((Thanky Phoenix!))

The armor-rider smirked at this idiot leaping upon his back. The Mech jumped, a function few would guess it had, but it was apparently making use of the low g's.

Jim responded by leaning over the side of the armor quickly, and shooting his hookshot beneath the Armor and into the opposite wall. Holding on tight, Jim let the hookshot pull him towards the wall, flipping the battle armor upside down.

Jim leapt up from the wall and kicked the armor down the hall. Jim smirked. The Battle armor pulled itself back up. Jim heard the whir of machine guns. "Oy!" Jim bolted at a speed that was thought only possible by cheetahs and possibly a large blue hedgehog. Behind his feet were the sound of bullets ricocheting of the floor. Jim leapt behind a nearby container. Well, this doesn't look good, though at least I'm still alive...

Jim heard a vaccuum then a loud noise. Oops. Cannonfire. Jim immediately leapt away. from his position. Instead of a boom, however, There was a hiss. From the smell, TEAR GAS! Jim hookshoted himself back to the others. From there, he spotted nearby TAC, lying upon the ground.

"Julice? Is that a TAC? And is it down?" He stammered.
"You are aware that TACS have an automatic detonation once vitals stop, Right? It's a pretty big boom. Part of an anti-theft and anti-revolution thing."

Adam felt like he was falling for a good ten seconds after the emergency lights came on. The lights of course had nothing to do with this, he was barely aware of the conscious world around him at the moment. The feeling was his mind's reaction to literally being thrust into the core access subroutines of the Reliance network on the station. Trying to hack it at overclocked speeds, and then having the firewall immediately come down without notice triggered some kind of nervous reaction. It was one of the many setbacks of trying to merge a human mind with machine's. Adam would probably never feel any truly serious effects because, compared to some aspects of the field, he was barely "connected" to the machines anyway.

There he was, peering into his virtual vision, looking at a neat little command network.

Why did the firewall drop?

The station is losing power. The network itself is currently powered by generators, but the Reliance security systems are not internal systems. They've lost all power. There is no need for the mirror hack, all processing power is now dedicated to your offensive.

Crystal clear. I doubt I need all the power, I'm already in. Let's see what I can do...

There were cybernetics out there advanced enough to let humans literally start ascending to different planes of consciousness. Merging with AIs, going "elsewhere" while their real body sat, zombie-like or automated by the powerful microcomputers wired into their head. Adam had a standard internal rig, nothing along those lines. What that actually boiled down to was difficulty in trying to absorb all the information a computer system throws at you. Even without any security measures, a simple network was tough to grasp in such a short period of time. It took Adam a minute or two just to get basic commands working. First, he accessed the life support system.

His systems were only partially compatible, he had to remove a lot of the fluff and wittle it down to a skeleton mapping of the entire station with dots signifying life signs. He preferred it that way anyway, the problem was time. All of this took time, and that was something he was running out of. He figured the Reliance, or at least the marines would have built-in comm. systems outside of the temporary ones in the station. That meant once the chaos died down, he'd probably be receiving a chest full of antipersonnel rounds when the marines found out he was snooping around in their former systems. He examined the map of the station.

Upload the identity files of my crew. One-time packet, full encryption, set to destroy itself if someone fails to access it even once.

His inserts did the rest, after a few seconds the mapping refreshed and his crew members' dots were neatly outlined. Two in one of the control rooms...

--------------

Adam's face, or a decent approximation of it, materialized on the view screen at Raze'el's station. He couldn't help but smile a little. "Hey there."

Raze'el was a little surprised by the appearance of Adam's face, but he didn't seem shocked. "Oh, so it was you."

"What?"

"Somebody was hacking in here," Raze'el replied, moving over to the monitor. "I had a suspicion it was you. Is there anything you can do about all these tactical marines? Or at least the locks on the ship?"

"Really?" Julice said, then looked at the corpse. "How long do we have until the body explodes?"

(( *beep beep beep*

Julice: Oh shit. o.o; *BOOM*

Julice: tHaNkS fOr thE wArnInG... x.X~ ))

"Not long enough!" Jim heard the beeping noise. He ran towards the enemy, enduring the teargas. With pained eyes he managed to grab the TAC by the foot with his hookshot. He reeled him in and swung his arm. By releasing the microclaws of the hookshot as it whipped towards him, he slung it ahead at the Battle Armor.

The battle armor opened fire on the incoming TAC Corpse, so even if he wasn't dead yet, he was now. There was a big boom.

