Seeing the flesh melt off what Neil creatively dubbed a Xeno-rex was better than having that dancer on his lap. He nodded with a smirk, almost lost in the fantasy of having done that to Margeret the cow. He glanced behind him to Sayeeda. "I don't think I can describe how turned on I am right now." He admitted.

He felt like he might have done this in exchange for his life though. The Xenonids streamed around them, at least a dozen eldritch beasts stood between them and the ship, some of them ravaging still living people and impregnating them as they screamed blood. Even the ever joking Neil found such a sight sobering in the middle of daylight.

He decided that a death by liquid fire was far more merciful than death from these beasts. With a quick prayer to his Gods, he engulfed the dozens of meters before them. Fire rained around them, melting the village-folk and beasts as they screeched and screamed. Neil was guarded at his flank by Sayeeda's crack shots. "C'mon, we gotta get the fuck out of here."

Neil yanked Sayeeda's arm, pulling her along. He knew she was competent enough not to take his cue, so he leaped from rock to rock across the boiling ground, Junebug close behind. In front of them, the last people streamed onto the ship, and Astador landed atop Highlander from out of nowhere, aiming his carbine down his sights at both Captain and Pilot. Neil nearly fell off the 2nd to last rock, wondering if this fucker had an agenda the whole time.

He discharged his carbine, and Neil heard a screech behind him, and a wet thump as one of the beasts had been clambering after them.

There were still muffled screams within the village. Those too stubborn or too slow to leave, but the majority were now in the very nearly overloaded Highlander. Neil and Sayeeda made it into the ship, but Astador didn't have time to join them. Instead, he told Neil to take off through the comm.

"I don't know what he's planning but..." Neil leaped and slipped his way past screaming and crying men, women, and children. He had to muscle a few people out of the cockpit before he set himself into his seat and lifted off, Lonny thankfully having revved the engines up.

Once Highlander began to lift, Neil looked out of the various cameras they had atop the ship and saw Astador hanging on for dear life, his armor and rebreather keeping him alive. He'd kept the Xenonids off the ship with a daring stand. "Slow down once you reach the mountains and let me in." Astador called.

"And I thought I was crazy." Neil said, slowing the ship down once they'd traveled 50 kilometers.
@Penny

The Highlander touched down on the landing pad with a gentle metallic clunk. Even so small a noise was enough to wake screams and gasps from the villager packed into the hold like so many animals headed for slaughter. Junebug supposed she couldn't blame them. The villages were small enough that they would have all known victims of the Xenos attack, some would be morning lost family. It had been years since she had spoken to her own family. Her mother was a religious woman who hadn't approved of her daughters career choices and her father was the sort of died in the wool alcoholic that drove people to religion. In the whole universe there were few people other than old comrades who cared if she lived or died.

The ramps came down with a hiss of hydralic jacks and the pesants rushed out, carrying bundles of food and personal possessions. The remaining knights led by Astrador began unloading the provisions they had salvaged as quickly as possible. Junebug unsnapped her crash webbing and stretched. There was still some pain, but hours in the auto-doc had healed the most serious of her injuries and she only had a very small load of pain killers on board now. That was good, it was always better to be clear headed if you could. Sometimes booze or pills were the only way you got through, but both those things had a habit of taking more of a piece of you than you might wish.

"Captain, prepare your ship for the next evacuation run," Astrador said as he strode up the ramp, apparently having unloaded the supplies and chivied the last of the civilians off to the Gooddess knew where. Junebug sighed and squred her shoulders.

"No," she said simply but firmly.

"How soon can..." Astrador trailed of in confusion and then his voice rose in anger.

"Did you just say no to me Captain?" he asked in a deadly quiet voice. The modulation from his helmet gave an odd serpentine quality to his voice.

"I believe so," she responded calmly folding her arms.

"How dare you..." he began his voice rising in genuine anger. He closed the distance between them in several large strides but Junebug, having been dressed down many times by less armored, but equally terrifying sergeant majors held her ground.

"I dare, if that is the word, because this is my ship. Those spores are everywhere and you already lost what five guys holding them off."

"We are not afraid to lay down our..." Junebug cut in over the top of him.

"Five men who would have been invaluable to the defence of the city dead for fifty villagers and a handful of suplies, you dont need to be the unifer to see that is a bad bargain. I'm not putting my ship or my crew at risk because you think its noble to do so."

Astrador bristled.

"The Duke will hear of this, he will order that we commandeer the ship!" the Knight snapped and turned and stalked away.

"Yeah, good luck with that."

"Pardon ma fer jumpin in Capt'n but you have a message requesting your presence at the Level, sender unknown," Loney broke in.

"Suffering Saints what now?"

@POOHEAD189

Neil hopped off the loading ramp as Junebug and Astador went at it. He grit his teeth at the two trading verbal blows, and the pilot sighed as he saw the ending of it. The Knight marched off, and Neil ran a hand through his hair. "And here things were going so well," he deadpanned sarcastically. Weirdly, Neil felt a kind of respect for Astador. Despite his panties being in a bunch, the Cavalier had brass balls. Or titanium with the armor on.

"Pardon ma fer jumpin in Capt'n but you have a message requesting your presence at the Level, sender unknown," Loney broke in.

"Suffering Saints what now?"

Neil headed over to the cockpit. "Lonny, play the message." Neil said. Lonney replied with an 'aye' and the message began from the beginning. Initially there was nothing but static, but soon a voice was overheard. A young female voice, around Neil's age if he had to guess.

"Meet me in manu-facility AB13 if you want off this world. Tomorrow at the break of dawn. Make sure you're not followed." The transmission cut off after that, static filling the chamber before abruptly ending. Neil leaned back, his face scrunching up. He turned to Sayeeda. "You think one of those dancers fell in love or something?" His voice incredulous. As it echoed down out of the ship, he realized how dumb it sounded and didn't need to be told.

