began to tear the jumpsuits and shirts into long strips to use as bandages. Once I had a good sized pile, I removed the clamp. Green glowing blood began to flow again. Popping the cap off a tube of LA, I applied a generous amount all over the wound, using the flat end to spread it around a little. Sure enough, it filled in, flowed over, and began to harden nicely. Not wanting to lose the momentum, I propped Prey up, and used the longest strips to wrap around Preytor´s torso, holding the metal patch in place. What the hell. Can´t have too many wraps can you? I used the rest, and knotted it tightly when I was through. Then as an after thought, I uncapped the second tube, and applied a generous portion of LA to the knot, just in case it wanted to work loose. Nothing like encasing it in metal to keep it sound. "Freelancer Alpha dash niner. This is Liberty Patrol Delta two fiver. We read your position has having remained unchanged outside the colorado jumpgate. All traffic must keep moving as not to pose a flight hazard. Are you in need of assistance?" I had totally forgotten we were sitting dead in space, after exiting the gate. Lucky no transport had rammed us on auto pilot. I dove for the pilot´s com panel. "Liberty Patrol Delta, We´re fine here. We´re all fine here... how are you?" Damn. Stupid. "Freelancer Alpha dash niner, transmit your IFF card code for verification." "No need for that. Minor reactor leak. Situation is all taken care of now. We´ll be on our way." And me without any weapons mounted. I´ve never been adverse to getting rid of a few nosy cops before, but that was when I actually could. "Stand by Freelancer. Commencing cargo and vessel scan now." Great. All they needed was to detect the artifacts. I patted Preytor on the helmet. "Sorry about this pal." Jumping into the pilot´s seat, I kicked in the Order thruster and jammed the throttle all the way up. They couldn´t catch me on cruise now, and I had a second before their stock scanners would resolve the image. If I could get out of their range... "We have a runner. Delta two four, Delta three one, commence pursuit." On hearing that, I dumped a trio of Rippers in my wake and just kept on straight toward the Tradelane to Pueblo. All I had to do was get to it in time, and I´d be in Pueblo before the flash from my mines died down. GH had stopped banging on the door to the cabin he was locked in. That either meant he had gotten bored, or had gotten out. I could only plan for one of those eventualities, so I kicked the switch on my chair to close and lock the cockpit door. Ahead, Beautiful Pueblo station came into view, under one it´s regular attack from Hackers. Without a word of warning, my shields began to register hits as they turned their attention to me. Why is it hackers always assumed that us freelancers always had the goods? Damn the cruise disruptors, full speed ahead. I kicked the thruster again, and zoomed right up to the docking bay door before requesting permission to Dock. "This is Pueblo Station..." "Jamie! It´s Hawk, Open the frelling door!" "Freelancer Alpha dash niner, transit IFF..." "JAMIE! Open the frelling door or I´m going to shove my way in!" The docking bay began to open. "You are gonna cost me my job one of these days Hawkinz. We have procedures, you know." I slid in on auto tractors, breathing a sigh of relief. "With all the money I´ve made for you guys, you practically work for me girl. Your job is very secure. Page Doc Albertson and have him meet me in the bay. I´ve got a few things he has to see." 1.9 Edited by - Hawkinz on 3/22/2005 3:03:42 PM

1.10 (Written by SLA Liasion, thus the difference in style) Watching silently from the nearby asteroid field, Liaison chuckled a silent chuckle to himself as he watched the forced landing. He ´waved´ as the hackers passed him, although they really couldn´t see him, still it was always a good thing to maintain a rep as neutral as possible. His ship was more neutral than the Zoners. It wasn´t too hard when you had a backer like the SLA´s, a few bribes here, a couple ´favours´ given and taken, and you were dead even. Still, it was a bitter wave. The damned Hackers were suppose to have destroyed the station, and they let a ´freelancer´ distract them. Help was so unreliable these days. It twas then that the first of a great number of surprises occured, first, the transmission on a practically open, (Well not really, but it wasn´t all that hard to make it open. Especially with a man on the inside.) frequency, The mention of the name, ´Hawk´ did jolt him into a slightly ponderous silence as he thought back to days long gone by. Sighing out softly, he set his autopilot towards the station, (God he was so lazy) and let it do its thing. Ignoring the bright red seatbelt sign he stood up and headed towards the back of the ship, intent on getting himself something to drink, and of course, armed. In hindsight reaching into the fridge as your ship moved through an Asteriod field wasn´t the brightest thing to do, but that wasn´t on his mind then and there, and as his ship smoked the first asteriod he plummeted headfirst into his fridge, crushing and exploding a number and variety of Soda Drinks and Beers. Meanwhile his ship continued to spin around in a circle attempting to re-establish it´s original course, and as his entire world turned upside down, he felt and saw the pop roll around the room. As his ship levelled out though, he noticed an increasing stench in the cockpit and noticed liquid leaving the lavatory. With an increasing queasiness he pulled out one of the smash soda cans, drained it as best he could, and then avoiding as much of the mess, (Although most of it was on him) He reached in, grabbed a pair of basic pistol type firearms, and left. Meanwhile his computer auto-transmitted the same codes which so freely allowed him access around the universe. Although the backroom was tighter than most, it was stench free, and it did have fresh clothes. Taking off his other clothes, -he didn´t have time for a shower which wasn´t a shower- he put on new ones, and then went back out front, this time looking every bit the presentable business man his card showed him to be. He waited as the ship set down, and with pressing of a couple buttons, some last commands, and a last sniff of digust he popped the cockpit -much to the disgust of his neighbours- he set out to find his business and get it down. Then maybe he could leave this hell hole. 1.10 Edited by - Hawkinz on 3/22/2005 3:03:01 PM