As the smoke quickly cleared, there was good news and there was bad news.

Good News: The TAC was dead, and the explosion rippped apart the nearby bay door, and the Battle Armor had been sucked into the vaccum of space.

Bad News: The whole bay door gone thing.

Jim and the others found themselves being pulled away. Jim managed to grab hold of an emergency handle. "OOPS! MY BAD!"

"As a matter of fact, I think I might be able to...hold on." Adam's face disappeared as he shut off the live-feed comm. link to the control room. He retreated back to square one of the command network in his virtual vision. For a moment, he wondered if the marine in the room with him was wondering why he didn't seem fazed by the whole gun-pointed-at-head thing.

Reliance Lockdown Protocols...primary system should be disabled with the power outages, as well as the standard systems on the station. That leaves secondary systems built right into the docking bay...

ACCESS DENIED.

Fine, be that way.

Adam's face materialized on the monitor again, only forty seconds had passed. "Reliance safeguards deny all wireless entry, and they are not connected to the station's relays. It means they're manually controlled and powered by generators. I can't hack them, no one can. We just have to push the button there."

Raze'el nodded. Adam continued, "I'm going to contact the other crew members, and see what kind of communications the Reliance have running." His face construct disappeared for a second time, and didn't return.

Reliance Communication Channels, high-band frequencies...bingo.

The message echoed out of Robert's datapad, and through every Reliance personnel comm. set on the entire station in a generic mechanical voice, addressed by a stolen Reliance officer identity certificate:

"Command Deck is being compromised. Command Deck is being compromised. All marines report directly to Decks One through Three. I repeat, the Command Deck is being compromised by organized terrorist attacks, all marines report directly to Decks One through Three. Any captured hostiles in your vicinity are to be met with swift non-lethal incapacitation. Do not waste time, station security is about to be compromised, over."

Adam had to work really fast, he locked onto Robert's life sign and connected to the comm. frequency at his location, sending a private message:

"Don't-"

A projectile hit Adam in the torso. He lost consciousness immediately, the safeguards in his cybernetics pulled him out of the station's network at the speed of light.

Alicia grabbed her gun, "Thanks Julicie." She said. Of course, then Jim informed the two of them that the TAC they had just worked so hard at killing, was going to kill them right back by exploding. He managed to sling the TAC out into the bay, and marvelously kill the battle armor in the process. He also managed to seal their fates rather handily, what with decompression into space, and all that. Apparrently he hadn't been studying those "Don't shoot here!" points on the station.

"This is just great!" Alicia yelled over the sound of whipping air, as she grabbed hold of the maitenance shaft's doorway, now hanging sideways, legs dangling toward the hole in the bay, "We can't move because of decompression, and we can't stay or else we'll be killed by the same!"

Now was not the time to panic... Of course, panic was natural.

Raze'el was about to turn to Artemis, but he got a warning.

A rather loud, obnoxious warning telling him that a bay was decompressing. Snarling and cursing under his breath, he began madly hitting switches. "Damn tactical marines... damned Reliance... damned stationborne fights... decompress our ship, will you?!"

He found the right ones for localizing power to that area, and managed to put up an emergency force field.

Unfortunately, it also turned the main Reliance locking clamps back on. "Damn you!"

He slapped the console and went over to another one behind him, telling his captain, "We need to get out of here as soon as I get done here, I believe Adam just sent every Marine on the station up here."

Which was quite brilliant for getting those monkeys off most of our backs, but damned inconvenient for us. He quickly got a mechanical seal over the breach in the docking bay, and then cut power to the bays again, releasing the main clamps. Grabbing one of the fallen Reliance officer's commpiece, he tuned it to a frequency JEN would detect and began making his way to an air shaft, waving for Artemis to follow him. Hitting the frequency, he scrambled it and sent out a message over the ship's external PA system. "Attention, attention, the lock must be released at the generator point. Repeat, release the last lock at the generator point. We're nearing your position."

Pocketing the device again, he wondered how long it would take the Reliance to reverse engineer the scramble code. It was actually quite simple; reversing the actual final signal and then scrambling it with a simple prime number equation. JEN could crack that no problem... probably not more than a minute or two for the Reliance, if they even bothered, but he planned to be well within the safety of the ship by then, with Artemis.

The decompression stopped. Jim fell face first on the uncarpeted ground. "Ow!" he picked himself up. Looking back at the missing bay door, the slight shimmer of an emergency forcefield was evident. "Well, someone saved our behinds." He watched as the others picked themselves up.