He headed out of the ship again, breathing a sigh. "Well, whoever it was, we got nothing better to do than agree to meet with her, right?"

In the meantime, Neil would go see the local stockpile and waste dump for a few items he might need for a special project he had in mind. It would take more than a day, but it looked like they'd be here for some time so might as well start it. When he got bored, he either screwed or built.

Plus, they'd just saved fifty villagers, who would deny him some items? Just bullshit his way through like he did with most things. "Hey Sayeeda, I'll be back in a few. What'll you be up to?"
@Penny

Sayeeda slept. It was never a mistake to sleep when you had time and one of the surest signs of a veteran was the ability to sleep anywhere at a moments notice. They had been in action of one sort or another for well over twenty four standard now and even the auto-doc with its purging chemicals didn't make up for old fashioned sleep. As usual her sleep was restless. Fragments of past battles flickered pas her as she dreamed, sometimes she saw faces of those she had killed, or saw comrades long dead. Many veterans had such dreams and she was grateful that she could sleep at all without the aid of drugs or booze.

She woke from half remembered terrors a few hours before the meeting, a thin sheen of sweat coating her body. The ship was quiet but Lonney hadn't alerted her via the comm so she had to assume that Neil wasn't in any trouble. Rolling out of bed she headed to the shower unit, stripped off and turned the water on as hot as she could stand. In space water was a luxury, but so long as they were hooked to the habs main water lines they had all they could use. She let the water run over her for nearly an hour, the head and pressure massaging away the ache of the past few days as best she could. Finally, when she could muster the energy, she turned the shower off and stepped out, drying and warping herself up in a towel. She didn't bother to brush her hair, it was short enough that it was rarely an issue.

From the back of the ship she heard a clank and headed back towards the engineering section. Neil was back there with an assemblage of junk and tools he had clearly just dragged aboard.

"Going into salvage are we?" she asked from the hatchway.

@POOHEAD189

Neil had slept some, needing at least a decent amount of shut eye to function. But he'd turned on the alarm for him much earlier than Sayeeda, which surprised him. Not his early alarm, but hers giving her a longer sleep. She was usually very vigilant, far more than he thought healthy. But then again, she was a bigger badass than he. He guessed she was still very beat from all they had done. He'd had time to rest after she had gotten hurt from the initial encounter back on X-792b.

Once Neil hopped up, he stretched and took a quick shower, his black hair matted to his neck as he walked out and changed. Tugging on his shirt and pants, slipping on the belt and shoes, he wasn't even fully dry by the time he got back with the items from the junk area he'd weaseled his way into. The guard there learned who he was and let him in, not wanting to keep out a guest of the Dukes'. Though the amount of junk Neil hauled out still had him questioning just what the mechanic needed it for. Neil gave him vague hints as he borrowed the grav-transporter.

Dumping the items onto the main cargo hold of the ship, Neil had already placed on his headphones, listening to some classical music. Once in the bay with the materials unceremoniously dumped, he fell to his knees and unlatched his toolkit, goggles on his head and metal plating spread out before him on Highlander's floor. "Alright, first things first," he breathed to himself, taking a few of the smaller pieces and measuring them.

"Going into salvage are we?" Sayeeda asked from behind him. He didn't hear her at first through the music, needing the Captain to repeat herself before he took note of someone else here. Unusually for Neil, he seemed startled and slightly embarrassed. "H-Hey," he said, attempting nonchalance. "What's uh, what's up?" He asked her, taking an earbud out and lifting his goggles. "Oh this? This is nothing. Nothing at all! Why it's so very nothing that you're probably just... hallucinating right now. Yeah I'm in the other room asleep, actually. Or masturbating, whatever you'd believe is most likely."

Her look caused him to slump his shoulders and sigh. "Aight, take a seat." He told her, waving his wrench at the chairs to the left. "Just give me a minute. You'll thank me." He promised her, and before Syeeda knew it, his welding torch was ignited. The flame lighting up his goggles and illuminating his growing feral grin. It was no wonder his arms and hands were callused and parched, the proximity to the flames and the way he handled the metal as he bent and shaped it. Before long, he was setting up wires in what looked to be a serpentine contraption.

Three classical songs after he had finished shaping the steel, he began to attach the various items he'd made. At first glance, it looked like a half body medical device, but once he was finished welding it together and hooking up the right spots, bolting this and that, he took his goggles off and wiped his forehead, sweat beading down, slipping past his collarbone. His hair was slightly matted yet again, though this time from exertion. But his dark eyes were just as bright as his usual grin.

He placed down what he'd finished in front of Sayeeda, and now that it was before her eyes, the contraption was easily identifiable. It was a hydraulic exo-suit. Much smaller than most standard issue ones given to Storm Troopers, but nevertheless... Sayeeda could slip her arms into the skeletal steel 'gloves', increasing her strength and durability with melee attacks while giving her enough dexterity to wield her gun effectively, and the center between the two arms was a back brace she could hook around her waist, increasing her back stability and allowing her ease of movement with them.

"Sexy right?" He asked, and he rubbed his nose with the edge of his thumb, facetiously smug. "Yeah, wasn't planning on making you something initially, but I had some extra scrap and you had a shit time at the medical facility." He shrugged. "Thought I'd give you something to think about."

Behind him, there was still a huge amount of scrap, something that would take days for even Neil to work on. Lonney politely reminded Sayeeda they had 90 minutes before meeting with the mysterious messenger.
@Penny

Sayeeda tentatively inserted her hand into the glove rig and closed her hand. With a whiring of servos, little louder than the background hum of a datapad the mechanical hand closed in syconrony with her fist. Slowly she spread her fingers and then closed them one by one. The machine moved fluidly with her without any hinderance to her movement. She wondered how quicly she could jetision it in face of an emp, but such weaponry wasn't likely on most worlds they were likely to venture to.

