Location: New York City
Date: August 19th, 2166

"If this meeting is so urgent, Why did the Chancellor invite us to New York City? Why Strattix Tower?"

"Maybe he thought Virginia was to dangerous. Remember what happened in Washington DC? All of the world's leaders incinerated in the blink of an eye. I imagine the Chancellor would want to keep us far away from the former capital."

"Wait, I think he's coming."

The windows of the room, which offered a panoramic view of New York City, dimmed until they were completely black. The lights even dimmed, making the conference room dark. About nine representatives took their seats at the round table and prepared for the Chancellor's emergency meeting. When the doors finally opened, however, the Chancellor was nowhere to be seen; Executor Lara walked in and closed the doors behind her. She took a seat in the only empty chair in the room, sitting a small briefcase on the table.

The fair-skinned woman, with her perfectly-cut, shoulder-length brown hair smirked at the committee. "Shall we begin ladies and gentlemen?"

"Perhaps we should wait for the Chancellor, Executor Lara."

Smirking again, Lara shook her head as she pulled a file folder from the briefcase. "The Chancellor won't be coming. This is classified. Off the books. Project: Revenant. It's risky, but after the Incident, it's the best choice we have right now." When Lara mentioned the Incident, a wave of guilt passed through the room, but Lara was unmoved by the thought. "Imagine a task force composed of the galaxy's most dangerous criminals, and imagine they worked for the Alliance. We could send them anywhere, to do anything. It doesn't matter if they get caught. They're bad guys. The Federation - the Republic - they'll never suspect a thing. To them, it'll just look like a bunch of thugs doing what thugs do. My contacts have already pushed the order through. The assets are currently prepping for their first assignment."

"And where are they now, Executor?"

Lara smiled. "Chronos Station."

---

Location: Chronos Station
Located on the fringes of Alliance territory, Chronos Station serves as a military checkpoint for Alliance vessels patrolling the Expanse, and a rest stop for traders. The Expanse is a vast region of space, mostly unexplored, not fully colonized, and inhabited by alien races not belonging to the larger galactic community. On the other side of the Expanse is Deadzone, a lawless region of the galaxy.

Stryker looked out of the observation window of his shuttle to see he was entering one of the landing bays on Chronos Station. Only a few other shuttles were located inside, as opposed of the other bays which were actually quite busy. The shuttles brought in each 'asset' of Project: Revenant. They were either locked up in some cell somewhere and promised freedom, or hired... or forced by the Alliance to be a part of this operation.

Captain Dawson walked up behind Stryker. "Alright, bounty hunter, time to get out."

"Yep," Stryker replied, picking up his bag of equipment.

"Don't sound so glum, Stryker. You might actually make a few friends."

"Shut up Dawson. We haven't even started and I'm ready to call it quits now."

The Captain led the bounty hunter, Stryker, over to where the other assets were being gathered. Stryker recognized a few, and felt uneasy at the sight of them. Some of these guys were pretty bad. "Damn Dawson, where'd you find these guys?"

"I didn't. Lara did." Dawson found himself in the middle of the crewmembers, holding his hands in an attempt to keep any insults at bay. Nearly twenty armed guards stood sentry in the docking bay. Outside, through the force field, one could see into the vast expanse of space, as well as the ships flying in and out of the space station.

"Alright everybody, listen up," Dawson began. "I'm Captain Dawson. Last year my boss compiled a list of the worst sons-a-bitches in the galaxy. That happens to be you. Then she went about recruiting them. Those of you standing here are the ones who accepted the invitation. I don't know if she promised you credits, or freed you from prison, or offered you information... whatever, I don't want to know why you agreed to do this job. There's no turning back, the moment you stepped on this station you are officially under Alliance command. You will cooperate, or you will be punished."

Dawson motioned a hand signal to one of the guards, who left the area through an automatic door. The Captain started talking again. "The Alliance is handing over one of their former frigates, which we're dubbing the Revenant. Your first assignment is to travel to a human colony on the planet Endosius and wait for an attack. Those damn colonists were specifically told not to colonize Endosius, but they did it anyway. It's to close to Deadzone, and so therefore is under threat of slavers and pirates, and too far for the Alliance to send a garrison. You'll go there, make contact with the slavers, and await further orders. Now, I'll see you in a few minutes. Don't kill each other while I'm gone."