"Well, we've made to the ship, now just for that little matter of releasing whatever Reliance clamps holding our ship here, and actually getting in."

Jim pulled out his pistol and headed for the ship.

Julice rubbed at her head. "Remind me to get checked up at the medical bay to see if my brain can ever be pieced back together." She complained, and though her tone wasn't happy, she seemed to be smiling. "Still, that was a good way, if not the only way to get rid of that thing. So where're the others?" Julice checked her magnum. Four rounds left and then she'd have to reload.

"Probably either captured or getting the hell over here. From what I can make out from Jam's earlier statements, Adam's in an cybernetic interrogation."

Jim walked up to the boarding ramp and gave a wave at the ship's boarding camera.

"For now, let's just get into the ship. Who can get here will in a short amount of time, and who can't get here will have to wait a bit."

Killik grinned widely as he heard Raze'el's voice over the intercom system. "...Planet con... nice. Very nice..." His grin grew even wider, however when he heard that all the reliance marines would be heading toward the command decks. That meant when they got to the security checkpoint, the only difficulty would be finding Adam and getting the hell out of dodge before the marine's returned.

Julice hurried on board. "I agree. I need to get suited up, myself. We're still in the hot zone and I'd rather have some better weapons and protection."
She wasted no time getting to the nearest armory. She could store her crap into a nearby locker and get better equipped, aware that the clock was ticking.

"Down there?!"

"You got any better ideas?" Raze'el asked the captain.

Looking down the elevator shaft again, Artemis shrugged and took his shirt off, wrapping it around a cable and pausing to take a breath. Then without another thought, he leapt before he changed his mind. Raze'el followed soon after, and together they slid the long way down to the hangar deck... on elevator cables.

***

A few moments later the two of them arrived safely in the docking bay of their ship, having hurried through the maintenance section to exit out of a thin door to the rear of the ship. Looking up and down the size of the thing, Raze'el had to smile at their own success.

Though he had to limp over there. The long freefall hadn't been so great on their kneecaps when they finally met the elevator roof...

"Right. Let's go." Alicia agreed, following the two to their ship. "One problem, how do we get aboard if the ship is in lockdown?"

"It should be in a false (simulated) lockdown. The Reliance would obviously try to override our shipboard AI if they discovered that JEN wouldn't let them, So JEN probably simulated a lockdown to fool them. It should snap right out of it when we tell her to." Jim went to the docking bay door.

He inputted his personal code, and waved at the tiny hidden camera in the door. The sound of something unlocking was heard, and Jim forced the door open. "If the ship opened it up for us, They might notice we're not in Lockdown." The door was fully opened.

"Well, welcome aboard."

(( Whatever happened to taking out the generator? ))

After receiving the single word transmission from Adam, Robert waited for some further communication. With none forthcoming, he decided he should do the sensible thing and make his way back to the hangar bay where the ship was docked. With any luck, some of the other members of the crew would be making their way back to the ship as well. As for everyone still unaccounted for (something to be determined upon arrival), well, Robert was fairly certain that something resembling a plan could be developed.

Taking a quick look around, Robert began swimming back towards the turbolift. Once inside, he pushed a button and waited for the turbolift to activate. After a moment, he pressed the button again. Still, nothing happened. Robert swore and was about to think of another way to reach the hangar bay when the turbolift suddenly sprang to life. About halfway between two decks, it stopped again.

"What the hell..." Robert's angry question was cut off as the turbolift began moving again, finally stopping on the desired deck. As the doors hissed open, there was a crunch and a squeal, and Robert found himself squeezing through half open doors onto the empty deck where he had first stepped onto the space station. Moving quickly, he headed towards the hangar, hoping that some of the crew would be there.

He drew his scavenged laser pistol as he reached the pressure door and checked the power pack's charge. Satisfied, he stepped through the door. The hangar was empty, but it was fairly obvious that there had been a battle of some kind. Who had been on the losing end, he couldn't say. That's when he noticed a battery on the ship training lazily on him.

"Is this someone we should vaporize?" he heard an unfamiliar voice say.

"Nah. He's part of the crew. Let him on," Robert recognized the voice as Jim. "Well come on. Don't just stand there eyeballing your chances against a ship-mounted anti-fighter battery."

Robert nodded and walked on the ship. Once inside, he raised the ramp and ordered JEN to stop drawing air from the station proper. "I think we need a plan," he said as he opened a channel to his crewmates aboard the vessel.