"It is sort of sexy," she admitted, "Thank you Neil."

"I wonder if I could get it on over my..."

"90 minutes to the mysterious meetn-greet cap'n!" Lonney chirruped in his irritating accent. Sayeeda withdrew her hand from the half finished rig with a sigh.

"I swear to the Goddess if this is some prank they will never find the body."

Sayeeda and Neil moved rapidly through the streets. The hab was unusually quiet even though the streets were packed. MOst people had downed tools in face of the alien invasion and with every armed man preparing to defend the hab there was no one to force the laborers back to work. Instead they congregated in bars and on street corners, watching vids and buying food where there could. It wasn't quite hoarding yet but people were definitely getting the notion that things were more serious than the authorities were letting on. Pretty soon someone would have the bright idea to start looting and then the city would become real interesting.

Although she had agonized over the choice Junebug had lost the inner argument about wearing her armor. Beat up as she was the idea of strapping twenty pounds of ceramic plate over her torso had not appealed. Instead she had dressed in what she had explained to Neil as business causal. As usual she wore fatigue pants of mottled green fabric with many convenient pockets and her heavy back combat boots. Somewhat more uncharacteristic was a dark blue tank top with the word Timebomb written across it at a jaunty descending angle in white exaggerated font. Junebug dimly remembered it as a band from one of they worlds she had served on towards the end of her tour although she couldn't have said anything else about it. The garment was light and airy and exposed the owl tattoo snaking down over her shoulder. In a shocking departure from protocol she had even left her como helmet behind, opting for a pistol belt and a bandoleer of reloads that she carried slung over her shoulder.

"Might have been a mistake to roll so light," she commented as they headed deeper into the more deserted manufacturing sections. Neil snorted.

"Would have attracted attention if we had come armed for an assault drop," he pointed out, reaching forth to brush back some dangling cables so she could step clear unobstructed.

"I've always found that a 20mm plasma gun makes people fairly uncurious after they get a look at it," she countered, earning another snort of amusement from her companion.

The walked for about half an hour, doubling back and taking rapid blind corners to throw off any pursuit. It would be difficult with things so quiet although Junebug had known intel ops who could have managed the trick well enough. Well if there were people of that calibre following them their mysterious petitioner was going to be in for a shock. Eventually they entered the AB13 manu, designated by the stenciled characters above a large starship style hatch. They had passed dozens of other similar signs. The interior was a large open warehouse perhaps a hundred feet long by half that wide. Large mechanical components, engines of some sort sat on large roller ways, not unlike old fashioned rail lines. Cranes and lifting apparatus hung from the ceiling like skeletal arms. The whole place smelled of metal and old lubricant as well as the ozone residues of arc welders.

There was a momentary static pop as the overhead speakers crackled to life.

"Thank you for coming," a deliberately distorted voice said from the speakers, as sexless and lacking in distinction as an AI. An unmodified AI anyway Sayeeda thought sourly.

"Your welcome," Sayeeda replied in a deceptively mild tone her eyes scanning the shadowed receses of the warehouse. Always a mistake not to bring the helmet, she could have used IR.

"Who I am is not important..." Sayeeda broke in without waiting, her clear voice, used to calling orders across a battlefield filling the inside of the warehouse more efficiently than the cheaply installed speaker system.

"Listen, whoever the fuck you are, you have about 3 seconds to cut the shit and come out or my friend and I are walking." The speakers cut of suddenly as though the operator was shocked. Sayeeda waited a few moments eyebrows raised and then turned as if to leave. There was a sudden comotion from an upper level gangway an a young woman, dressed in conservative black street clothes and holding an expensive datapad scrambled out of a concealed position.

"Wait wait!" she called, her voice useful and a stark contrast to the modulated filter she had been using.

"I'm coming down." As the girl came down the metal stairs in a series of clanks Sayeeda measured her with her eyes. Early twenties, asiatic features with hear a shockingly vibrant blue that could only be a synthetic implant job. It looked as though she had made some attempt to conceal it with a hood while she had been playing incognito. The girl had an attractive open face although she was clearly flustered at having things depart so radically from her prepared script.

"I'm Taya Cho-Lan," the girl said as she stopped in front of the two spacer. She had a long barreled pistol sticking out of her belt sash, doubtless it was intended to be practical but Sayeeda doubted the girl had ever fired, or expected to have fire the thing.

"You're Junebug Cyckali right, the mercenary?" the girl burbled nervously. Sayeeda exchanged a long glance with Neil.

"Yes I suppose I am," Sayeeda replied.

"What can we do for you Misstress Cho-Lan?" Her tone suggested that it had better be good. To her surprise the girl didn't flinch but rather turned grave.

"I need you to get me off this planet before the Duke has my family killed and, before my father has the pair of you killed." There was a moment of stunned silence.

"Uhhh... you are going to have to back that up for me Taya," Junebug confessed, irritation giving way to perplexity.

@POOHEAD189

Neil's confident bravado fled when he realized she actually did think it was pretty appealing. He blinked, not used to actually being patted on the back for doing something good. First time for everything, he supposed. But there was no time to dwell on it, thanks to Lonney's timely warning, and the two partner's-in-crime ducked and dodged their way through the machinery and alleys of the factorum world.

Once they made it there, the genderless and utterly devoid of emotion voice that echoed across the corridor had Neil a tad interested. Only someone who paid handsomely for certain services would deign to conceal themselves, and the two had already been paid handsomely recently. If they kept this up, Neil could afford decent tools to work with, and upgrade the shields on the Highlander. He might also give Lonney a holographic image...

His thoughts on the matter disappeared when the voice was reduced to what reminded him of a nervous school girl. He stuck in his hands in his pockets as Sayeeda played this girl like a fiddle with her no nonsense style, and he shook his head as the girl fumbled. It was kinda cute, he thought. Though Neil was into older and more mature women. He wasn't really wanting someone who needed their hand held.