1.11 My slightly wild piloting antics had been enough to send Preytor sliding across the cockpit, but as I shut down the Externals, I could hear him begin to stir. I thought to myself how once again I was relieved he was a tough bastard. The standard Autoannounce system informed me that someone was at the cargo bay door, so without thinking I keyed the opening sequence, and flipped the unlock for the bridge. Scanning the controls to see if I had missed anything, I was satisfied enough that I was able to direct my concern to my comrade on the floor. He indeed appeared to be stirring, a low rumble ensuing from his chest. He was going to be alright. I could hear people in the cargo area, so I stood and went to greet them. Jonas, the Trade master was gesturing to his asistants, but looked up as I approached. "Hawkinz. Glad to see you, and your new freighter? Come to assist us in getting that tradelane through the Taus finished?" "You got it. Listen, put things back in order for me here, will ya? Have Sully mount up these CRAY´s, and load her up with ´Lane parts. It´s gonna be on the cuff this time tho. You know I´m good for it." He had turned his attention to the lone artifact in the floor cavity. "You know stuff like that is contraband. You aren´t trying to find a buyer for that here, are you?" "Actually, no. I have to have the Doc take a look at that. Is Alan Jones still in your Employ?" Still looking at the globe, he nodded. "I don´t think that boy is planning on moving on for quite a while. You need him to carry something somewhere?" "No. I want you to Arm him and put him outside the ship. I can´t take any chances. He knows me, he knows Preytor, he´s not going to be fooled by anyone trying to gain entrance to the bay here, and he´s the biggest damn human I have ever seen." "I can do that. It will be a nice change of pace for him I think." As he flipped his wristcom open, I reached into the floorspace and put the lid back on the box that held the globe. Pulling it from the cavity, I tucked it awkwardly under one arm and patted him on the shoulder. "Look, Preytor is injured and if he´s not on his feet by now, he´s still lying on the floor of my cockpit. Have one of the medlab boys give him a once over." I could see Doc Albertson outside of my cargo bay door. "And if possible, can you have someone clean up around here? We had a few... accidents." He chuckled. "You have got to be one of the laziest slobs I know. I´ll tack their wages and a little bonus onto your tab. Can they keep what they find? "Actually, no." I moved to exit the bay. "And make sure these weapons lockers here are full too. Standard compliment. Sorry to do this to you, but I just got this ship and I´m still workin the kinks out." Doctor William Albertson was a quantum physicist, antimatter specialist, and the lead researcher for the Gatelane projects for Ageira Technologies. He was also a man who loved to get his hands dirty. Rather than allow himself the freedom of a spacious laboratory on some comfortable planet surrounded by a nice safe atmosphere, he preferred to do his work here on Pueblo Station, the main manufacturing station for Gatelane Parts throughout Sirus. He also had a penchant for loose women, free beer, and singing old spiritual songs off key in public places, usually when there were loose women and free beer around. He saw me coming and had his hand waiting for me to shake. I did so vigorously. "How ya doin Doc? Glad to see you." He smiled widely. "Workin hard at keeping everything average. Change only seems to be good in small quantities. I see you got yourself a new ship. Where´d you find this old relic?" I took him by the elbow, and began led him towards the turboshaft. "It´s not so much where I found the ship, but rather what I found inside." I juggled the box slightly to catch his attention. "I need you to take a look at something." 1.11

1.12 "You know what this is, don´t you" I was startled awake by his excited utterance. Lifting my head off of his lab table, and wiping the drool from my face I had a momentary, frightening thought of just what kinds of experiments he had conducted on this particular table. "Huh?" "You know what this is?" "Doc, aaahya" Yawn "...just say it. If I knew what it was, I wouldn´t have brought it to you." Yawn. "It´s a power generator." "... Ok, I knew that part. It uses standard coplier style couplers, we´ve been using them for more than a century, only for power units." I looked around the lab. "Where´s your replicator?" Half of the bottom of the station was dedicated to his lab, where he had two working Tradelane generators set up for testing. Amont his his testing equipment was the drive system from a StarFlier, a shield assembly, a power generation station, and racks of key ship systems, all mounted on wheeled and gimballed platforms to allow him to pass the energized systems through the Tradelane event horizon, to monitor any fluctuations that might be caused by the fields generated by these ship elements. This was