Killik waited for a few minutes until he was sure that the Marines had left and then looked back at Sarith, with his face at some strange amalgam between a happy grin and a look of annoyance, "Looks like we might survive, but we'll have to move quick." The survival bit, he was quite happy about. He absolutely loathed using any more energy than necessary, however, and that's exactly what running did... and that's exactly what he had to do.

He broke off from Sarith at a sprint, throwing a thermal before them into the security checkpoint with practised ease. The miniature bomb exploded in mid-air just before reaching the checkpoint, tearing the durasteel doors out and throwing them backward into the hallway beyond, as well as destroying the automated laser cannons, while Killik charged through the small amount of backlash released through the thermal's containment shielding hunched over with an arm over his face, with Sarith following shortly behind in a similiar stance.

Once they hit the hallway Killik stopped to glance around, and Sarith looked at him for a moment.

"Are you always this obvious?" she asked, her voice coming out with a metallic tint to it, which disguised everything about it. Killik couldn't be sure if the dead tone was genuine or if it was from the suit.

"Only on days that end in Y," he responded before pointing down a corridor, "If this is like every other reliance holding area I've been in, busted out of, or busted someone else out of, the holding cells should be down here."

The two ran down the corrider, Sarith barely keeping up with the Namkin pirate, despite his usual lethargy and the physical enhancing capabilities of her suit, which, in reality, only barely gave an advantage after the weight of it had been figured.

However, that advantage was still enough to yank Killik off of his feet, as they nearly passed a Reliance computer terminal, which, Sarith reasoned, most likely contained Adam's whereabouts.

"I'm checking the terminal," she stated, in the same dead metallic voice, as Killik pulled himself back off the floor.

"Security is down." The files flew across the screen. She was somewhat proficient with Reliance systems thanks to her old profession, which, at times, required her to work closely with the Reliance, and their computers. "Describe your friend."

"Adam's not much of a fighter. More of a computer tech, really, with lots of cybernetic implants that let him interface directly with computer systems. Oh, and he's human," Killik responded as he watched over her shoulder, with some understanding of what she ws doing, but not quite how she was doing it so quickly.

"Cell B-4. We passed it, the door should be unlocked... now," she said emotionlessly as she hit a few more keystrokes. In truth she wasn't a proficient hacker, but the security was down and it wasn't very heavy in the first place from the inner terminals here.

Killik nodded and they were off, arriving at cell B-4 within a few minutes. The doors swished open and Adam was laying there on the floor, unconcious.

"Fuck..." Killik whispered as he ran over and checked for a pulse. He let out a slow sigh of relief as he realized that Adam was still alive and then tried, with more than a little difficulty, to drag Adam out of the room only to hear a mechanized sigh as Sarith lifted Adam off the ground and tossed him over her shoulder easily.

"Let's g..." She was cut off as alarms started sounding and the heavy footfalls of tactical marines could be heard storming down the corridor.

"Guess I was wrong," Killik said simply as he tossed a thermal out the door, and toward the footsteps, without bothering to watch and see how many he managed to kill as a small backlash of flame came jetting past the doors, which slid closed once more as the pirate slammed his hand on the emergency cell lock down.

"Hm?" came the mechanical response.

"We won't be surviving this..."

(OOC: Back up would be good about now.)

Jim was a bit nervous. It was strange, they hadn't heard JEN yet... He told the others where the armory was, while he dashed over to the bridge. JEN hadn't really called to them much during this little episode, and while quite capable of doing quite a bit from the ship, she hadn't done anything to help the crew...

Jim rushed up to the main deck, the ship in darkness. He hit the "on" button. Nothing happened.

"I'm afraid the sssship won't be turning on anytime ssssoon, Prey." Jim turned around while whipping out his hand gun. He saw nothing.

"Your AI on this sssship was quite valuable from what I gathered, sssSo I plucked it asss a bit of a bonus for thissss particular job, Prey." The lispy voice continued with it's sinister tone.

"Show yourself! So you call me your prey, eh? I suppose you're that bounty hunter from before?" Jim called out into the darkness.

"Thissss issss our first meeting. And it issss our last assss well. I am no bounty hunter. I am a headhunter!" A projectile fired from behind Jim. Jim leapt out of the way. But it was pointless.

Because this particular Headhunter was very thorough, and he had never failed to kill his target. Immediately the room was full of gas, something Jim would have been able to avoid if he kept to his feet and ran out the door. But as Jim landed, he was immediately set upon by sleep and as He tried to get up, he was kicked against the command console. The head hunter appeared from the darkness of the room, almost like the shadows solidified into being.