You could basically hear the record scratching when she mentioned Cho-Lan was to have them killed, and the Duke was going after Cho-Lan. "Well that's...news." Neil deadpanned.

Taya bit her bottom lip, eyes flickering to the side as if she was suddenly unsure if she should even be here, and if there was a way out just in case. But she steeled herself and breathed deeply, and continued with her thought. "I don't know much..." she admitted. "Other than what I've overheard. But the Duke has suspicions of my father and his business partners." She went on, wringing her hands. "The Duke wants to rule this world as its only sovereign, and with this war being initiated as it had, he just might be given the executive power to do it. And my father's rivals...they're angered at you two for your part in the discovery of the Xenos."

Neil let out a breath of air that caused the fringe of his hair to sway, knowing where this was going. "They want your blood, and a very large sum of money of they'll cut off ties with him, and target him and...his family." She looked down at her feet. "You're only a symbol of good faith to them. What they really wish for is business assets. If you, or I, am gone before they can find us, they'll not be too disappointed. If all my father loses is a few factories, he'll deserve what he gets."

"But the R.I.P. is out of control. Where would we hide, one of the asteroids?" Neil asked, not entirely confident he could fly through the blockade of Xenonid bioships in Orbit. Not if the Fornax Navy was losing.
@Penny

"The Fornax Navy has lost," Taya corrected austerely. She held an arm forth towards the mercenaries. A smooth metal wristband with dozens of buttons on it encircled her wrist. Biting her lip in frustration she tapped several buttons with a rapidity that suggested long practice. A holographic display sprang to life before her. Sayeeda recognized it as a map of the Fornax system. Large red dots and smaller blue dots flashed along with projected courses and velocity. Neil sighed immediately. Sayeeda cast a side long glance at him, there still seemed to be plenty of blue dots on the screen.

"Its worse than it looks he explained," making a guesture at the velocity markings on one of the naval vessels.

"This is the Star Of Cobani, it looks like its close but its at nearly 0.8 C," he explained. Sayeeda understood, without the aid of the RIP it would take a week long burn to shed that kind of velocity. Even with a period that long it would stress the ship nearly to breaking. It was a rout, but seen in its very early stages as space battles were observed.

"Ok," Sayeeda conceded, "So we have a crazy RIP storm, space filled with hostile ships, dosen't seem like flight is a great option." Taya nodded, not in agreement, but gaining confidence as the conversation began to edge back towards what she had expected. The display changed as she keyed in some commands, shrinking the volume to the localized area of Fornax itself.

"The Magos believes that with the majority of the ships landing on Fornax, the storm disturbing the RIP might be navigable. At least marginally," Taya said calmly. There was an assurance in her voice that led Sayeeda to believe that she had good reason to accept whatever information she had gathered.

"The Duke has ordered it suppressed because of the well justified fear that anyone who had a ship might try to flee and take half the fighters with them." Sayeeda nodded, that did indeed make sense, certainly men like Cho-Lan would flee and take their retainers with them, dramatically weakening the defense the Duke was trying to mount.

"Even if that information is wrong, I've arranged to purchase three Cryo Pods. We can get up to a near lightspeed burn then go into cryo untill we clear the shadow. All information suggests that would take less then two or three months," Taya went on. Junebug was impressed the girl knew her business and seemed remarkably competent for the scion of high nobility.

"I assume both the Duke and your father have people watching you?" Sayeeda asked. Taya nodded quickly.

"Yes, constantly," she admitted, unconciously looking over her shoulder. What ruse had she used to make it to this meeting Sayeeda wondered.

"So next thing to do is come up with a plan to get you and your cryo pods aboard the Highlander."

@POOHEAD189

"Oh, two OR three months," Neil repeated jokingly, lightheartedly pointing out the logic that the cryotubes being activated without a good set time could leave them trapped upon the Highlander for a galactic month. It wouldn't be impossible, and they had the foodstuffs, but just barely. That and, they'd need something to do the entire time. Sure, he could work on his mech and Sayeeda could drill or help him build, but that wouldn't take a month! Then again, they had a lot they could do. Cards, sex, arm wrestling, sex, have-I-ever, sex, drinking, cards, drinking, sex-.

Still, wouldn't be an ideal situation.

Neil placed his hands on his hips, biting his tongue as his mind whirred with the possibilities. "Well, you've come to the right place." He said to Taya, actually acting a fair bit professional when it came to mischief. "Cryopods aren't too big, depending on the model." He said, one hand reaching up to rub his chin. He'd gotten a 5'oclock shadow from the recently hectic days, with no real time shaving since before they got here. "I assume you don't feel confident in escaping your dad's lackeys a second time?"

"Not particularly..." She said, shifting. He could tell she was a smart girl, but smuggling and going against her father was putting her out of her element. "Maybe, but not for long."

"And where's the Cryopods?" Neil asked her, wondering exactly what funds Cho-Lan was letting her use if she could purchase 3 fairly costly items without suspicion on her father's bank records. She pipped up with. "They're in a storage facility close to my father's eastern factory. I'm known to own it, but no one really looks inside. I made sure they were hidden." Her voice sounded positive on that front, and he believed her.

He nodded, gazing inwardly. He spoke his thoughts aloud, words flying off the press as they entered his mind.

"I think the best thing to do would be to procure a hauler (hauling walker)," Neil said, referring to the mini-mechs workers used to carry loads a dozen men would be needed for. They were archaic in design, but still used for tough, cheap labor. He pointed to Taya without looking her way. "You should keep in contact with us, and without telling your father, go to someplace...unexpected. Something the men tailing you would be suspicious of. You do that, and meet us at a rendezvous. Once they've followed you in, the Captain will take them out." He winked to Sayeeda. "While I get the hauler into position. You two head back to meet me, and both Sayeeda and I will take the tailer's uniforms, and follow you with the cryotubes to our ship. I'm glad we're already parked in a Cho-lan hanger. Means we won't need to go far."