a method of development he had instituted after a Junior Technician, the son of a Bretonian Lord, attempted to make "Improvements" to a local Tradelane outside New London. The Tradelane malfunctioned as the drive system passed the event Horizon, causing it to sut down... AFTER sending the first half of the test Hunchback to the next set of generators. The rear half, containing the drive system, sat neatly sheared off, in the center of the travel corridor. Needless to say, all further Gatelane development was handled at Pueblo, by specially trained Ageira personel. Doc was apparently too busy to speak at the moment, so rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I poked around his consoles to no avail. Back towards the corner, he had the front cockpit section of the Starflier he had taken the drive section from, and further investigation revealed that both its bathroom and replicator were functional. What an oddball. I called up some go juice and a beer, working myself back to a semi-awakened state. "Ok." I yelled across the lab. "So it´s a power generator. So?" "It´s not just any power generator." "I noticed that. They aren´t usually small, round, lightweight, or glowing." "Do you know what makes this one so special? What makes it work?" "Doc, do you know why I come to you to give me answers to questions like those?" He looked up as I approached, and began to laugh. "I´m sorry. You just have no idea what you have here." I made a circular, travelling motion with my hand, indicating he should continue and get on with it. "This little bugger is powered by a Quantum Singularity. Essentially an atom sized black hole. Actually, quite a bit smaller than an atom, and inside out. In theory it might be quite large, on the outside, turned inward. Although the school..." I waved the hand holding the beer rapidly. "Whoa, whoa... a black hole? In that thing? Why doesn´t it collapse? Should we be this close to it?" I took a step back. "We discovered centuries ago that although the power of a black hole to suck in matter and energy was incredible to say the least, some forces could withstand it. In fact, black holes actually emit radiation of a sort. This globe harnesses that radiation, and not only supplies it externally through the connections, but uses a portion of it to electromagnetically hold the Singularity in a sort of static bottle." "And that means what... you can stand near it, but don´t ever expect to have kids again?" He shook his head. "It means it is perfectly safe, and will generate power forever. Infact, I can´t even begin to imagine the potential power output of this unit. It is an infinite power generator." "so why would it glow more when I held it next to the other one?" He dropped the scanner he was holding, along with his jaw. "There´s another one?" "I didn´t mention that? I´m sorry. Yeah, there are two. One is powering the freighter now." He just stared at me for a long series of moments. "You have two?" "Uhh, yeah. Look, Doc, I gotta get ready to haul parts to the Taus. If this thing is safe, I gotta get it back to the freighter." "You can´t take this. I have to study it. I have to replicate it." It was my turn to shake my hand. "No dice, this one belongs to Preytor. Unless you want to tell him you are keeping it." It was his turn to step back from it. "No thanks. I´ll study yours in the freighter when you get back with the beryllium." 1.12

1.13 On my way back to the turboshaft, I realized I had forgotten about Goldie. I knew the med techs had the diagnostic equipment to see what was wrong with him, and could replicate a drug therapy regieme to hopefully put him back on track. This just wasn´t the friendliest place for medical attention. The med techs were part timers, as most injuries and medical emergencies were solved by simply placing the patient into a portable chamber, closing the hatch, and coming back an hour or two later. Science hadn´t improved the medical doctor. It had eliminated it. With advances such as this in medicine, you might wonder why ships were not all equipped with devices like this. The truth is that you needed the power generators of a small station or capital ship to operate a diagnostic and repair pod. Battleships could have several on board, all in operation at one time. If you wanted to shut down all the systems onboard your capital freighter, you might get away with using one. The air for the crew would start to get stale though before the individual inside the pod would be "done". The first problem I had was how to get Goldie out of the locked crew quarters. I could shoot him, then carry the body to the med bay. as long as I got him into a chamber within a few hours, he would be none the worse for wear. That could be a touch too mesy though, as I was sure they had finished cleaning up the ship. Creating a few pools of blood was just going to get people annoyed at me. Someone in station security might have an electric weapon, and that would solve the problem of mess. Which would solve all my problems. So first stop, Central Security WhoooooWheeeeeooo.. "Operations to Captain Hawkinz. Report Please" I stepped to the commpanel on the wall next to the turboshaft and thumbed the activation switch. "Cute Jamie. What´s up?" "We have a problem. You didn´t inform us you had a dangerous passenger aboard." Damn. They discovered Goldie. "Umm. Yeah. I forgot about that. Uuh, noone got hurt did they?" I batted my eyelashes innocently to make my voice sound more apologetic. "Only your passenger. We have him detained in Central Security now. Can you find the time in your busy schedule to come take care of this please?" You could have gone into hypersleep with the ice in her voice. "I was just headed up there to get assistance in