Elos Drade was in reality Corvus pilot Elos Dradenak. NP had no problems finding him, he was still active in the Sedina D-14 station defence force. He waited for Chi to report that the terrorist had been apprehended, by none other than young Hortan, and then launched to Sedina B-8. He had coded the data and dropped in his Vulture. Ready for another drop. He was getting tired of this, he had been dropped nine times yesterday to retrieve the emergency packet from yoda that allowed him to warn Chi. But in the end it was worth the effort. No contact could be seen between CLM and CIA/PA, no matter how expedient it was.
He exited the wormhole in the middle of a convoy going the other way. Azumi and sharingan were attacking it, each going for a Behemoth. One large explosion indicated that one of the behemoths never made it, and the rest of the convoy was through. Azumi and sharingan jumped after it, not willing to let their prey get away. NP shuddered slightly, he hated seeing trade vessels treated like shooting targets. Azumi exited back into B-8 and turboed towards the 3k mark. If she had seen him, she ignored him completely. He wondered if he had done something wrong, when she reappeared in a pink Behemoth. Ah, the cargo. He decided to let her get some of her own medicine, and flew the vulture over towards the front of the Behemoth and flared a couple of shots at her. Azumi ignored it, opened her cargohold and scooped 118 of the 120 crates of synthetic gems into the cavernous hold. NP was puzzled, why didn't she take them all? He moved closer to examine the two remaining crates. What was wrong with those?
Azumi: You are green
The front of the Behemoth erupted in a fusillade of missile fire as Azumi unloaded her chaos swarms at the vulture. NP never got to even try and avoid, before the explosions tore his ship apart, thus solving the fist part of the delivery mission.
Azumi laughed out loud. Even as she knew that NP was supposed to be exploded, she had wanted to make it spectacular. And this gave her a kill even on a boring cargo pick-up mission. She intercepted the Xithricite case. 119 crates in all, capacity full. Sharingan exited the wormhole in his vulture, having sold the cargo in Latos.
"Are you getting picky? What is wrong with those two crates left?"
"Had to get some scrap metal for a mission I am about to take" she replied, lying easily.
"More for me then." Sharingan scooped the crates into his vulture. "Ok, go and unload, lets set up for the next set of traders."
"On my way, this ship is as manoeuvrable as a 40 ton brick house with engines. Wait, it is a 40 ton house.."
Sharingan chuckled, "yeah, but get moving before I decide that you need to be pirated."
Azumi accelerated slowly to the 3k mark. She absolutely hated flying this thing, and she would only do it to pick up the cargo they had liberated. Once she had docked, she grabbed the crystal from the box and ran directly down to yoda's. As he opened the door, he was his usual pleasant self, and accepted the mem crystal. She was about to leave again when he called her back.
"Yes yoda-sensei?"
"Next time, make sure you change out of that horrible jumpsuit before you come down here. It looks horrible on you Azumi.
She had no idea what to say, so she merely bowed and left. Wow, he had actually noticed that she was dressing up for their meetings. She had just the right dress for next time. She smiled as she ran down the corridor. Well, dress may be stretching it a bit.
Yoda de-frowned for a brief moment as Azumi left. In reality he didn't care one iota what she wore or not, but he could see that she did. And he liked the relationship just as it was. He inserted the mem crystal and started working. Interesting and fascinating. So the pilot that survived against all odds and spoiled whatever plan had been set into motion, had apparently succeeded in apprehending the person responsible for the terror attacks on Remley Orbital. It seemed the young Hortan had a knack for being at the right location at the right time.
He started working on finding the pilot, and it didn't take him long to run the data to its conclusion. The issue here was, how was he going to turn the biggest profit on this for himself and CLM. Never one to be timid, he decided to play both horses.
Hortan was sitting with John Eldritch at the TPG security office. He had been asked to stay until they had checked that his story was actually true, and that there was in fact bombs placed at every critical junction on the station. John was grinning like a madman, finally the pacifist in Hortan had been replaced by a born again hard fighter. He had listened to Hortan as he described how he had incapacitated the man, and was surprised over the amount of Krav Maga Hortan had knowledge of. He was looking forward to sparring with him.
Hortan on the other hand, was slowly drinking a cup of hot chocolate to wash down two of the tranquillisers he had received from Ms. Chi. He knew that he had to protect Ms. Chi, and so he had agreed to take responsibility. But no matter what, he could not bring himself to lie. He had told the story from someone else's perspective, never mentioning himself, but never mentioning Ms. Chi either, and the rent-a-cops were only too happy to fill out the blanks. He was trying to keep from correcting them, and so far succeeding.
With a large "There you are", Vardonx came into the room. They both looked up and saw the full combat gear clad fighter pilot.
"Hortan, you are needed, and right now. Me and Lambin are to take you to Odia immediately. I have your suit here and a Warthog Mk II ready for you."
Hortan looked at the combat flight suit and swallowed hard.
"I don't, I mean, I really can't" he said.
"What do you mean you can't? You bloody well have to. Surbius received a message from an undisclosed source requesting your skinny butt in Odia. It was of the utmost importance to the TGFT, and that means we'll fly whether TPG likes it or not." Vardonx thought that Hortan was unable to leave because of the police matter.
"It is not that, I can't, no, I won't fly a combat ship under any circumstances, and I will not wear a combat suit."
Vardonx looked at him with disbelief. "Will an Atlas TPG do? And a regular jumpsuit?" Hortan nodded. "Then get moving, because we are leaving 10 minutes ago." Vardonx opened the door and started moving. John looked at Vardonx, and then at Hortan.
"I am going too."
"Nope, Surbius said only me and Lambin" Vardonx replied.
"You seem to have misunderstood. I said I am going. It was not a question." John rose slowly and purposefully, steadying Hortan at the same time.
Vardonx rolled his eyes, "right, right, can we go now then at least. By the profits of TPG, why can't it be simple just once?"
The council received notice that the terror attack had been stopped. Now they just had to find Ardon and let him account for his actions. They needed to find out where things had gone wrong, so they could ensure that the next plan would succeed.They needed to figure out what parts of the plan could be salvaged. And that aside, he was still holding a significant amount of credits.
