The Line in the Stars (IC) [PG/14]

[SquirrelWizard]

Robert tapped the table idly, "What is the status of your ground team?" he probably could have asked over the comm, but being this wasn't his outfit, he'd rather avoid any confusion stemming from unknown voices. "Do we need a medical team standing by? Fire support? And this Fuchsia Acadian," he glanced over at the other technicolor foxes in the room, "Do you know who he is? And, if so, is he going to be trouble?"

[Azlan]

Matron


Xaos had a quizzical look on his face, "I don't know who he is, but you know I've been gone a long time."

Gaea was equally perplexed, but the two kits were excited.  Well, Loki was excited and Ixiah was half-excited and half-apprehensive.

"It's Heimdall!  Oh cool!"  Loki exclaimed.  "Let's head down there and meet him.  Maybe he can help us."

Loki tried to bolt off, but Ixiah grabbed him by the hand as he tried to explain, "they're brothers, Heimdall is older."  Turning to Loki, Ixiah looked him straight in the eyes.  With a stern voice he asked Loki, "yes it's Heimdall, but think long and hard about that, why would he turn up here all of a sudden?"

Loki, nose to nose with his blue cousin, could not avoid the older ones gaze, "I... he's with uncle Chronos then.  Perhaps we can reason with him, bring him over with us?"

"Not likely, he is probably under the influence of the 'Others' and with Chronos here that makes nearly impossible to reach him.  Chronos has always been very good at influencing others in very extraordinary ways."  Xaos stated, "regardless, we absolutely cannot reveal ourselves to that apparition."

Matron studied the images she was receiving from nearly halfway around the world, "it is likely a remote viewing construct.  One such as Heimdall could not hope to encounter Xaos or Gaea on his own.  It poses little real danger, but gives its user a wide range of detection capabilities.  Our precautions must be effective if he needs to use one to aid in the search."

"Without going into details that are rather droll to begin with, suffice it to say if he can 'see' us with that, he will narrow us down to such a point that any hope of escape tracking will be highly improbable."  Mother added.

"It is up to the team to lose him, let's hope it goes well."  Gaea sighed.

Saioko looked around and addressed Matron and Mother, "can you get me a conventional hyperwave channel to communicate with a standard ISIS cypher like on my comm unit?"

Matron nodded and waved her hand in a sweeping gesture.  A console activated for the feline.

"Knight this is Captain Natsume.  Nice to see we got communications back up.  What is your sitrep?"  Saioko inquired.



Outside Pirate Base


Magick held up his hands to Doc, "okay chill, I was just calling things as she told me too.  We needed direction, but you are right now that the LT is here, he can take over."

Trying not to look suspicious, Magick approached Knight, "our boss is out, harbinger venom.  The antitoxin will take, but it needs a bit of time.  So what's up with the pink fox?"

Knight received the call from Saioko, "I repeat, what is status?"

Meanwhile Ben stared at the apparition of a fuchsia vulpine.

Heimdall spoke first, "No it's Acadian, not Arcadian.  The people of Arcad are silly and I am most definitely not of them."

"Yeah well, whatever.  There are space pirates here, you know the type that toss you out of airlocks and steal your ship and cargo?  Arr matey and all that?  See, they want to kill us and I don't want to be killed.  So try and see it my way... you go find your Xaea and Gaos..."

"Gaea and Xaos."  Heimdall flatly replied.

"Yeah that... and we'll go escape the pirates."

Heimdall switched from serious to something that could only be described as amorous, "Space Pirates?  My brother Loki always wanted to be a space pirate!  I will check this out!  Say hi to Loki for me."

"Sure thing... er..."  Ben stopped and cringed.  What the hell, how did I fall for that?

"Aha!"  Heimdall exclaimed and pointed at Ben.

[ShadesFox]

Matron

Aaron did so wish that he had some sort of captain's chair to flop into, "Well, owing to the ground team's wet noodle level of intellect, it is safe to assume that they know of Loki's presence.  Perhaps Mother can go and save them?  Perhaps have Ixiah, Loki and Lt. Nova go aboard Mother."

Aaron had some reservations about this plan. First was that it left him with only Robert, Richard, and Marissa on Matron, and he has no idea who Robert is.  Still, Ixiah would be needed to help keep Loki from being too excited, and Mother probably would not budge with Loki still on Matron.  This only left the possibility of himself getting mind controlled by Xaos, remote enough that Aaron was comfortable.

[Azlan]

Matron


Xaos drifted behind Aaron, having disappeared from his previous position to appear and haunt the gray fox, "you know I can hear your introspection right?  Please tell me you don't think that such a thing can be concealed?"

Xaos fails to make any assurances about not mind controlling.

Mother studied the situation and commented, "well, I could go and grab them, but that makes us traceable.  Heimdall really can't do anything specifically, but he can follow them.  Especially us, Acadians and their descendants.  What makes us stronger is a weakness against someone like him."  

