The assault force assembled in a non-descript room in Remley Orbital. The kit used for the mission had previously been stashed in a common carbonic roid in a Latos minefield, and only the tired look on all and a slight limp on one of the members gave away that they had just returned from Dau K-10. The chitchat was kept to a minimum, most just wanted to go sleep. A plethora of folded robes and shadows entered the room; their elusive commander had arrived. Known to most of known space as Ahriman, commander of KAOS, the crew knew better than that. To them he was Master Inquisitor Ahriman. Each and every one of them owed their life, sanity or more to him, either by his personal intervention or by present team members. He moved up to the front of the room and removed his hood, leaving the flowing robes. A bald head completely covered in tattoos with piercing eyes that seemed to glow on top of a hawkish nose that was underlined by a well-trimmed beard.
"We have succeeded in two out of three objectives, and for this our employer has paid his fee as was agreed upon. Furthermore we have paid our debts and KAOS is now again completely without ties to anyone be it person or guild. To each of your accounts I have entered 5 million credits, and put the same amount in the collective account. Before we take on a new assignment, I have a task that I need you to fulfil for me. For this I have enrolled a new team member, Temmin Shard. Pay attention, we need to move swiftly."
###
Naoko almost jumped through the roof when the hand touched her shoulder ever so lightly, her pulse briefly accelerating to above 200.
"Relax Naoko. You need to take a break."
She looked up at a very concerned looking Surbius.
"Sir, I am fine. I almost have it now, the data is converging around this single piece of information..."
"I am sure you are Naoko, and I have no doubt in my mind that you will eventually find it. But I am telling you hat now is not the time. You have been at it for more than a full day."
He glanced at the empty stimulant containers that were in the waste bin next to her desk.
"But we need to nail these murderers Sir. And I am almost there."
"I am sure Naoko. But I need you to go and get some rest now before you collapse here. You did so very very well, and I need your skills up at full in eight hours. Now go rest, I have NP working on it as well.
"But Sir I....Yes Sir."
The act of taking responsibility of her shoulders had the effect of all the fatigue hitting her like a twenty-pound sledgehammer. She yawned and felt dizzy and had to rest one hand on the table when she stood.
"I have arranged an escort for you Naoko."
She looked up at Surbius all blurry eyed and then to the other person behind.
"Hi Ms Naoko, it is me Hortan. Let me take you to your cubicle."
Surbius looked at Naoko and then at Hortan.
"You better be ready to carry her Hort, I am not sure she is going to last the whole way."
Hortan nodded and lifted the surprisingly light young woman up in his arms.
"Let's go get you some sleep Ms Naoko."
She didn't hear him; she was already sleeping, her arms around his neck and head buried on his shoulder.
###
NP had left only slept for a couple of hours; his reactivated brain-plant flushed the fatigue from his system as fast as his tired brain could make it. The counterattack or counter probe had found some very nice details about his attacker, details that Naoko until now had been very efficient in tracking. Apparently the attack had not taken place from Remley as first thought, but from Dau Senate instead. The security around that particular station was awesome, and he really had to probe gently so as not to draw attention to himself. He used a couple of seconds to check up on the status of his TGFT friends in hospital, and seeing they were stable he refocused on his task. He would get the assholes that had done this, and he would preserve a special place in his own personal vengeful hell for the person that had attacked him directly.
###
Buzz had received the summons from Zathras and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. Arriving in the Skunk Works, he saw Moda and Zath sit in their reclining chairs slowly sipping beers. He slowed to a walk and smiled and waved to the pair. Zathras looked at Buzz and indicated the third chair with a facial expression that fitted best in a morgue. Moda put an open Dark Lady in front of him and lifted his own beer in greeting. Buzz took the beer and waved it in return before drinking deep from the bottle; it would be impolite not to.
"So Zath, you had news for me?"
"This one calls you here to say that nothing more can now be done whirr, click"
Buzz looked at Zathras and slowly it dawned upon him what he just said.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me? Are you telling me that these, these abominations cannot be removed?" Buzz rose and looked down at his chest.
"We shall repeat, we have done what we can, we can do nothing more brr."
Buzz was about to blow a fuse and stalk out of there when Moda put a calming hand forward.
"Rest easy buddy, what Zath is trying to say is that he has now dosed you and all we can do is wait and see."
Buzz looked at Moda without comprehension, until he followed Moda's gaze and looked at his beer.
"You put it in the beer?"
"Well, there may be some side effects that you may or may not be interested in knowing, so we just dosed it and let you drink."
"Side effects?"
"Let's see what happens, shall we? They are maybes, not for sures. Oh, and you may want to find a toilet soon. Real soon."
Buzz allowed Moda to lead him out of the hangar and close the door with the happy skunk painting. He stood for a couple of seconds feeling something strange happening to his stomach. A gurgling, then a protracted movement followed by another gurgling. Stomach cramps hit him like a Samo laden moth XC on turbo for eighteen days, and he felt a serious, nay a life or death need to empty his bowels. He ran/crawled/staggered to the nearest toilet.
###
The capsule that Retractile brought back from Remley contained precisely what yoda had wanted for such a long time. His implants had originally been installed by the Serco department of R&D as part of a test of how much hardware could be cramped into a single person. They had nearly killed yoda as well as their other test subjects, but some dark force had kept it's malicious hand over him and spared him alone. That was a long time ago and yoda had since then removed himself from the Serco military, indeed anything Serco. Everything had worked fine until last year when one of his implants stopped working, cascading to the other implants as well until only his most essential ones functioned. Cause of failure? Simple lack of power. He needed to change his batteries. It had taken him quite some time to figure out where he could obtain a new power source, and even more to find out how to liberate one from the depths of Serco Necrose Thought Police. He had trawled for information and come up with this Ahriman character that could obtain one for a favour. Nuff said, he had scanned the power source several times, it came out clean. He inserted it into his power cradle and started to turn his systems on. Oh sweet merciful crap, it felt SO good to be fully himself again. He actually smiled and started humming an old Serco military song from the academy.
Swag Man: Boss, somebody you wanna meet is in the Sedina/Latos wormhole
->Swag Man: And just who might that be?
Swag Man: Gavan Ardgall. He seems mightily interested in talking to you
Yoda smiled even more. How good was this day going to get?