This being was rather scaly, but his race was not one Jim had ever seen before, and it was wrapped in dark cloth.

"I sssshall take your head now, Prey." The head hunter pulled out curved plasma dagger that seemed to wrap about his arm. He stepped forward and swung.

"Meot So FASTy!" Jam appeared from behind the Head hunter. "E-91291 tactical meowuvar!" Jam said in an unjam like tone, and and Jam's body glowed. Soon the Head hunter's body glowed as well and jam tackled the figure. The figure swung his blade as if to cut jam off of him, but Jam avoided it by sending a surge of electrical energy around himself. Something on the headhunter's side began to flash, and in a brilliant flash of light and a vacuum of air, the headhunter and Jam dissappeared.

Jim began to fall into the deep abyss of slumber. As his eyes began to shut as if weighted down by concrete, "Jam?" was all he was able to make out before he went under the tide of sleep.

As if on cue, a horde of TAC's entered the docking bay, from a tip they recieved earlier from an anonymous party...


(Pyros do good? Explains why JEN didn't do much for us besides a simple warning, and why it seemed to be a little too easy that we got here. And of course, every other plan can go from this. And this won't be the last you've seen of this head hunter, I assure you.)

Another dent appeared in the thick doors that blocked Sarith, Adam, and Killik off from the invading tactical marines. Then another, and another. The door would give any moment, and Killik knew that. Further, he knew that he was horribly outnumbered and there was absolutely no chance at escape.

Fortunately, he also knew that bounties were worth twice as much alive as they were dead, and the reliance had strict rules against killing wanted non-combatants as a result. It was just plain good buisness not to kill someone if you were making an extra five hundred thousand credits by keeping them alive.

Now, while, on the one hand, Killik's favorite death involved a hail of heroic gunfire against unstoppable odds, on the other, he really enjoyed living and rushing out there now would be meaningless suicide, and, so, as the first glint of hallway light appeared, Killik took off his belts and dropped them to the ground, and then took the hilt of his plasma blade and shoved it into a compartment on the bottom of his boot, which, in older years, had been used to smuggle illegal loot onto stations like this. Even when you were arrested the reliance was unlikely to bother with your shoes.

He then looked at Sarith and gestured for her to drop her weapons as well, and she took off her helmet and power suit, revealing, to a rather...interested, Killik, that she was female under that power suit, and, further, the suit apparently wasn't comfortable with a full set of clothing underneath.

The Namkin made a note to 'investigate' that further if he ever saw here again, as he put his hands over his head and waited for the door to be busted in completely.

It didn't take long as the arm of a full combat suit, much like the one which had been in the docking bay, wedged itself into the hole in the door and then tore it off its hinges, follwed by the stormy feet of about 10 tactical marines, each of them with their weapons trained on Sarith and Killik.

A tense moment passed, which seemed to last forever, as the pirate and bounty hunter stood defenseless before the marines, before one of them pushed a button on his arm mounted slug thrower, causing a small whirring sound, and then fired two electrically charged nets. First Killik was enveloped, and then Sarith, both of them dropping to the ground in pain as energy surged through their muscles, but the sensation only lasted a moment before they slid into black sea of sleep.
---
Clack. Clack. Clack.

His footsteps sounded through the steel hallway with a measured pace as he looked over Sarith, Killik, and Adam. Their files had already been pulled up from a DNA test, showing them and their bounties. The captain looked over his tactical marines and nodded toward them. "Good job, men. The namkin alone is worth one million credits alive. We'll all be receiving sizeable bonuses... and we've made the world a much safer place. Now go reinforce the men in the docking bay, and try to keep casualities to a minimum."

One of the marines gave a salute and led the remaining 32 men in power armor through the halls, while the captain pulled a disk out of his pocket labelled "Renegade Ship AI" and sighed. The reliance would be happy to have JEN back as well, and maybe he'd be able to buy his daughter that moftar, which was a small exceptionally beautiful cat-like creature with wings, that she'd been wanting for some time.

While Jim and Jam had entered the ship to alert their AI of the new additions to the crew, Alicia stood outside on the boarding ramp. Minutes went by, without any signal from Jim. She began to worry, but recalled that ship cold-starts did take numerous minutes, even with a ship's avatar to speed the process.