Gods, he wished he could have finished his own Valk already. Still, stealing a hauler wouldn't be hard. He'd actually done it half a dozen times. He knew how to move them and even make them. Hell, he'd steal the hauler too...
@Penny

The warehouse stank of lubricants and rusted metal. It had made a good choice for the meet, seeing as Taya technically owned it though had never visited the hab. It was unoccupied and unlike many of the busier fabrication plants, clearly had been for some time. There was absolutely no reason the daughter of a magnate would choose to visit it in the middle of a full scale war, which made it the perfect lure.

"Are you sure everything is all set?" Taya's voice said in Junebug's mastoid implant, her nervousness evident even with the distortion of semi-mismatched units. It wasn't the first time she had asked some variation on the question, or the fifth.

"Stay of the band, everything is set," Sayeeda responded tersely. If they all survived this mess she was going to have a conversation with Taya about radio discipline. It was unlikely that anyone following her had the sort of SIGINT needed to monitor the low power radio she was using, but that was a poor reason to take the chance. Sayeeda was crouched on an uper gangway over looking the working floor of the factory. The place was a maze of derrick, converybelts and other less identifiable industrial junk. The better to spirit Taya away from her shadows. She would just have to hope Neil held up his end of the operation.

As if summoned by her misgiving, her helmet carroted sound, too dim for the human ear to pick up but detectable to the sophisticated sensors in her commo helmet. Twisting slightly she turned towards the motion dialing up the magnification. A trio of large men were entering the factory floor. THey wore mismatched but functional body armor and carried large mouthed shotguns which were in obvious good repair. That wasn't what any security detail should be carrying. Add that to the fact that the men were here before Taya and had come from a different direction and the conclusion was unpleasant. THey weren't a security detail. They were either a snatch team or assassins.

"I'm coming inside," Taya's voice came over the radio.

"NO.." Junebug began about to tell the girl to abort and head back for the dubious saftey of the palace, but the metal roller door was already clattering open.

"There she is!" one of the men snapped, uncoiling a length of neural shock wire with a snap of his wrist. A snatch team them.

"What is going on?" Taya asked in a startled scared voice, the bulky men silouteed against an opening between vast foundry vats from her perspective. Junebug dropped the stunner she had planned on using and unslung her submachine gun. It was a poor weapon for the task but it would have to do.

"Taya, get down!" she snapped and squeezed off a three round burst from her elevated position. One of the men screamed and stumbled back with a sound like a buzzsaw hitting a porcelain vase, one of the slugs shattering his armor like a fragmentation grenade. The facility woke with echos as the remaining rounds ricochet wildly around disussed workspace, tracing orange sparks wherever they struck metal. Taya was screaming and covering her head with her hands as she lay on the ground. An understandable but unhelpful reaction, to the sudden dire turn of events. One of the remaining mercs was swinging his shotgun towards the girl. Junebug unloaded the entire magazine in a single long burst that sounded like the main truss of a house giving way. A dozen or more rounds ricoched in a cascade of sparks and filled the air with an incredible cacophony. The rounds missed their targets but it accomplished its goal of making both men duck for cover.

"Taya! Go! To your right!" Junebug yelled as she stood and cast aside her sub machine gun, the barrel glowing white and visibly warping from the few seconds of continuous firing. Suddenly she really wished she had bought her plasma rifle, but needs must. She ran along the gangway at full tilt, unsnapping her 10mm plasma pistol as she ran, snapping of a few unaimed shots at her targets. Below a shot gun went off, like a grenade in a glass factory but thankfully Taya was staggering to the side, taking cover behind a large metal console. Sayeeda snapped off tow more shots and then vaulted over the saftey railing to drop the six feet to the top of a large industrial tank, her boots hiting with a clang as she turned the dive into a roll to rob it of its momentum.

"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," Tanya was babbling in the comlink, but this was no time for prayers. Shotguns thundered and she felt the tank shiver, though the deflection was enough to shelter her as she rolled to her right and dropped catching the lip of the tank with her fingertips for only a second, breaking her momentum before dropping the ten feet to the ground. Her armor dug painfully into her hips as she hit the ground, but she could worry about that later.

"Fire in the hole!" one of the mercs yelled and Sayeeda grabbed Taya, now only a few feet away and pulled her close pressing the girl between herself and the side of the metal tank. There was a dirty explosion and a noise so defeaning that it stunned the former armored captain for a moment. Fortunately reflex supplied the lack of decision and she found herself shoving Taya forward towards a side door to a machine alcove. Dimly she became aware of other shots, smaller calibre pistols cracking behind her and the shotguns roared again. A man was screaming and the air stank of cordite and the vaporized haze of aluminum driving bands. It was Taya's security detail.

"Here! Cover me!" Junebug yelled, mouthing the words with exaggereated slowness and pressed the pistol into the girls shaking hands. Taya only looked at her in white faced shock. Sayeeda reached out and closed the girls hands around the gun and then physically turned her to point her back towards the developing fire fight. It was a losing bet that the girl would help, but it beat her panicing. As quickly as she good Sayeeda unhooked a long cylinder of thermite breaching putty and scribed a quick triangle, about a meter to all dimension on the featureless metal wall behind them. The liquid was dull orange and stank of acrid chemicals. Behind her Taya fired the pistol wildly, a half dozen shots in the rapid crack crack crack of panic fire. Ignoring the girl she shoved a small detonator into one of the joins where streaks of breaching putty overlapped.

"Fire in the hole!" she yelled, from habit rather than any current need, and clicked the detonator in her right hand. The putty lit of in crump of ignition and glowed so bright that it left purple after images in Sayeeda's eyes for a moment. The metal sagged back and a triangular section dropped to the floor with a clang. A fist gripped her shoulder and Junebug spun her fist coming up in straight fingered jab before she realized it was Taya.