dealing with him when you paged." Mostly true. I thumbed the panel off as the shaft opened. Three very nicely shaped female technicians stepped out, all giving me the once over as I looked them up and down. When did they start hiring female ´Lane parts mechanics? And such tasty ones too. Women were usually too smart to get sucked into a dirty job like that. Moments later I stepped out into Operations. Nothing had changed and the atmosphere was as relaxed as I remembered. Soft modern music played over the sound system, Operations personel lounged around the room, and you would never know there were ships exploding outside if you didn;t look out the windows to see them. If it wasn´t for the lack of alcohol and the abundance of control stations, you would have thought you were in the station´s bar. From her circular station on the raised platform across the room, Jamie Maxils practically glowed. Seeing her again made me wish I had remembered to bring flowers. Or at least a few thousand of the credits I owed her. "I ought to have you thrown out airlock 14 for not telling me first, Hawk. You know I hate surprises." "Jamie. Baby. If it hadn´t been so crazy, you know I would have." I walked as nonchalantly as I could to her desk. " What with the new ship not being set up for a fight, and an injured friend, and something of universal importance that I had to talk to Doc about, telling you about my OTHER friend would have been first on my list." "He is a friend of yours? Why was he locked up then?" That halo of red hair was so damned distracting. "Locked up. Well, he was the reason Preytor was injured. Seems he´s not himself, and a little..." She was tapping her fingers on her hip. I realized I was staring. "... A little what." "A little messed up in the head. I was hoping I could use your med bay for him as well. See if the pod can figure out what is wrong and correct it." I could see her top lip quivering slightly. Or was that just me. "You just want the station, don´t you." "Not the whole station. Just the use of it, and some of her... personel for a little while." I hoped that didn´t come across like it sounded like it came across. Especially since I meant for it to sound that way. Her eyes narrowed to slits, her mouth becoming a beautiful, vicious thin line. "This Parts run? You bring back a hold or Beryllium and we are square. I´ll throw in another load of parts when you get back. And you stop at Planet Kyushu and bring me some of that Tea I like. And enough real beer for the boys." She was playing me! The whole time, acting all angry, and in truth, she was playing me like a musical instrument. I could see it all now. She was pressing her lips together tightly to keep from smiling. Her stance, with her shoulders thrown back a little too far, to make her... assets a bit more profound, the fact that she was standing, and not sitting behind her desk. It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud and hugging her. I wouldn´t spoil it for her though. She had an image to uphold as the director of the station. "You know I owe you big time. I know I owe you big time. I´ll not only bring you back enough Kusari beer for the boys, but I´ll use the STS to send your Tea the minute I get it." I gave her a wink and she gasped slightly, her eyes widening for a fraction of a second, confirming my observations. "Where is my friend now? In one of the security cells?" She looked at me for a long moment, and the smile began to break across her face. "I assumed it would be something you´d want to look into. He´s already in the med bay, most likely in the med pod." She leaned in close. "It was fun to watch you squirm for a while though." I shrugged casually. "I knew it all along." Yeah right. She might have had me tossed out an airlock. With a space suit, but still, deep space and everything. She walked around and flopped down in her chair. I sat on the edge of the desk. "What´s the news on Preytor?" "He wasn´t very happy with the bandaging job. Your handywork I assume? First words out of his mouth coming out of the pod was how it itched like hell." "I had to work with what I had. He hands me this kit and passes out. Like I know anything about his species, or how their repair tools work. It was actually instrument based. Like, tools." Jamie pulled a filmy from a pile on her desk. "Diagnostic says the wound would have killed a human. You say that your loony pal did this?" I nodded. "Vibrablade." She cocked her head to one side. "This wouldn´t have anything to do with the escaped prisoner we caught a news report on, from that institution on Pittsburg, would it?" Erp. "Now you know me better than that, Jamie. What would I have to do with a Liberty tussle?" "That´s what I thought. What´s to keep me from notifying that Liberty patrol passing by right now?" She pointed out the window at a squadron of Patriots flying in formation just outside. "Cuz you love me?" A low grumble began deep in her throat, but she smiled again. "I suppose that could be it." 1.13 Edited by - Hawkinz on 3/22/2005 3:49:27 PM