Some time later, sounds of gunfire eminated from the bowels of the ship. Alicia debated running inside to help Jim, had not three tactical marine squads not entered the bay doors at that very moment. She noted that they were all wearing freshly polished armor, and that their weapons were equally well polished.

Alicia whirled around just to be met with 30 bolt rifles aimed at her.

"Oh, hello!" She said reflexively, dropping her carbine on the ramp, and raising her hands, "Shit! I just can't seem to get away from these guys... I suppose it's better to be captured and live, than to be shot dead in two seconds."

Raze'el had taken his time in getting out of the shaft and going over to the ship -- mostly because of the limp -- while Artemis was practically sprinting over to the ramp. Whether it was excitement or anxiety Raze'el couldn't tell.

He'd barely gone five steps himself though when he saw, and heard, a platoon of tactical marines rushing into the bay, and sweeping right over to the ship. He froze and then backtracked rather quickly, stepping back into the safety of the maintenance section as Artemis ran onward to capture.

"Oh shit," he muttered as he leaned against the wall inside, frantically trying to think of something. Going through standard station sweeping procedures, the first thing he realized was that he'd need to find some way to avoid being detected by sensor sweeps... but how...

"Freeze."

Oh, double shit.

He put his arms up in the air and turned slowly around to look his captor right in the--

"What the hell--? You?" he asked, putting his arms back down and taking a step forward.

The woman raised the gun a bit and sneered at him, forcing him to stop and put his hands back up. "Damn right it's me."

He sighed and put his arms down again, and started walking past his former prisoner. "Look, I'm not even gonna ask how and this is really the wrong time for--"

She grabbed his arm before he could pass and put the gun up in his face. "Now just a second, tell me what's going on--"

"Just look!" he spit, grabbing her roughly by the shoulders and throwing her against the wall, to where she could twist her head and look out the door.

And she did. And she immediately recoiled in horror as one of the tac' marines looked up in their direction. "Eek!"

"See, I told you. Now come on," he ordered, pulling her along down the hallway.

"Where are we going?"

He kept his face forward as he walked, and stern. "Somewhere where they can't find us."

Soon they disappeared down the hall. He planned to hide out near the reactor level, by the fuel supply, so that their life signs wouldn't be readable through the interference. Unless somebody in command was exceptionally smart, there shouldn't have been any marines anywhere in the area...

(( I'll let ya'll decide if the commander really is that smart/experienced. 'Cause I rather like the idea of a heroic rescue. -_^ ))

(( Edit: *beats self over head* Platoon, not squad. I knew something didn't sound right... ))

Jim was dreaming. Pictures rushed through the darkness in his head, images from his past. Images of his recent adventures mingling with pictures of the past. Meeting up with Artemis and Adam, growing up on a pirate ship, defeating the first squad of TACS armed with not but a plasma pistol. Getting his hands on the Dharma Cannon...ah yes good memories.

But a few of them he had seen even before all that... memories of fighting a desperate battle, and a strangely familiar female voice calling into his ears...She alway seemed to have a plan...

(OOC: Ok, girlfriend gone, and I'm tired of waiting for Julice and Robert to get captured as I imagine it will be exactly like Alicia's anyway.)

The tactical marines merely stared down the surrendering criminals for a moment before, like Killik and Sarith before, electricaly charged nets wrapped around them, bringing them, painfully, to a state of unconciousness.

---

"Sir, all prisoners have been secured and moved onto the Behemoth for transport, as have any unlicensed or stolen ships," a clean cut man, with blonde hair in a military style, in tactical marine armor, sans helmet said, his right hand held to his forehead in salute.

"Thank you, Augustus," the captain said, as he sat behind his desk, looking over a picture of hi family. His words were hollow as though his mind was somewhere else, and, indeed, it was. He couldn't remember how long it had been since he had been home, but, after today he would finally be returning there. However, he still had to follow procedure. "Begin the sensor sweep of the station and then do a full manual sweep as well. When you have completed both, return here."

"Yes, sir." The man saluted once more, and then turned on his heel. The helmet was fastened back into place as he walked into the hallway and addressed his troops.

---

Raze'el and his ex-pirate companion had been invisible to the sensor scan, thanks to the high level of radiation surrounding the reactor core, which, had they not put on skin-tight new age radiation suits, would have taken well over twenty years off of their lives just in this short time.

Now they merely watched from the safety of the venting system as the marines walked through the room, doing a quick, and not entirely thorough search, before marching out once more, to leave the two alone and undetected.

(OOC: Annnnd... new chapter going up)