"It wont fire!" Taya was yelling, tears streaming down her sallow cheeks. The weapon only held twelve rounds and they had almost certainly all been fired in the few seconds Taya held the weapon. Rather than wasting time explaining she grabbed the girl by collar and belt and through her physically through her impromptu egress point. Bullets cracked of the metallic walls as Junebug dived after the noble. Finding herself in a narrow alley she grabbed Taya and bolted in the general direction of the ship.

"Neil," she yelled breathily, "I have Taya but we have a bit of a complication, pick up the pace if you can!"

@POOHEAD189

Neil let go of the small transport, the grav-vehicle slowly zooming away, the worker driving it never realizing some thief had clung to the bottom of it for the past 15 minutes. His back on the cold ground, the young man found himself in a vast warehouse. The ceiling looked like a distant sky, stretching to the horizon of crates and boxes piled like man-made and structured mountains. The infiltration wasn't going too bad, so far. But he still had a large warehouse to look within.

Rolling onto his feet, he crouched and sped behind a myriad of smaller boxes, stacked just high enough for him to stand without too much worry over whether he'd be seen. Hell, if he was to be seen he could easily lie about why he was there, at least at the moment. Lying when you're stealing equipment wasn't as easy... But he needed to know where some haulers were. first. Unmanned haulers, that is.

Poking his head out, he saw the coast was relatively clear. One of the workers was surveying a few others stacking boxes, his back turned. Neil stepped out into the open, gauging on whether the man would turn around, and suddenly ran with light feet, making not a sound over the tiled floor before he was within the confines of one of the looming towers of materials. Glancing up, he almost had to tilt his back backward, so high up were they placed. He let a soft whistle out. It did give him an idea though, seeing each crate with small slits along them for hand holds. If he could get to the top of one of these, he could-

"Yeah and then Lancaster hauled about 1500 units here even though it wasn't scheduled until next week," a voice complained, growing louder by the syllable. Neil spun, looking for an out.

"More work but the same pay," the other voice replied, and the two men rounded the corner. Their uniforms baggy but utilitarian, with Cho-Lan sigils on their breasts and hard hats on their heads. They strolled on by, circle jerking one another with complaints as they faded off into one of the many 'streets' made by the separation of stacks.

Neil gripped the fifth crate up, nearly two dozen feet in the air. Watching them pass under his feet without them having seen him was relieving and satisfying. He almost wanted to announce himself and rub it in their faces. But he'd gloat to himself later over that quick climb, and instead focused all of his energy on making his way further upwards. One hand after another, he climbed up and up. Past the 10th crate, he actually felt a breeze. A minor jet stream from the changing air temperatures in the near immeasurable size of the factory.

30 crates up, Neil hauled himself atop the peak of industry, getting on his own two feet and seeing the sea of empty air between him and the next stack across the 'street' hundreds of meters below. If he had the mind to, he could jump, and so far was the fall that he could conceivably catch a crate before he hit the ground and continue upwards once more. But that wasn't needed, even if it sounded like nice dare to try sometime.

Instead, he peered downwards at the mere ants the workers now seemed, and the distant valleys of where the stacks were not quite so high. Men piloted grav-transports, and climbed atop rafters nearly the height of his own vantage point, welding bits of metal together to create more machines and areas to further their business. He also managed to spy a few Haulers as well, carrying two large crates at a time. There must have been half a dozen of them, going back and forth. Rhincerous Beetles among the workmen's ants.

It was less than an hour before he found himself on the ground again, having ran and hide for over a mile before he made it to where the workers hauled and wrought the beams they were welding to create the skeleton of what looked to be the next area to stack crates. Across the valley of workers and activity, he saw a few unmanned Haulers, drooped and unattended. They looked like great skeletons of bipedal saurian beasts. They didn't look too dissimilar from his old mech, though not nearly as impressive.

He rounded a corner to the next street, and awaited for a manned Hauler to tromp by before he made his way through, making sure to keep and ear out for any voices in case he needed to hide again. Luckily, he was scot free. Now, once he made it to the Haulers round the next corner, he clambered up one of their legs and entered the cockpit. Oh, he'd normally need a key to operate it. But he'd stolen more than a few of these babies. He just needed to pop open the bottom port with one of his tools, and redirect a few wires here and there.

Suddenly, the lights above the Hauler's panel blinked on. Neil grinned, rising up to sit on the seat more comfortably, and placing his hands on the tools. The workers in front of him didn't even bother to turn around when one of their unmanned Haulers began to move, so accustomed to the labor they were into. Stomping off back from whence he came, Neil just caught Sayeeda's transmission over the staticy comm. He raised an eyebrow, hearing gunshots. "You need me to come help out or grab the Cryotubes?" He asked.

Either way, it was within the same vicinity and he'd be there in no time, the Hauler's long legs moving faster than any man could conceivably run, loping across the open 'streets' like an immense, flightless bird.
@Penny

Sayeeda fled down the alleyway between the warehouses, clattering down a spiraling staircase that led to another level. They slowed to a brisk walk as they crossed a busier hab floor. The gunfire on the level above was only faintly audible from here, and somehat indistinct over the noise of functioning industrial machinery. A few people gave them a look, but quickly turned away when they saw Sayeeda's still smoking pistol.

"Negative on the assist, there was a bit of a complication but it might work to our advantage, focus on the cryopods but pick up the pace if you can. We are going to lift soonest. Six out." Sayeeda concluded closing the comm circuit.

"Who who were those men?" Taya asked, her voice distant and shocked. The girl wasn't resisting but Junebug had to virtually shove her along to keep her moving in the right direction.

"Mercenaries, maybe the Duke's or more likely one of the other nobles looking to snatch you to use you as leverage," she replied. That would make the most sense the conspirators who had drawn the aliens here needed all the leverage they could get to put the fix soley on Cho-Lan who had seemingly been the most overtly involved.

