Gramps grumbled as he walked down to the TPG infirmary, walking with the slight limp that was his trademark, a legacy of a particular bad fight with a pirate in Odia years ago. He had dressed in a moderately clean boiler suit meant not to intimidate the dock hand he was on his way to talk to. When Ecka had asked him to solve this matter, he had not hesitated a second, after all that was what the council members were supposed to; help the members. He still grumbled, but that was because he had to walk almost the entire length of the station to get there. He arrived at the infirmary and walked up to the nurse on duty.
"Hello Ms, I am here to see the dock hand that was shot in the knee three days ago. I am expected."
The nurse looked at him over her glasses, smiled and flicked through her files.
"Yes, you must be Gramps, legal representative of TGFT? Pardlon is waiting for you with his attorney in room 23, it is right over there."
Gramps nodded his thanks and walked over to the room, ready for negotiations.
###
Naoko enjoyed this particular problem. She had the name of the person that was attacking TGFT, and now she was doing a search for all and any connections across several screens and databases. She had come up with four names already, only one of whom was known. Ahriman, the guild leader of KAOS. She followed up with a search on Ahriman as well, but that came up empty. She allowed a slight frown to cross her picture perfect visage, and tried something else. She stole one of PA's bugs and started leeching data from the TPG mainframe's secondary memory store. She had sifted through data for about ten seconds when the screen went dead. Puzzled, she called up her log and checked what was wrong. Something had snubbed her, but not TPG. It looked like it had been NP, but why would he do that? She tried another access to the mainframe and got the same result within six seconds. Something was wrong, she had to notify Surbius and do it now. She sent the priority note and tried another way in. Something was very wrong, and she wanted to find out what it was.
###
The guards at the entrance to TPG central never knew what happened. One moment they were on boring guard duty, the next second the lights went out. Fumbling for the light switch, they never noticed the group that advanced on them and eventually put a sonic taser to the head of each man in turn. The smell of voided bowels quickly filled the room, not that anybody noticed from behind the masks. The point man used the ID card along with a limp right hand from one of the guards. The door chimed open and showed a dark room behind it, the software still cloaking the attackers in night. A single shot rang out and the lone guardsman who was trying to get his night vision goggles on, dropped in cramps. The cells were three on each side, no marking at all. The point man walked over to the second cell, hesitated for the smallest amount of time, and then set a xith toothed chainsaw to the frame. The noise of a super charged engine revved to the maximum level rocked the corridor, making the guard wince on top of his involuntary shaking. A shower of plasteel rained down on the deck as the point man cut the door frame clean off. When the frame was unsupported, the trooper ripped it out into the corridor, revealing the man behind.
"What took you so long?"
The answer came from the second trooper.
"You know Commander, someone wise once told me that if you want something done, do it right."
Asteroth smiled at that. He remembered the deep penetration mission he had planned with the Serco Spec Ops, and the exact time he himself had said precisely those words.
"Point taken Red. I assume you have a plan for extraction as well?"
"Yes Sir, Skull over here has your survival kit. Cat, are we ready to move out?"
A low female voice responded.
"Aye Chief, we are ready. I have multiple bogeys inbound Chief, I am switching to lethal response instead of stunners."
"Belay that Cat, as long as we have the upper hand, we use stunners only. Respond."
"Aye aye Chief, stunners only."
Asteroth donned his gear quickly, after all he had trained for this scenario many times. Once suited up, he activated the dark vision and watched the former Terror Troops and Red Tide with pride. They moved with the economy of countless hours of training, they still had it. The guy with the chain saw was another chapter entirely. Bearing the saw he was named for, he appeared by almost non showing, an effect that was eerie and scaring. When you didn't look directly at him he seemed to disappear, a very nice trick. Red Tide nodded in appreciation when Asteroth finished within the time limits that he had himself described those years ago when he was commander of their unit.
"Cat, you have point, Skull, you second, Bloody Mayhem, you take rear. Oh, and Chainsaw, with me. Sir, we are ready to move out."
Asteroth nodded, and Cat slid along the wall into the corridor again.