Gaea frowned, "They need to make him go away.  If what you say is true about him, then someone needs to render Ana unconscious.  Heimdall can latch onto her conscious mind and follow it anywhere because of what she is.  Her mind is far stronger when it is asleep then awake and she can block him.  That big eared male... Jack?  He is safe, what ever derivative species that he evolved from lost any Acadian influence."

[ShadesFox]

Matron

Aarong shrugged, "It is that capability that make me sure that you either aren't mind controlling me or it doesn't matter.  It just annoys me that we seem to have no capability to help them until they lose Heimdall."

[Chairtastic]

"When...I give an order it is to be followed.  Even if I am not around to remind you of it."  Jack hopped back in surprise, ears down, eyes wide, a tinge of red growing across his face, and his tail firmly protecting his rear end.  Meanwhile, Harriet, having regained consciousness for a brief period of time, still had her still working hand in the air, at fox tushie hight.

"Th-that was completely inappropriate, Harriet!" The fennec blustered, narrowing his gaze.  "We're in the middle of a mission."

Harriet found she was having an easier time talking, thanks to the stimulant fighting off some of the less anchored paralysis; and thus smiled for the first time in what seemed like forever.  "Aww, c'mon Jack.  I'm probably going to die, can't I get cut some slack?  In any event, it seems this is the end of this mission.  As you lot are either waiting for the pirates to find and shoot you all, or for the new guy's long range-weapons to get a lock on our position."  Fortunately, Magick had decided to hold Harriet over his shoulder on the side that she could see what was going on, with a mild lag between video and audio.  "While you all run that over in your minds, I'm going back to unconsciousness now.  Good night."

And just like that, her arm went limp again.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Matron

"Is there anything that can block or distract Heimdall? He is only a hologram or astral-projection, a ghost.  With a EM pulse effect his present form or something, Wait!...  Is he locking on to Ana right now?  This maybe the only way to lost him, by normal means.

"Saioko, you need tell Knight to sedate Ana quietly by accident, and then we have make the some near by explosion as distraction(a "misfired" missile should do the trick or defense bot), and that should give the strike team a few seconds of distraction.  They can run away from Hiemdall and hopefully loose him.  Mother can pick them quickly, even if they have to split up.

Or

I could just singing to Heimdall over the comm link, but that may only help him get a fix on us.  And confirm that Xaos and Gaea are here." 

"In any case, Major, sir, we will have to split ourselves up, Loki and I will have to return to Mother.  Ixiah and yourself can stay on Matron.  Mother and I will keep Loki in line, for his safety and the safety of us, all.  We can get our people out of the harm's way, but we have to get going.  Saioko, Robert, and Richard, you welcome to come along, if the Major says so. We can continue to debate on the way there over comms."

Nova didn't like leave Matron to the Major or to anyone, but her people were in danger, and the quicker she got them back the quicker she could be back here.  The quicker we all will be able to escape.  She hug Gaea one at last time, and Matron found her crystal necklace back on her.   *Mara?*  Matron nobs. 

Nova walks to Loki and then heads to the door at a walk, knowing the Aaron would says something to stop her.....Would he?

PBH

[Lisky]

Outside Pirate Base

Knight checked his comm unit, Saioko was calling... how was she... oh. Right. ISIS code.  He replied, "Things are a bit more complicated than i'd like down here.  We're okay, and preparing to evac... but seems to have hit a bit of a snag.  I'll keep the channel open for now, and we'll try and... Shit... i'll get back to you in a moment..."  

Cutting his mic, Knight grabbed Ben by the shoulder and went to introduce himself.  The odd colored fox didn't seem all that intimidating... but then again, he'd seen the 2 'children' tear through a pirate base with total disregard for life... given their abilities, this one wasn't something to trifle with.  "While standing around chatting is all well and good... would you mind if we had this chat on the run... we're still in range of the pirate snipers and probably their mechs too.  I'd like to avoid getting shot today."

He started to move deeper into the forest, hoping the Acadia would either be dumbfounded, and therefore stunned into inaction, or pick-up the hint that the team needed to put more distance between them and the base before things turned very ugly. Hopefully he could work something out on the move... that would be ideal... however, chances were that this whole mission got a lot more complicated.  Activating his pick-up again, he said to Saioko, "We've got an Acadian here... didn't catch his name, what 'm i supposed to do with him?"

[SquirrelWizard]

"Saioko, you need tell Knight to sedate Ana quietly by accident, and then we have make the some near by explosion as distraction(a "misfired" missile should do the trick or defense bot), and that should give the strike team a few seconds of distraction.  They can run away from Hiemdall and hopefully loose him.  Mother can pick them quickly, even if they have to split up."