1.14 (Written by SLA Liasion, thus the difference in Style) His feet scrapping lightly on the metal flooring of the landing area, he looked around slowly trying to figure out where his target would be. As well as where his ride would be to get off this place when it was done. Fiddling softly with a metal package that was attached to the bottom of his ship, his hands worked nimbly over the hull of the ship and package, working it loose with a patient annoyance. Gahh. Why couldn´t the Idiots make it simple and easy to get off? Next time, I´m doing the attaching myself! Unaware of an approaching techie from behind, Liaison continued to fiddle with the package until a cough interrupted his labours. Spinning around, and automatically moving to try and cover the mans view of his package with his body he tried his best to sound friendly, but it came out as a near snarl. "Hello, Can I help you?" A forced Smile crossed his face, small wrinkles shooting out from around his mouth, "Ah, I just noticed you were having some trouble, and though I might be able to assist you. Here let me take a look." The man smoothly manuveured himself past Liaison and just as sounds of protest started come from Liaison the man deftly slipped the package up and away from the ship. Handing it softly to Liaison, the man flashed him a smile. At this point Liaison felt more like kicking the man than anything else, and thus more in his mind than anything, gave the far more diplomatic response of as much of a friendly smile as he could, although it came more naturally when he started to imagine popping the poor techie in the nads. The Techie meanwhile left to grab a ladder and when he returned scaled to teh top of of it, intent on doing ship repairs. Moving away as quickly as he could without attracting suspicion he headed for the door of the bay. As he headed base the doors, they slid open with a smooth efficiency one wouldn´t suspect of a station like this. However he was paused mid-stride when he heard a voice snidely remark "Retard". Spinning around he looked for the man who insulted him, ready to annilate someone, fiunally looking down he noticed a small robot. Glaring, his voice just missing a yell, "What did you say?" "I am service bot X80-92F. I am currently enroute to Hanger 2" replied the robot, no emotion (Naturally) showing in it´s voice. Snarling, Liaison turned back around, only to be greeted again by "Retard" againf rom behind. Spinning around, he glared this time at the robot, which had not yet moved. He was on the verge of just ignoring it and moving away, when a man off to the left burst out in laughter, and pointed, his sentence interrupted by laughter, "Haha.. That Rob...haha Robot Ha it just called you a Hahahheheh a hah a Retard! " After this the man continued to laugh, eventually collapsing to the ground out of breath and unable to laugh anymore. This time his rage caught the better of him, and with a deft kick he sent the small robot flying across the bay. His toe cried out in a small note of pain, but that was nothing for as he watched the robot spinning across the bay, smoked the techie who was just reaching the top of the ladder. Catching him in the back of the head he went face forward into the cockpit, landing in the liquids that were now pooling at the bottom of the ship. A pleased smile crossed Liaison´s lips briefly as he turned and left the bay, his footsteps ringing out with a metallic efficiency as he walked down the hall. 1.14

1.15 Preytor sat on the medbay bunk, his back to the wall, waiting for the weaker painkillers to wear off so his own, much more potent nanite based medication would kick in. He had watched silently as four security guards had carried GH into the bay, and placed him no-so-gently into the diagnostic pod. He had watched silently as the room slowly cleared out, technicians leaving one by one to attend to other duties, as only he and GH were there as patients. He watched silently as the chronometer ticked away the minutes, turning slowly into hours. He was really sick of watching, and he was really sick of being silent. Hearing voices and footfalls approaching in the corridor he could make out Hawkinz speaking to a woman. They stopped before entering the medbay, but their conversation continued. With the enhancers built into his helmet, he could make out some of what was being said. Enough of the conversation was clear to indicate that they had been observing the progress of the pod from another location. Both were very disturbed by the presence of several foreign substances present in Goldie’s body, concentrating in his brain. Both were also very relieved that the pod appeared to be able to neutralize all of them. The analysis of the substances themselves however, was not going well. The door slid open as Hawk shook hands with the woman he had been talking with, and walked into the bay. He stopped to peer in at GH in the pod, and shook his head. Noticing Prey sitting up in bed, he waved and sauntered over. “Feeling better?” “I’d feel better if I hadn’t given that blade to him in the first place.” Shaking his head, Hawk appeared honestly concerned. “I do blame you for being foolish enough to give him a pointy object. But as it turns out none of could have known what was really going on in his head.” “I heard some of what you were talking about. His apparent insanity was due to drugs or something?” “Actually not drugs as such. There were chemical like properties to some of the substances, but from what the pod can determine, they actually appear to be more coherent plasma-based. The problem is, I recognize the molecular signature of most of the substances.” Hawk’s eyes narrowed. “As will you.” He gestured and Preytor took his time standing. Walking carefully to the pod, Prey looked down at the display and thumbed to the display of the ongoing analysis. Once again, he felt himself forced into silence as the graph and numbers told a story he hadn’t wanted to hear. He had seen these readings before. Just never from a med pod display.” “This isn’t a mistake, is it?” Hawk’s eyes told him it wasn’t. “You are reading it correctly. What surprises me is that you and I are the only two people on this station that recognize this apparently.” He looked around as if to make sure no one was watching. “I’m sure when Doc sees this, he’ll know what and who these signatures belong to.” Preytor removed the soft covering he had been wearing over his midsection that allowed the nanites to work in relative privacy. He no longer felt like sitting back, allowing the universe to continue working around him without his hands being active in the mix. “Shadows.” Hawkinz nodded. “Shadows.” “When is he going to be done?” Ding! The pod chose that moment to ring, signaling it had completed it’s cycle, startling Hawkins slightly. It inserted the appropriate time release medication system to complete the recovery process, displayed the fact that it had done so, and cycled the lock in preparation to open. “About now, apparently.” 1.15