"I think I killed one," Taya mumbled. Sayeeda remembered the girls panicy unaimed fire.

"Only if we had a miracle on our side," Junebug said, her voice neutral.

Twenty minutes later they were aboard the Highlander and Sayeeda was running through the preflight checks as quickly as she could with Lonney's help.

"Neil what is the hold up?"

@POOHEAD189

"You know, I think they might be on to me." Neil remarked to himself as he crashed through the gateway that received workers and shipments from the outer stations of the facility. The small gate made of thin poles exploded from Neil's hauler, the mecha moving faster than any legal speed for a mech that size. Luckily, the workmen didn't really have any forewarning of a charging hauler, and were a bit too dumbstruck and scrambled to really react in time to bring a swift pursuit.

He slowed once around the next corner, trying to do his best to stomp casually as he made his way into the storage facility. Only problem was, he needed to actually pry open Taya's container. He hadn't gotten the key or the code. He guessed Taya was so done with this planet she cared very little for leaving a mess behind, but it didn't make it any easier for him. He found the correct block at least. C045, on the third level.

Neil took the lift up. The storage areas were large cubes, attached to one another along wide lanes. It seemed like a parody of a utilitarian suburban neighborhood. The lift let out a blast of air from the pistons, and he was drawn up to the third level, opening to reveal the lane that led right to the storage area. He let out a breath, realizing this was going to be a tricky situation, and he stabbed the fork of the Hauler under the door, lifting it up inch by inch to reveal the three Cryotubes. Needless to say, the alarm went off.

"Yeah yeah yeah." Red flashes and obnoxious honks echoed across the facility. Just as he was slipping the Cryotubes into his claws, the lift down the hall lowered. Neil turned his head, raising an eyebrow. It took less than 20 seconds for the lift to begin going back up, and upon it were four security officers with submachine guns, fully outfitted with flak vests and communicators.

"Hold it!" The lead man cried as one of his partners behind him began to murmur into his comm, and Neil knew he couldn't afford to wait for their backup. He turned his Hauler, the Cryotubes a buffer in front of him. Luckily, there weren't many spaces within the cockpit either for bullets to enter. He was fairly safe from small arms fire unless they got lucky themselves. "I said hold it! Drop the Cryotubes, now!"

"Oh you mean these Cryotubes right here?" Neil replied like a whip, and shoved one of the tubes forward. It slid off the Hauler's claws and spun slowly down the lane, going about 30 km if he had to guess. The men let off a few rounds, one bullet ricocheting off Neil's Hauler, but the others going wide. They scrambled to get out of the way of the Cryotube. One guardtripping over himself, having to be yanked out of the way by his partner before he was flattened.

It has been a ruse however, as Neil had moved his Hauler expertly, charging down the lane behind the Cryotube and lifting it up again once the lift area was clear. Casually he bumped one of the recovering men with a claw, knocking him into another storage cube's doorway with a resounding 'thud.'

"Neil what is the hold up?" Sayeeda asked on the comm. She would hear gunfire as the other men did their best to collect themselves, unloading their weapons on the Hauler as the lift carried Neil down toward the first floor.

The bullets glanced off the Hauler's visor and cockpit, save one. Neil let out a cry of pain when one bullet punched into the meat of his side. He thought it wasn't a fatal wound, or even something to worry about if he got it bandaged. But he already felt the warm blood seeping down his hip, and the cold feeling of an open wound in the air. It wasn't like he'd never been shot before, however, and through force of will he moved the Hauler the last mile to the hanger bay. Other than a few confused men and women trying to get out of his way, the coast was clear.

"Yeah, had a small complication." He said, sounding somewhat tired. "Nothing I can't handle."

Lonney opened the back Hanger, and the Hauler's feet gripped the Xarconian steel of the ramp as it balanced the three Cryotubes, moving up one step at a time. Neil felt like it took an eternity, but in reality it was less than a minute before he dropped the three workable (but scraped) Cryotubes into the loading bay. The Hauler's hatch would open, and he painfully climbed out as quickly as he could, hitting the ground in an agile, but less than smooth landing, and making his way to the Cockpit.

"Aight, let's take this baby for a ride." He said breathlessly to Junebug. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and there would be the odd droplet of blood down the cockpit access corridor. But he gave off a feral determination with the look in his eyes. "Ready Lonney?" He called as he flipped a few switches.

"Aye, First Mate Neil sir!" The AI replied, Neil glad Sayeeda had powered up the engines. All he had to do was lift her up and take the landing gear off, switching the pilot to manual and flipping on the sublight engines to be used very shortly. "Let's get the hell out of here," he said, turning on the throttle.
@Penny

The Highlander lifted smoothly into the air and up towards the open sky. Sayeeda watched through the view screen as the plasma thrusters bathed the piles of offloaded coffee, flaming it to ruined ash. She had managed to reload about a quarter of the original quantity, with the aid of the exosuit Neil had made for her, but without steevedores, salvaging the rest was a bust. She supposed she would have to settle for making it out of here alive.

Almost immediately the comm circuit began to sqwak with demands to put down and threats that the airspace was closed. Junebug didn't respond manually but she keyed the automated codes that Cho-Lan had given them as well as those the Duke's people had provided for the civilian evac, figuring that the confusion would cover them.

"I've locked out the main missile batteries," Taya stated from the third, and usually empty, command seat. Junebug turned on her gimbling seat to regard the girl with surprise. In the excitement of the departure she had almost forgotten about her.

"What? How?" Sayeeda demanded incredulously. Simultaneously with the question she bought up a copy of Taya's terminal in a twenty five percent section of her own holo screen. Tabulated data of some kind, obviously to do with the comm system, but unintelligible to Sayeeda scrolled past.