Robert stood up and planted his hands on the table, "This is how you treat your team mates!?" he sneered, "Its one thing to sedate a person if they are physically or mentally unfit for duty, but to just do it because its convenient!? We should be talking about this with this Ana, not putting her down like she's a prisoner." He sat back down, "Sedating her now will just add one more body to lug around to an extraction point slowing the rest down. Even then we don't know if Hiemdall can't follow them using sight via whatever projection device of his. If Hiemdall is fixated on her, then she might be able to be a distraction for him."

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Matron

Nova stops and looks at Robert with sigh.  "You are right, We should talk to Ana about this in front of Hiemdall, while we decide if Ana should be put down temporary.  Romy will be burden with her weight trying to run away, but they will not get away with her conscious.   And yes, I am sure Heimdall can use line of sight, but he can't follow them all at once."

"I wish We could talk to her about this, But when you are around any telepaths.  All comm channels are open party channels with your enemy.  I am not sure, he can or can't read their minds, right now." 

"What do you suggest?  When you are talking on a party line and the guests have itchy trigger fingers?"

PBH

[ShadesFox]

Matron

"Mmm... something still bothers me about that.  If... 'he' is psychic, then why doesn't he already know where we are?    The strike team knows where Matron is.  Either he plays a far too dangerous game, or he can't read minds when he is like that, can he?  The strike team can't possibly be that good at blocking mind probes if he were trying to get our location that way."

Xaos just has a shit eating grin on his face.  Aaron is also thinking that psionics may be a bit overrated with trying to read thoughts, because Xaos is almost certainly thinking, 'and a dim bulb brightens'.  Xaos certainly seems willing to play dangerous games.

"Nova, first off the mission out has been scrapped.  He might not be able to rip information out of people's minds, but apparently he can still track Acadians, and that will not workout well.  Robert, sedating Ana may be the only solution.  This is a matter of us getting out alive and not enslaved to the Ixlin.  Saioko, please inform Knight about Heimdall, especially the part where it looks like he seems to be a projection that tracks Acadians, but cannot read minds.  Tell him he may have to improvise with Ana."

Saioko looked uneasy, but relayed the major's instructions, "Knight, you need to lose him.  He seems to be a projection for tracking Acadians, though not a mind reader.  We are told that he can latch onto Ana's mind and follow her, so she needs to be rendered unconscious."

Aaron did not like the idea, especially since the idea could be used against him.  However, getting out is the priority.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Matron

"So, What you are saying is that Loki nor any fox here shouldn't try and meet up with the strike team?  Can Mother go and get them IF they can escape Hiemdall?   Because, I wan't going to let Loki or myself leave the ship, if we did go rescuing them. I just think we need to ready to pick up them as soon as they lose him." 

"Mother, Can you block Hiemdall from detecting you?  And How much time do you need to link with Matron, so we can get out of here, without detection?"  asks Nova.   

PBH

[Azlan]

In touch with the ground... I'm on the hunt I'm after you


The team quickly followed Knight as he headed into the forest.  Ben and the rest of the special forces formed up around the group as they had in the base, with Harriet's team forming up around her and Magick.

In Knight's comm, Saioko repeated herself, "Eric, acknowledge please.  You need to lose the Acadian.  He's a tracking projection of some kind, no mind reading.  He can latch onto Ana's mind and follow her, so she needs to be rendered unconscious."

The navy blue vixen's ear that was faced towards Knight twitched and both of them laid back, I hope they plan on consulting me first.  She reviewed the data overlay in her field of vision and noted the very low energy levels, it might be moot soon anyways.

Glancing sideways, the small vixen caught Dex's attention with a gesture of her hand, "Dex, maybe you should call Starchaser and we all can take a quick ride out of here.  I'd do it myself, but I'm running out of energy operating on straight cyberware like this."

Despite the attempt at confusion by the snow leopard, Heimdall watched them scurry off.  Grinning, he drifted after them, catching up to Knight, "I wouldn't worry too much about those pirates really.  They are all in a panic, killing each other over anything that can get them into space.  You've slipped their minds I imagine, that is unless they realize you must have a ship.  Maybe you had better keep moving.  So how far to Loki?"

Despite the ease at which he drifted along with Knight, there was one point where he gazed around in various directions as if searching for something else.  He still managed to 'fly' while doing this.  When he finished what ever he was doing, he had to search around despite being next to the group, and ultimately 'saw' Ana first and then he was able to 'see' Knight again.

Saioko adds, "when you loose him, keep low if you are using the air transport.  If Ana and her crew are bringing their ship, then it needs to stay under 30 meters for a 100 kilometer radius near Heimdall's last known position."



Matron


Mother shook her head in response to Nova, "no Nova, I cannot 'block' Heimdall from seeing us and neither can Matron.  The system is a remote viewing, psionic, ground tracking system.  It would be ineffective above one kilometer off the surface, but most of their ship sensors will take over at that level.  When they lose him, they will need to keep to the pirate's level of technology and below 100 meters, any higher level of technology use will need to keep below 30 meters for at least 100 kilometer radius around his last known position.  This is keeping a good margin for error."