1.16 In the darkness of space, many places were immune to the revealing nature of light. Quite often these destinations went unnoticed, some by accident, and some by design. One particular rogue planet fell into the latter category. It’s inhabitants through perseverance and technology tore this once lush green planet from its orbit and forced it loose into space, now centuries forgotten. Human kind came to Sirus, and established itself rapidly. Exploration and expansion uncovered the remnants of the Nomad race and its vestiges. With strength of conviction, Humans overcame this threat, chasing the ancient Nomads to the far corners of Sirus. And those on their rogue planet watched in restrained curiosity. With the discovery and advances in anti-matter weapon technology, Man opened new paths to exploration and destruction. The war against the Nomads was short, and in search of a new enemy, turned upon itself. For a short time combat raged in every system of the galaxy. In a last major effort, Nomads attempted to take advantage of this chaos, to launch a number of coordinated strikes in the House systems and select outlying areas. The clash of combat, technology and intensity produced a startling result. The Nexus. Meeting head to head, the raw destructive power of this new Human technology combined in an unexpected way with the much older and unknown Nomad energy systems. It tore open space, to reveal a traversable passage to a system, outside of normal space. In Sirus, it took the form of an enormous swirling funnel, threatening and beautiful at the same time. At the center of the event horizon, a natural powerful hyper-jumphole was discovered. Each destructive encounter that created a tear, had a jumphole like one of these. And the skies of New York, New Tokyo and more now had a new fixture to be admired planetside. Those on their lost, hidden rogue planet took notice. Before, the curiosity that was Man was an idle amusement, a drop in the well of time. But now, they had not only discovered what had been previously protected space, they smashed their way in from several directions. This would not do. Their relaxed attitude toward action was a failing however. Where they could hardly raise the interest to investigate directly this invasion into their system, Man began to pour through in large numbers, soon settling two of the inhabitable areas inside the nexus. Strong factions established themselves there, while two others quickly constructed bases. Battlelines within what was now called the Nexus were drawn, and daily small fleets of cruisers and gunboats from all sides, launched attacks upon each other. Soon, reports of mysterious disappearances and deaths were filtering back to these bases, and down into Sirus. Details at first were sketchy and lacked any real substance. But soon the larger battle fleets were being accosted by squadrons of an unknown enemy utilizing a powerful weapon technology and organic ship design. There was no communication. They died as silently as they attacked, apparently uncaring as to victory or defeat. Scanners could not even discern a viable life form piloting these craft. They could never be tracked back to a source, nor did they ever only appear from a single direction. In comparison to the Nomads, they were much darker, much more powerful, and massive in number. Once the attacks began on the battlefleets, they became continuous. Caches of these ships were soon and strangely uncovered in two locations in Sirus. With slight modification they were capable of being piloted by a human. Early attempts were made to infiltrate attacking squadrons, but to no avail. They appeared to know if they were in control of a similar craft, or if it was being piloted by an outsider. The Zoners discovered three different types of these ships within the Nexus itself. They would not reveal where the craft came from, only that they seemed to spawn there, as if being spontaneously created. Local pirates and Bounty Hunters alike agreed on a name for this new enemy, based on their methods. They were dubbed the Shadows. The Nexus did contain one unusual and apparently inhabitable planet. Although seemingly impossible, it maintained an atmosphere and viable plant life. No sun warmed its surface, nor held it an orbit. This apparent rogue planet stood a silent sentinel over this mysterious area. While it appeared to be a likely place for settlement, it was avoided unconsciously, as if a command were implanted into the minds of all who viewed it to stay away. No attempt was made to colonize it. But as these attacks from the Shadows increased, a decision to call a truce and unite against this new foe was reached. The planet was designated Treatis Accord and it was decided a meeting would be held there, to organize a strategy as to how to deal with the Shadows. Of all the delegates who attended the meeting that day, none returned. No news escaped the event. No traces of the ships that had carried the delegates were ever discovered. It was as if the event were simply erased. The memory of the attempt remained, and all sides involved blamed one another. But everyone knew deep down, that there was something wrong with Treatis Accord, and it was thereafter shunned. The attempt at a peace did not go ignored by the shadows. The attacks increased in frequency. Throughout it all however, although empty ships were indeed discovered within Sirus, no Shadow was ever encountered there. A violent stalemate had been reached, although it was an uneasy one. Unlike their dealings with the Nomads, Man found no sense of success or of even gaining ground against this new enemy. A gigantic game of cat and mouse had begun, and humankind soon discovered they were not the cat. 1.16