The Captain and the armed guards left the docking bay, so only the crew of the Revenant was inside - along with the shuttles they each flew in on.

Stryker gripped one of his pistols and said "I don't have anything to say to you scumbags. Just stay out of my way and let me do my job."

Sector 7
Chicago, IL
August 16th, 2166

"Encryption Complete. CommsNet link established"
"SAL? Maverick. I'm in position, setting up now. Status report"
"Transport acquired. Tailing target at suggested distance of 357 meters. Tracking. Target is following route 4A. ETA 4 minutes"
"Grand. Now shut up. You better catch me when I drop"

Grayson muted his comms and turned his attention to his armor's wrist CPU. There was a satellite antenna on his left with a rather thick base, an excellent anchor point. With a quick jab to the hologram on his arm, a grapple cable shot out from his belt, and jabbed into the antenna base. After tugging at the line to ensure it was solid, he scanned the nearby architecture and found an excellent space to send the other line. With another tap on the CPU, a second cable shot out from the Spider's Web and embedded itself in the structure on the opposite building. He did a security check, then engaged the reels, lengthening the left cable and shortening the right, until he was suspended between the two buildings, nearly 50 stories up.

"Time to go invisible" He muttered to himself as he engaged his suit's Active Camo mod. The final step of preparation was pulling out the compacted rectangle from his MagSling. At his touch, the rifle unfolded into its sniper configuration, he loaded a magazine of Heavy Piercing 7.62 rounds, and sighted up, carefully watching for the convoy to round the corner.

Meanwhile, on the ground, SAL was following their target closely, minding the distance meters on his HUD as they ticked closer to 0. He engaged a subnet access to log in to their ship's CPU and initiate pre-travel procedures, knowing they would need to get off-world quickly after assassinating such a high-ranking member of Earth's government. Aware that his appalling partner in crime likely had muted or even cut off their comm link, he hailed him over a newly encrypted frequency.
"SAL to Maverick. 600 meters to kill zone"
For this outing, SAL had selected a newer model of hovercar, cleared for in-city travel of up to 35 stories, and also miraculously easy to hack, he would likely have to push the upper-thrusters to their limits to successfully overtake the convoy and catch Grayson when he dropped from the Spider's Web, but he knew the raw speed of it would be more than enough for them to clear any pursuing vehicles and get back to the Vulture, hopefully before any authorities could lock down the docks.

The timer hit 0 and SAL put the pedals to the floor.

Up above, Grayson engaged his cybernetic implant and locked on to the target.
"Hello there, Executor Lara, I'd like you to meet a little friend of mine" He sneered as his finger tightened around the trigger.

Alliance Blacksite
Location Unknown
August 18th, 2166

Grayson sat chained to the interrogation room table, he'd spent most of the past 48 hours in a dark hole. Ever since the Alliance surrounded them as they made their escape. The target was eliminated and the payment received, but everything was gone now. All their assets had been seized when they were tossed in here. At least they'd kept them separate so Daniel didn't have to listen to SAL prattle on about how they could have better handled the situation, and the improbability of their capture. The door shooting open cut off his train of thought.

"Daniel Grayson. We meet at last. I'm Christen Fareed, executive assistant to Executor Lara" He was a pompous-looking prick was Daniel's first impression.
"So I kill your boss and you toss me in here. Cute, but dead is dead, and I have rights, so I want my ship, my guns, my credits, and I suppose I want the rustbucket back too, seeing as I can't get far without him"
"Actually, you killed a decoy... Executor Lara is alive and well. You've been had my friend. This whole thing has been a test of sorts. The Alliance hired you with a contract on her, or rather, a cleverly disguised double, to ensure you're everything they say you are. You see, we're putting a team together, you can take your time and read the basics here
"No thanks, I don't play well with others"
"Curious then, that you've spent the past 4 years working with this robot"
"Yeah, it's a long story"
"Well at any rate, you have a day to decide. The terms are as follows: If you refuse, any sentence imposed on you in a court of law will be tripled, you'll spend the rest of your life in a place far worse than this. If you agree however, time will be reduced from your sentence for every mission you complete as a member of Project: Revenant, once we feel you've done enough to service civilization, your ship and assets will be returned to you, as well as quite a large sum of credits"
Grayson considered for a moment "I want half up front and my equipment returned, otherwise you can just shoot me now"
"You'll get 33% up front, more than enough to cover operation costs. You ship out to Chronos Station in the morning