Saioko notes the information.

Matron conferred with some unseen source and reported, "all preparations are ready, we can begin linking procedures."

Loki, now distracted from Heimdall, threw his fist up in the air and gave a very enthusiastic grin, "let's do it!  Thunderbirds are go!"

Mother sighed, once linked she would be committed to this path and her data signatures forever tagged with Alpha code identifiers.  Loki was directing her to do it, so she could not fully disobey.  Well, she could, but inside she knew this course to be the best option.



"I must withdraw for a moment, Alexis can take over in my place while I perform the integration."  Mother disappeared and was replaced with a somewhat shorter, wilder, and younger appearing duplicate.

Matron took this moment to bow quietly and exit through the door towards parts unknown.

Alexis, never an adept of the segue, spouted a small analysis of data she had been privy to, "Our tactical analysis is not favorable if we are discovered.  My projections also show that there is a 63.45% chance that Chronos will still destroy this planet even if we escape."  Alexis added.


Meanwhile outside, Matron the physical ship used her conventional gravitic landing units to hover herself out of the centuries of earth and rock that had formed around her.  The crystalline hull material was not marred in anyway and no planetary material had adhered to its surface.  She was massive in comparison to Mother who was positioning herself above.  The very organic construction of the smaller vessel contrasted with the more metallic and crystalline appearance of the larger.

Mother released the fighters which took up residence in Matron's more normal hanger-like bay.  A section, mid-line and further aft, opened revealing a snug little recessed spot intended for Linu-tan, but it could easily accommodate Mother.  As if hesitating, Mother descended to a point only a few meters from the deck.  Here she was braced by connectors and retention units designed to allow for linkage.  A protective cover slid into place, but a large portion of it was transparent, perhaps to allow her a 'view' as it were.    

Xaos dusted off his hands in a manner that would suggest he had done something other than drift and be mischievious, "that is... as they say, that."

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Matron

"Thunderbirds are Go!!" laughs Nova  "ha ha  Thunderbirds   .... Goddess, I missed them ".  Nova sat down in a lite mood, but she still needed to think of how to made and use a EMI pulse to help mask their escape with everything from the pirate base. If she could help in the rescue, she would have to work on the escape.


 "Would a tachon pulse do better than a EMI pulse in covering our trail?   Do the pirates have anything that can produce one?" asks Nova

PBH      

[Lisky]

In touch with the ground... I'm on the hunt I'm after you

As the oddly colored vulpine disappeared from view, Knight's first reaction was to keep moving, keep the team venturing further away from the pirate base.  He heard the confirmation of what he didn't want to hear and used the moments confusion to reply, "Understood, i'm filing an official complaint against this, but understood."

He took a moment to collect his thoughts, giving the team a grim yet annoyed look.  He said, "Jack, give me a general anesthesia.  Command says they're tracking us through Ana, and the only way to keep him away is to take her out of the picture completely." 

The vulpine reappeared, speaking to the team.  Knight replied, "You're asking a grunt where someone considerably more important, and valuable is?  Last i heard that was on a need to know basis... we didn't need to know"  he gave a shrug as he moved over to Ana.  Rather than saying anything, he typed a message on his PDA... he wasn't sure how finely tuned the vulpine's ears were, so he figured he'd play it safe.  The message read Command says he's tracking us through you.  Need to put you under until clear.  No other options... Sorry.

He hoped she'd give some sign of understanding as he passed the small computer to her, careful to keep the small screen out of the Acadian's eyes.

[Azlan]

Matron


Gaea patted Nova on the head, "indeed that would be much better then primitive fission devices, but other then something like a TARDIS... how do you generate a tachyon pulse of the magnitude needed without nearly literally screaming 'hey, here I am!' as you use it?"

Alexis nodded, "it would be best to stick with the... 'atomics', such a quaint and cute word, much less of high tech tail hair."  



Smell like a sound I'm lost in a crowd and I'm hungry like the wolf


Ana gazed at the Personal device curiously with ears perked up, they immediately laid flat back against her head as she gave Knight the most angry pouting face she could muster in her current state.

She handed him back the data pad with the message: Fine, I'm not happy at all with this, but just get it over with.  You have to carry me though as punishment.

Jack fumbled around for an anesthetic and found a hypo with a seriously strong substance to be used in small dosage.  Guessing that Anastasia was a techno-cyber Mage from her comments earlier, he toggled it to maximum.

Ana was staring furiously at the fennec, but sighed letting her tail drop a bit mirroring her ears as they drooped off to the sides.  She bit her lip and nodded ever so slightly.

Jack stepped in and administered the hypo directly to her neck.  The aura and bright golden glow instantly disappeared as she gaped wide eyed for a moment before they became ever so heavy.

"D..don't woory... I dun l...let this h...urt our workin relashunship Kniiiight.  B...uy me dinner somewheres.  Wow gud shtuff."  She dropped off slumping into the snow leopard's grasp.