###
The Behemoth could be described with many words. Elegant, slim, sleek, or even vicious were not among those words. To Hortan, there was only one word that could describe the large cargo vessel with the stripes in panic yellow, the colour that contains just enough red that predators go nuts and believe that the wearer of this colour will turn tail and flee at the earliest opportunity, and so will drive said predator to a feeding frenzy, and that word was beautiful. He ran his hands down it's pockmarked sides, the armour having in some places been scoured clean several times by ionstorms, plasmafire or just plain old collisions. He removed the pre-flight caps from the high density mining beams, and ensured that they had no cracks in the crystal lattice that made the focal point. He checked out the cargo, 120 crates of the finest luxury goods, fashion clothes and chocolate, signed the receipt and handed the credits over. Better get this done before he lost his nerves.
At 0920 standard time, he launched, and programmed his NAVCOMP for Sedina. He hoped that his timing would be correct, but he was ready for some evasive manoeuvres if he would encounter pirates. Avoiding the usual ionstorms in Azek by plotting around, he entered the Latos wormhole, and grey space with something resembling the entire collected Monarch butterfly emigration swarm in his stomach. This was going to be intense to say the least. At least space here was empty, most pirates would be asleep now anyway. Or that was what he had been told. He entered Latos O12 some 5k away from the wormhole, and started boosting towards it. The butterfly's were now on helium and acid, because they were more and more active in his stomach. He entered the wormhole and activated the jumpdrive.
###
Azumi sighed deeply. That was without doubt the worst piece of poetry she had ever heard, and the worst part was that it was aimed at her. Fortunately Denji did not know precisely where she was, but this had the unfortunate side-effect that he had broadcast his "dedication" poem on the general news channel. It reminded her of the time where an equally lovesick Hortan had blabbered about His Queen on and on. She sighed again and turned the Rev C around once more to make sure her radar had the best resolution. There, an Atlas that had just jumped out of the system. Crap, it must have been in the slight four degree dead angle that was a legacy of the Rev C's extra mounted weapon, the reason why Rev C pilots had to keep flying in wide turns for full coverage. She sighed once more, she didn't even bother to curse; that poem was just good for nothing!
Retractile: Az, I know you do stuff for yoda, do you know who I have to talk to in Latos?
She looked at the guild coded message from Retractile and shook her head in wonder.
->Retractile: Hun, I have no clue what you are doing deary. How do you expect me to help you then?
Retractile: I need to deliver a pouch to some KAOS dude.
->Retractile: Try their commander, I think he is called Ahriman.
Retractile: Thanks Az, will do.
Azumi shook her head slowly and resumed her sweep of Sedina B-8. There, the telltale tachyons of a ship emerging, and a Moth as well. She engaged the turbo and flew in on the left side of the ship, forty metres away. She targeted the ship, ready to pour positron fire into the helpless trader. Hortan. She punched the controls and disengaged from the firing position.
"Why the hell are you here all alone? Don't you know it is dangerous here? There are pirates all around, they WILL kill you Hortan"
She fumed, she had told him that it was dangerous, she had told him that the pirates were...hang on, she was a pirate. She sat up in her seat as the implications hit her. Why hadn't she pirated him instantly? Why hadn't she fired a warning shot across the bow of his ship?
Inside Hortan's moth, he punched the two buttons he had set up prior to entering Sedina, as he did not trust his nerves to enable him to type once he encountered Azumi. And he was right, he was barely able to even do this. He sent his message and dumped his cargo.
->Hortan: Ms Azumi, Roses are red, violets are blue, Heliocene roids are beautiful, and so are you. Please accept these gifts as a token of my gratitude. Yours, Hortan.
Azumi stared at the crates dumbfounded, and barely noticed the moth turn and jump out again. Great, two would be poets without an ounce of talent between them. This was probably the first time she had ever been likened to a roid, but she knew he meant well. Sighing she jumped to D-14 to get her loot-moth, after all a girl needed her chokkies, and it seemed that some of the crates contained the new clothes collection from Dau.