1.17 Goldie sat slumped in his chair, holding his beer to his forehead. Although after exiting the pod his physical ailments would have been taken care of, and any medications would make him feel better, the entire episode appeared to leave him mentally drained. His headache was most likely all in his head, so to speak. Preytor motioned for a waitress to bring three more to the table. “You remember everything, huh?” GH only nodded, slopping a little of his drink onto his hand. I was at a loss at that moment. I wasn’t the one who had been stabbed or had really dealt with the insanity up close. I traded up as far as my ship was concerned, so in a backhanded way, part of the ordeal was good for me. There were questions swimming in my head, but they were all enjoying their time in the pool, and none wanted to get out and dry themselves off for conversation. So I sat and mulled, trying not to look accusing or threatening. “I guess not everything, actually. I mean…” He paused to drink down the beer in his hand as the waitress fresh ones on the table. “…ah…. I mean, I remember the institution, the tests, the odd feelings and wacky thoughts. I remember the escape, and both ships, and stabbing you.” Looking extremely guilty, he sheepishly glanced up at Preytor for a moment. “I remember a long time in an escape pod outside the Nexus in New York. There is a big gap before that though.” That peaked my interest. “A gap? You mean, in how you got to be in the escape pod?” “Yeah. Before that, the last thing I remember was being in the Nexus, running missions for Trader’s against Xenos and Shadows. My Silver Streak was tricked out pretty nicely too.” He appeared lost in thought for a moment. “I wonder if it was destroyed.” Once again, Preytor motioned for the waitress to bring more, even though GH and I hadn’t touched our new drinks. He drained half of his fresh one in a gulp. “We can always try the STS once we head out. Which will be when, Hawk?" I shrugged. “Anytime now I imagine. I’ll talk with Jamie again before we go, but that will be relatively quick.” “You know. I feel like I dreamt something..” There was a lost quality in Goldy’s eyes. “Not that I remember it. A feeling of a sort, or a memory of a feeling. Something just out of reach.” Preytor punched him in the shoulder, almost knocking him out of his chair. “You’ll remember it, if you are meant to.” “I’m sure you have other ships scattered through the systems.” I wanted to bring the conversation back to something lighter, giving Goldy a chance to move forward. “You think you are up to getting back into the pilot’s seat? Mind you, I’m not trying to get rid of you.” My beer finally looked like it needed to be consumed. I obliged. “The weapons chair is always open to you.” Taking a deep breath, he held it in for a moment, and let it out slow through pursed lips. “Yah. I’ll take that chair for now. And I’ll hold off on testing the STS to find my Streak. Who knows where I might end up.” Not wanting to let go of the fading situation, Preytor adjusted his chair so as to move closer to Goldie. The bar was relatively empty, but he didn’t look like he wanted anyone overhearing. “GH. If you don’t know it by now, the reason why you were crazy was due to some Shadow plasma-based stuff in your blood and brain.” He looked dubious. “You got this information where?” “The med pod was pretty clear on it.” Another beer was mortally wounded by Prey. “Goldy, have you ever paid attention when you are being shot at?” I leaned in to be part of the conversation. He looked genuinely annoyed. “Of course not.” The sarcasm was overly evident. “I just ignore it and let them destroy me. Of course I pay attention.” “No. What I mean, is have you ever paid attention to your detection systems and power analysis stats from when you are being hit?” He still looked annoyed. “I don’t usually have time. And I don’t usually get shot.” “Damn straight.” Preytor was in total agreement. I let a smile creep out. “Well I’ve taken a more laid back attitude. It might cost me in batteries and repair bots but it has paid off in the long run.” “So that’s where you’ve gotten all that data from.” I had to believe it was a thoughtful expression on Preytor’s face. “I’d always assumed you’d bought or stolen it.” “No better way to gather trustworthy information than to get it first hand.” By this time, the waitress was regularly bringing beers to the table. I was beginning to wonder who was picking up the tab on this one. “My point is that I and a few other special and observant individuals have seen a few patterns in the energy signature of the weapon the Shadows use.” “So?” GH was becoming more interested then he wanted to admit. “So, the chemical-like energies left inside your body, that the pod took care of, had these same signatures. Not identical, but too similar not to be the same. It was a coherent plasma… a solid-energy, if you will.” “You think I was attacked by Shadows, and lost? Please!” Now he was indignant. “Shadows go down easier than Nomads.” “Look. My scientist friend is going to be investigating the data soon enough. He will be confirming what Prey and I already know. I am just starting to suspect something. Something