Heimdall blinked a moment, not having paid much attention to what was transpiring, "hey now, no nipping the tail and hiding your eyes..."  He was still staring at Knight more or less but he seemed to have to work to keep his eyes focused, "that's not playing fair."

[ShadesFox]

Matron

"Especially since we can use someone else's atomics."

Fortunately it seemed like the plan was working.  Or it looked like the plan was working.  Unfortunately view screens don't let you know what people are thinking.

Xaos shrugged, always ready to reply to Aaron's every thought, "Oh, there are other systems for that Aaron.  We'd need to train you on how to use them, though right now it would still be useless since you can't follow the thoughts of a projection.  Nothing there really."

Sigh.  Still, Knight's formal complaint threat seemed silly.  Almost something out of a human movie he saw once[1].  Aaron is almost certain at this point that, upon his return, Aaron will be promoted to colonel and then promptly shot.  He has most certainly straddle the line in discord and rhyme.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUAK7t3Lf8s

[Lushin]

Walking in the woods
Doc slowly begins to slip into the woods and away from Heimdell. He shifts the body on his shoulders abit.

[Lisky]

Straddle the line, in dischord and rhyme. (why yes, i do that song )


"It's fine, Ana, i've got you."  There was no time to be dainty, to be gentlemanly.  The situation required efficiency and stealth.  As Himdall made the claim of not fighting fair, Knight figured they were on the right track.  He continued to be quiet, wrapping his arms up and under the technomage's shoulders, putting her face in his chest, but his hands as visible as possible.

With the apparently lost nature of the Acadian Kight issued his next set of orders via hand signals Throw 2 grenades towards pirate base.  Move fast, stay low, stay quiet. Move for rendezvous await further orders there.

He felt Ana's limp form in his grasp.  Remaining quiet himself as he very carefully hoisted her over his shoulder, widening his stance to compensate for her added weight.  Firing the gauss rifle was going to be interesting now.  Hopefully the rest of the team had security covered, leaving him to issue commands, and get them off this rock before yet another snag reared it's ugly head.

He waited just long enough to see an arm arch and one of the small explosive devices be hoisted towards other end of the clearing, before starting to slide into the brush and towards the waiting ship.

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Matron

A small kitten jumps from Nova's chest on the table.  A control terminal appears besides her.  Nova looks up the inventory of missles and warheads from the pirate base.   Robert would notice that the cat girl is reading in Acadian and typing, as she looks at the orbits the Uncle Asteroid, the planet and the position of the pirate base and Matron.

"The best time to escape would be when the planet is between us and Mr Big Meany.  I am setting up an explosion pattern to increase the planet's shadow but also look like a random/panicky attack against the invading force.  The EMI pulses will add noise to the background and stuff.   Our(ISF) scanners would have troubles this stunt, but Will it effect his scans?  We have less than two hours before he is a position to see us on the surface, and the best time is for launch our attack is in 45 minutes."  reports Nova...

"Anything I missed?" asks Nova       

PBH

[SquirrelWizard]

Matron

A plan of action had been put into motion, and now Robert found himself in a rather interesting position. And by interesting he meant frustrating as hell. This was technically their operation, and they would probably get a bit antsy if he wandered off to whatever resembled engineering and started to poke around.

Actually, to be honest... nobody here was really qualified to tinker around on this ship, much less one that was probably going to ravage time and space like a pretty new prison inmate.

Still, if he didn't start working on something constructive, he felt he'd go crazy. Likely give in to his dark temptations to bat people about their heads. He stood up, "It sounds like we're moving forward. Is there anything here that needs fixing" he glanced over to Aaron, "or breaking," he let that phrase linger for a moment, "That about sums up my expertise."

[Prof B Hunnydew]

Matron

"Oh Good luck with that, They will not let me very far passed the front door to engineering on board Mother.  I am pretty sure I never been anywhere near the really enginee.....rinng on this ship." Nova stops talking when she sees the mischievous gin of Xaos...."or was I?" asks the catgirl

"The ISF fighters maybe need some work, they always do." says Alexis.  "but Matron and Becca take care of ALL maintenance on board Acadian ships."  

PBH

[Azlan]

I used to rule the world... Seas would rise when I gave the word (Matron)


It had been awhile since Xaos had shifted his attention off of the ISF expeditionary team members, but this time the dark fox turned from Aaron and Nova and approached Robert, "now that we are about off to ravage time and space like a large prison inmate who has just been handed a new and pretty cellmate... would you like to see your friends that were in that escape pod with you?"

Gaea took this moment to step to the middle of the room and address everyone present, something about her draws all attention of those present with the exception of Xaos and Robert, "everyone, it is time we relocated our operations to the command center.  Everyone please follow me."

The golden brown vixen exited the room in the same direction as Matron had gone.  Alexis followed, as did Saioko.  Richard waited for Aaron to move.  Ixiah and Loki pulled Nova along one kit on each of her hands.