Chronos Station
August 19th
Maverick and SAL stood by silently as the shuttles arrived one by one. When they had all gathered and Captain Dawson began speaking, Grayson blinked twice to engage the cybernetics in his eye, and sized up everyone in the room. The soldiers were no threat, a few had minor cyber-mods, but apart from that, they were all human. He scanned each of his new teammates for weak points, smiling as he compiled information in case any of them ever turned on him.

"Captain Skullface" Sat cross-legged in his chair, and gave a deceptively non-robotic sounding chuckle "Cooperate or be Punished, who do they think they are?" he said before staring around the room to get a good look at all of the other fools who decided to whore themselves out to the Alliance, wondering what shitty reason they had for being here. Meanwhile he was having a conversation with a Shipmate with his Cyberwear, he had multiple layers of quantum cryptography but figured that the Alliance had some way of evesdropping.
Location: The Starship "Guilty by Association"
Onboard the Guilty By Association, a modified freighter "Bought at least semi-legitimately" by Pirates associated with Captain Skullface, Nala, a close associate, opened her cyber communication window.



"Our Part in this operation is complete, looks like they are letting us Go, How are things on your end?"

"I was half expecting them to back out on us, Now, one more job and we get what we came for, Apparently some slavers are pestering a colony or something and we have to protect it."

"Huh, two for the price of one, We get our people back AND get to fuck with the cartels, finally things looking in our favor."

"This doesnt add up, Why would the alliance hire Scum like us? something about this mission they arent telling us."

"Always is hun, Now I should Get going before the Alliance changes its mind on letting us go."

"Copy that, Keep Flying"

August 18 2166
Alliance site
Location unknown

Tokala paced around the darkened room. He could see just fine, but that doesn't make this any less irritating. Finally the lights turned on and a man entered. Tokala tilted his head and studied the guy. "I take it you don't talk much." the guy threw down a file and exited. A woman entered and took a seat. Tokala raised a brow and sat at the other end. "So we finally caught you. Take a look at the file" Tokala's ears flicked as he opened the file and huffed. "That long of a sentence huh? Better hope where you're putting me can hold me"

The woman shook her head. "I'm here to tell you that you have been chosen to be a part of something. A team. If you accept your term will be shortened. If you decline then you get to go to a top prison for the whole sentence"
Tokala looked at the file again before looking at her. "I'm guessing it's some sort of top secret thing...what about my equipment" the woman nodded and tokala sat back his ears folding as he thought about it. "Which prison?" the woman smiled and told him. "Not messing around I see...okay deal"

---

August 19
Chronos Station
Tokala looked out the shuttle. He seemed to be dressed in regular clothes: grey shirt, jeans, black combat style boots; but he had his suit on underneath. His mask in a pocket...folded up to fit without notice. His other pocket held his various equipment. Though they hadn't given him his knives back yet and they withheld his knife sharpening tool that he would have used on his claws.
When he arrived he looked around himself and discreetly inhaled. He took in the scents around him before walking down and joining the group. He looked at the new team and flicked his ears. interesting group to say the least

These people probably think they have even a slight chance of escaping. Maybe using the ship they're giving us to run away. If the people behind this little operation have any brains, there'll be a hidden tracker on the ship, a system to remotely control the ship, and enough dirt on us to be shunned by the worst of criminals, even if half of it is a lie.
These thoughts went through Shade's mind. It wasn't that Shade was cynical, it was just reasonable. The Alliance didn't grow so large by being careless.
Three humans, two bots, one EMP would make short work of four of the bots, maybe even two of the humans if I'm lucky, but the oldest human, he could be trouble. I'll go along with them. For now.