without foundation.” Goldie seemed to soak that in. He decided to soak in some beer as well. I knew Preytor was staring at me, waiting for me to finish what I was saying. I was waiting for Goldie to be ready for what I had to say next. Something else came to mind though. “I know how I recognized the signature. How did you know it by sight Prey?” He smiled that frightening smile. “I’ve been tapped into your datanet account for a long time now Hawk. Not that I’ve ever done anything with it other than reading up on what you find and your more exciting log entries.” This did not surprise me all that much. I was more surprised by my lack of concern that I’d been hacked. Of course, this means others could have been tapped into my amateur investigations for a while. The more I thought about it, the more disturbed I got. “I’ll have to use encryption algorithms from now on, but I’ll set you up with access.” “Or I could just have it hacked again.” Laughing, he swung to slam me in the shoulder. Not looking to suffer that fate again, I dodged. I was learning. Peering at GH over the rim of my glass, I could see he was paying attention now. “Goldie, I suspect that you were in direct contact with Shadows. Whether you were infected with some disease, or if what was in you was some kind of drug or control substance, I have no idea.” I finished the beer in my hand. “But I don’t think that it was accidental.” “You say it’s gone?” “The pod neutralized it. It found no remaining active traces.” He mulled that over. “You didn’t answer the question. Is it gone?” That moment in time seemed like an especially good moment to allow another beer to entertain my taste buds. “I honestly don’t know.” 1.17

1.18 By the time the turboshaft had reached the docking bay, Goldie had resigned himself to the fact that Preytor was not going to put him down, and he would just have to put up with the embarrassing situation of being slung over the warrior’s shoulder like a sack of laundry. He had admitted to himself that he had indeed consumed far too much beer, but was not ready to concede that to anyone else. Not being able to stand in the bar without swaying had been a dead giveaway though. Preytor on the other hand, was ready to go for another few rounds. He had been thinking about that when he picked GH up, he thought about the cold replicated treats while GH pounded on his back and made a ruckus, and he mulled over potential sculptures he intended to make from the empties on the crew mess table while GH tried to logically convince him that he was O.K. to walk. He was just having too much fun. His friend was back, and not going to be out of his skull anymore. Preytor was a happy creature of mass destruction. Alan looked positively bored to tears, but wide awake when Prey and GH approached. He gave the two a nod as they passed him on their way into the cargo bay of the LDP4, amused at the sight. It was a far different scene than when he had watched the same human being carried out of the ship earlier. All in all however, he was looking forward to an end to this guard duty, so he could start his recreation period. Once inside, Prey put GH down and stood stock still as his friend wound up and punched him square in the stomach. Not waiting for a reaction, GH turned on his heel and strode heavily to the cockpit. Preytor chuckled to himself, debating on hitting the replicator there in the bay, or actually moving the few meters into the crew mess to use the one there. Thunk! “Damnit all to hell! What’s the door code Prey?” Now Prey couldn’t help but laugh out loud. He imagined that GH had walked solidly into the door, expecting it to open. “There isn’t a code that I know of. It should be unlocked.” The replicator in the bay had won the battle of his internal argument, so he moved around the ceiling high stacks of sealed crates of Gatelane parts to the secondary STS and replicator station. He only wished the replicators produced a variety of beers. He would have to look into reprogramming these, for he knew Hawkinz could only appreciate that. Goldie repeatedly hit the panel to open the door, without result. As he turned to go get Preytor he heard the door slide open behind him. Thinking that possibly his friend was having more fun at his expense, he grumbled and turned his body to start through the door, looking back over his shoulder at the cargo bay. Several non-lethal methods of revenge were passing through his mind. Passing the threshold, he turned back to watch where he was going only to stop short, his nose inches from the barrel of a pistol. “Close the door and don’t say a word. Or what happens next won’t concern you anymore.” Goldie, never taking his eyes off the barrel of the weapon, reached behind him and fumbled slightly for the door panel. A few missed attempts and the door finally slid closed. “Good. Now unless you can get this bucket moving, sit there and keep quiet.” The stranger in merchant’s clothes gestured towards the communications station. GH with only the slightest hesitation, sat silently. As Preytor came through the cargo bay hatch into the crew mess, he saw the door slide closed behind Goldie. He put down his pile of beer cans and a box containing a molecular welder and some scrap metal on the table. “Hey GH. You wanna be a sport and join me for a beer?” Silence. “Goldie. Come on. Don’t be pissed.” More Silence. Shrugging it off he sat down heavily on one of the stools fastened to the floor, cracked upon a beer, and began to construct a frame that would hold a beer at mouth level for him and tilt the can to a drinking position when pressure was applied in just the correct manner. He figured such a device would save him immeasurable time while piloting, fighting, and just relaxing. 1.18