The command deck was a bit more conventional not unlike that of a very futuristic ISF cruiser of similar class (though the ISF Fleet does not possess a Temporal and Dimensional Research Cruiser).  The area is significantly larger, at least twice the size of the Revelation's command deck.  

Matron, Mother and Rebecka were already present.  Some type of discussion just ended as everyone enters.  Rebecka seems to be a bit angry, Matron is ignoring her and Mother is in-between both looking a bit embarrassed.

In opposite corners of this deck were two circular pads, approximately five by five foot areas, in which stood a dull, graphite grey furred fox.  One per pad with the one to the right being male and the one to the left being female.  There is a field of energy enclosing the pads and both hover at a point equal distance from the floor to the ceiling.



I'm on the hunt I'm after you.  Mouth is alive with juices like wine (Running through the Forest)


The grenades were lit off and tossed as instructed and their detonations had a few results.  The energy discharges of the explosions actually managed to distract the attention of Heimdall for a moment, resulting in even more confusion when he turned back to find Knight had moved position.  The fox did not notice any other team members as they ran past the projection.

"Oh you little... arrrggghhh!"  The image disappeared in a huff.

Near the area of the grenade explosions suddenly lit up with laser fire and short range rockets as a previously unknown element of pirate forces began returning fire wildly and randomly.

As Knight and company moved farther away, it became apparent that there was fighting occurring from behind them, but no one was aware of their presence for the moment.

Holly considered the possibility of soliciting aid from those forces, or at least dashing off towards them, but Ben poked her with the barrel of his gun, "don't think that's a good idea."

Holly apparently agreed because she followed the rest of the team without much more persuasion.

Dex and Marcus caught Knight's attention and gestured towards a large clearing within the forest.  Sitting in the clearing was an aerodynamic wedge shaped ship the color of obsidian.  The ramp was down and Dex gestured towards it.  The ship was Starchaser and the size of an Airbus A380.

"Everyone aboard, this will be a better choice than that air transport.  Better in a fight if we have to tangle with pirate aircraft."  Dex stated.

[ShadesFox]

Now in the morning I sleep alone... Sweep the streets I used to own

It was moments like these that had Aaron about ready to pick a religious pantheon and start praying.  Not really sure which one.  Preferably one with angry wrathful gods that smite people.  Physical pain he could deal with.

"Speaking of interstellar prison, might I inquire about... the floaters?"

((Edited to change from federal prison.  On reflection that seemed... out of place.))

[Lisky]

FLEEEE!!!!!


By the time he caught sight of the aircraft, Knight had begun to huff a bit with each step.  He wasn't used to carrying so much equipment to begin with.  "Just make sure it's transponder is disabled before we lift off... last thing we need is them able to track us because we failed to disable a radio beacon screaming 'HERE WERE ARE, PLEASE COME SHOOT US!'... also... before i forget... command said we've got a operating ceiling of 30 meters."

He made his way towards the ship.  "We ARE LEAVING PEOPLE, LET'S MOVE IT!" he shouted, urging the team on, while trying to keep on the lookout for that rogue pirate element that had been in the area.

[Lushin]

Run through the jungle
Doc shifted the body and moved towards the transport. He looked back over his shoulder.
"You know they could be fighting with the Harbingers as well. Those things have gone like major agro since that queen showed up. Also could be units under different people using this opportunity to take control of the pirates"

[Prof B Hunnydew]

What is behind the secret door?  Oh but everyone knows that is behind the secret door.  Matron

"The Bridge?  It looks so much bigger than I remember it" said Nova to Loki.   The cat girl went closer to the graphite foxes "Mm-mm They look like of familiar, Major, Don't they?  I don't think they imprisoned, more like in stasis."

The Kitten-Mara traveled to Matron's side, jumps up on the console and looking proudly on the main view.  Nova moved to stand by Rebecca, trying to give her silence support.  Nova looked to engineering stations panels to see how the intergration of Mother's drive signature over Matron was going.  It seem to be faultless, but Nova could tell the Matron's signature was slightly changing Mother overall pattern energy pattern.  (which must be tying Rebecca in knots)

Meanwhile Alexsi and Saioko were preparing the pirate's missile defenses to fire on the Blue Meany, and create a scanner shield between the planet and the invading fleet.  

PBH

[Shachza]

In a system Far Far Away  (OOC: forgive me the long intro)

La'orth pressed his head back into the rest as the Virtual Intelligence moved the interface plug forward.  He could feel the shock webbing moving to hold him as the plug hit home, the interface activated, and he became his fighter.  Instead of arms and legs he felt wings and thrusters, in the place of eyes and ears he could "see" everything around him through his fighter's sensors, and instead of his own skin he "felt" the armored shell of his H'vae'ek starfighter.  He did a half roll to his right and then back again to make sure he had full control, as it was always good to take a moment to accustom yourself to the change in perception.  He could immediately tell that the thruster nozzles along his left wing were fractions of a percent less efficient than those on his right; a problem the VI had already alerted him to, but one that couldn't be helped at the moment.

Now that he was his fighter he got a more direct sense of the positions, rotations, and headings of his flight-mates.  Eler'an, S'voak'kilir, Du'ilccad, and Vethik, each in their own H'vae'ek starfighter, were spread out in a loose skirmishing formation.  Vethik was firing questions about their target to Eler'an whose H'vae'ek was outfitted with a much stronger sensor suite than the rest.  After acknowledging Du'ilccad's notification that he was disengaged from his neural link, La'orth concentrated his senses on the rapidly looming space station that they were approaching.

The target had been detected as an odd mass anomaly near the edge of the system by the Keno'ovek Sailiri, an Ulnek class escort cruiser.  After dropping off La'orth's flight on an intercept course the cruiser had continued on to investigate the planet that had been their initial target.  The anomaly had quickly resolved into a derelict space station of unknown make.  The system appeared uninhabited, and the station appeared to be ancient.  It seemed very likely it would be nothing more than salvage, but it would be both a huge haul and of great interest.  The station was impressive in scope, being nearly two miles long, and had a thin, cylindrical shape.  Its obvious alien design would give the scientists centuries of interesting study.  Initial hails had received no responses, which made it seem very likely that the station was indeed derelict, and La'orth had received the go-ahead to do several close flybys.

"Hold the chatter a moment," he thought/broadcast to his flight, "we're coming into range of close sensors."

He was proud that despite the informality between them, his flight got down to business immediately.  "Getting some fun scans here."  Eler'an's message was more like a thought being broadcast to him like this than a verbal communication.

"Anything useful?  Any signs of life in this hunk of junk?"  He sent back.

"Nope.  The mechs in the fleet will love to get this much refined...  Wait.  I'm seeing some power in it."  Eler'an linked her readings to La'orth.  Something was definitely active in the station now.  That brought a long pause.

S'voak'kilir broke the silence, "So...  Knock on the docking bay doors?"

La'orth broadcast a general first-contact signal instead.  He got a response almost immediately, which meant that the power source as well as other systems was still functional.  The return transmission was very basic and did not seem hostile so he queued up his fighter's VI to help coordinate the translation.

"Jack in folks.  It doesn't seem hostile, but I want you ready to move.  Du'ilccad I know you're supposed to be out now, but home will forgive you the overtime for this.  I think I'll need your cryptography, so tight beam a link to me."

Du'ilccad joined him in a moment.  La'orth thought that this neural tightbeam link was probably what telepathy would feel like, and he could "feel" Du'ilccad's fatigue from his time jacked in.  Du'ilccad sent him a highly improper request to keep his mind on the task.  With the additional software and experience Du'ilccad brought a basic conversation with the station was understandable after only an hour or so.  The station didn't recognize the newcomers and wanted identification.  La'orth told it the truth; they were explorers and members of the Korsinian species.  He even sent it the basic first-contact information package.  Something was clearly wrong with the station's computer because it kept pausing in its communication and then asking the same questions again.  With Du'ilccad working on the problem of improving communication La'orth sent a request for more information from the station to see if he could find out something about it in return.

After a long pause the station beamed back what resembled a generic user interface.  It had a large number of options, but all of the labels were in an alien language which binary wasn't useful for defining.  Essentially at a dead end, La'orth beamed a copy of the interface to Du'ilccad before sending a request to the station to exit and log off.  There was a pause as though the station was thinking hard about something, and then it sent back a query and highlighted an option from a corner of the interface with another snippet of alien language.

"Got it stuck on a user screen.  I asked it to exit and it highlighted an option and sent me something else back.  I can't read the script; thoughts?"  La'orth sent to his flight as they began making another pass.

"It'll take time to break their language, but at least their computers can read 1's and 0's.  You asked it to exit to the last screen?"  Sent Du'ilccad

"Yeah, try an information request.  Then ask to exit."  He paused as Du'ilccad did so.

"The computer coding is similar to what my VI identifies 'exit.'  Seems safe to OK the log out."

La'orth sent back confirmation of the selection as he flew down the length of the station.  The world exploded.  He experienced a world bathed in energy as an incandescent arc ran between the station and his fighter.  In the blink of an eye it was gone, but the replacement was worse.  The sensors fed him conflicting reports about how the space around him solidified into plasma, or maybe it split into a fractal, or twisted into a cube with more than three dimensions, or stretched into a string, or any of a dozen other impossibilities.  He wrenched himself free of the neural plug as his head seemed to explode with stars.  Back in his own body the world was spinning and his head felt like it was splitting open.  Through blurry vision he could vaguely see that his computer wasn't connected to the station anymore and that the VI was trying to reestablish control.

The possibility of an attack hadn't been lost to him, but he had expected more warning; some kind of power surge or a weapons lock.  His flight-mates quickly became the foremost worry in his mind.  How many had been hit?  His HUD made no sense though; the station and his flight were both gone, and preliminary reports from the VI showed a completely different sea of stars in the space around him.  It seemed unlikely that the entire star system had moved so La'orth must be somewhere else.

"F-f-full s-scan.  F-find out-t w-w-where I am."  He said, knowing that the VI would pick it up.

"Initial scans show small amount of debris matching the hull composition of the unknown station.  Primary size is particulate and spread is extreme.  Likely destruction date is beyond estimation.  Preliminary mass readings suggest an unknown star system."

La'orth thought something very unbecoming through his splitting headache.  He was alone and in uncharted space.

[SquirrelWizard]

Robert cocked his head at the fox and crossed his arms in front of him as the fox had repeated his thought practically verbatim. He was clearly not impressed, and was beginning to become irritable again; likely due to the fact that since waking up he hadn't properly slept, or eaten anything. More so, it was because this entire group of spooks seemed happy enough to treat his thoughts as spoken words. Not that he was too concerned with offending anyone, he could care less about that, but the non sequiturs made it hard to follow the conversations.

There was a slight itch in the back of his mind, something that he had come to call a form of disaster sense. It was a combination of cynicism, gut instinct, dread, and paranoia; and right now it was telling him that what he was about to ask would result in another complicated answer that he might not want to know. Unfortunately, he didn't have the luxury of ignoring the question, those two were about as close as family to him, and he had to ask, for their sakes. "Where are they? Take me to them," his tone had a steely edge to it.

[Azlan]

I used to roll the dice.  Feel the fear in my enemy's eyes.


Gaea considered Aaron's question carefully before answering, "these two are Khaine and Lilith.  They are Ahrimen's chief assassins sent to destroy Xaos and myself.  These two are the reason Matron crashed, why my mate and I are 'mostly deceased', and why the Sphere of Harmonies is damaged.  Our essences are linked to these two..."  The vixen smiled with a sinister look that would have turned Xaos to ice, "but with Aaron here we can heal ourselves and sever the connection to these two."

Richard did not seem to like the tone of Gaea, but looked to Aaron before making any comment on the situation.

Mara commented to Nova, "silly, you were never on the bridge... we always went to the uh... battle bridge, the secondary bridge... my mom has only recently fixed the main bridge."

Loki seemed fascinated by the imprisoned foxes, "I don't know either of these two, I've never heard of them."

To Nova, the gray foxes do look a lot like Aaron.  Aaron himself does see some slight resemblance, but it is only coincidence and a voice in his head (his piece of his mom) confirms that these two are not related to him.

Saioko and Alexis finish their calculations.  Saioko reports the status, "we are prepping all the various silos for launch.  We have severed the connections from all pirate control unless they start cracking open the hard lines to the silos themselves and hack them directly at the local level.  I can't counter hack every attempt, but they couldn't do much more than five percent damage to our overall launch numbers."

Alexis opens a status page on the main holoscreen showing all the launch units and their statuses.  Some missiles were taking longer to prep than others and that seemed to be a factor of different models and firmware issues with the embedded control structures, "we are on schedule, but we will want to hold until we have ninety percent at full launch readiness."



Further into Matron


Xaos led the squirrel off into the depths of the ship.  He did not offer any comment for a good few moments before breaking the silence.

"I apologize for the strangeness of this question.  A male and a female were with you on that escape pod.  The vixen we are familiar with, we will see Mina in a moment... she is special.  The male, what is his name and what do you refer to his species as?  I am not a xeneologist, so I am not sure what he is and I have not been supervising his recovery directly like I did your own.  You seem to identify him as Spatz and he is a rat, but that can't be a real name."

The two of them arrived in a pod room containing a single active unit just like the one Robert had found himself in when he awoke.



Starchaser scherzo


Ben and Hacker held the landing ramp as they ushered everyone up and aboard.  Jack, Miyuki, and Magick, with Harriet being carried, were the first group up.

Marcus was helping Jeanne up the ramp, a good trooper she was in her condition, the exertion had finally caught up with her.  The injury weighted down on her and more time in medical was needed for her, but otherwise she was holding up well. 

The prisoner Holly looked back towards the base, barely visible due to distance and foliage, and gave a very audible sigh.  Her white uniform was tattered, dirty from running through a forest, causeways, and combat.  Her hesitation was noticeable.



Voices of a distant star system


The diagnostics of his ship showed it was largely intact.  There were some noticeable structural anomalies that were likely caused by tremendous stress.  These could be repaired by the internal systems without much expenditure of resources.

A sensor scan of the local area shows the debris field as the most immediate feature.  The local star was a moderate sized red sun.  Around it was a singular planet in a fairly ideal orbit for this sequence of star.

The debris field seems to indicate a placement far from the singular world, relatively speaking of course. 

An interesting note was from the planet, a regular pulse of radio and x-ray rays seemed to occur every ten minutes.