"I used the microwave transmitor to send the code for a training drone to the sensor head. It switched the program from active to simulation. They can still get a solution on us but if they try to fire all they will get is a simulation complete screen," the girl explained, beaming with pride.

"That's insane," Sayeeda countered,"even equipment on this dustbowl cant be that easy to spoof." Her eyes ran over the text, she wasn't a signals expert but it seemed to bear out some of what the girl was saying.

"There is a way to deactivate the simulator switch over, but it is usually performed during set up and testing. I don't think my fathers men are that thorough." Sayeeda supposed that was true and she was about to ask the girl just how the hell she knew how to do it in the first place when the Highlander shook violently.

"Ta aer be a shakin!" Lonney chimed in, unhelpfully. Sayeeda changed the feed to show the direction pick up from the source of the sound. Long white tracers of water vapor had ripped through the sky moments before, shaking the air with their passage.

"Are they shooting at us?!" Taya asked, clearly worried her clever fix hand't worked.

"No," Sayeeda replied, shaking her head. Another few clicks changed the feed to a magnified view behind them, over the hab in the far distance, dirty flashes could bee seen on a distant ridge, too far away for the crumps of impact to reach them.

"Its outgoing, the bugs must be making their first probe on the city and whatever arty the Duke has is opening up." She looked grimly at the display.

"The invasion is starting for real."

@POOHEAD189

Well, Cho-Lan's daughter was more impressive than Neil gave her credit for, he had to admit. Taya reminded him of how others must have seen himself. Never to be underestimated.

As the wind resistance caused the Highlander to buck, Neil felt the pain in his side deepen and he coughed from the sensation. He was glad it wasn't bleeding too freely. What was more concerning was the spores that seemed to drift from above them. A parody of spring pollen, wafting down like solid snow toward the planet. If Neil had to guess, they had aspects about them that helped switched the biochemistry of the ground to make the planet more habitable for the Xenos.

Too bad for them, the planet was already half industrialized, and the other parts were mountainous and rocky. Very little jungles or forests to alter for them. But it still boded ill for the defenders. It meant the Xenonids were here to stay if they had anything to say about it. On the sensors, he saw there were fast approaching larger organisms on the horizon. Those had to be the bioships. One look at the display monitor confirmed those suspicions.

The beacon above the console began to blink rapidly, and the display monitor showed multiple projectiles streaking towards their position.

"Hold on ladies." Neil quipped, flipping open the maneuvering display and typing out a quick algorithm to give him better control, before he banked the ship in a spin to the east. If it wasn't for the artificial gravity, they would have been tossed around the cockpit like a salad.

The sky and ground of Fornax spun, and Neil began to spiral the Highlander downwards, before churning the freighter and banking again, back upwards. The projectiles had flown too far off course by now, or had exploded among one another, showering light acid to the ground below. A few droplets hit the Highlander, but thankfully the shields were up.

The sky went from light blue to navy in color as the ascended, before it deepened into near blackness as they exited the atmosphere. Unfortunately, they were just getting into the danger.

"Well either the good Duke made an orbital wall, or that is a fuck load of Bioships." Neil said. He was somewhat exaggerating, but there was a staggering amount on the horizon, approaching the atmosphere in a horde. Mockeries of life and simply hungry for human hosts to inhabit. Neil pushed the throttle full tilt, making the Highlander a veritable missile among the slower moving Bioships. On the display monitor, Bioships passed and turned and fired at them, but for now Neil kept them at bay with his expert piloting. The pain of the bullet in his side keeping him very awake, though a grim laughter entered his throat from the tall odds they were facing.

On the monitor, Neil caught a few newer signals on the horizon. One was loud and abrupt, almost like a whale on sonar, but far creepier and eldritch in the noise it created. The other was a very quiet signal from another very large source, near the western edge of the outer orbit. "What the hell?" He breathed, calling for Lonney to pinpoint the smaller signal. He could guess what the large one was.

"Oi, not even a live signal. Or an active one, sir." Lonney replied. "Looks like a big freighter back o'er tha' way."

"Where is it heading?" Neil asked, flipping the auxiliary power on. Lonney replied with. "Looks like Vesuvius, one of the moons, sir."

Bleeding, sweating, and about to shoot his pride and joy of a dual owned ship into the endless void on a hope, Neil glanced Sayeeda's way. "You thinking what I'm thinking?" He asked, black hair matted and wild. At some point he must have bit his tongue too in all of the spinning, for a trickle of blood was caked by the edge of his mouth. "Cover me on the guns, will ya?"
@Penny

Sayeeda was thinking what her pilot was thinking. With a twitch of her fingers she thumbed the gunnery computer to life and waggled the control yoke, a motion designed to free the guns if rust or other obstruction had bound them. The rotated freely and the rangefinder panned across her screen.

"What are you doing?" Taya asked, a tinge of shock in her voice as the Highlander heeled over, altering course as rapidly as its compensators could handle.

"We are going to see if we can't give the bugs something to remember us by," she said, toggeling the firing switch with quick sure motions. The Highlander rocked as one of the smaller insect craft tried to vere to intercept, the plasma bolts blasted it into courscating flames as the chitin liquefied and flashed to steam under the hammering.

The Freigher a 60000 ton super hauler was on a balistic course for the moon. Even at this range they could see the hazy tail of gas and debris from where vast alien weapons had gutted the ship. The emergency beacon was still active and identified the ship as the City of Kronstat with a cargo of aluminum tailings. The Kronstat had obviously been burning hard for the planet in an effort to escape its atackers because it had an inbound velocity of nearly 0.35 C. The massive steel vessel was a coffin for her crew as no life signs returned from the wreck. Sayeeda imported the telemetry data from Neil's console.

"Looks like we'd need to go aboard and get the engines fired up. Needs at least a sixty second burn," she observed, verbalizing the calculation. The current course took the freighter straight into the small moon, but with just a small adjustment they could use the moons gravity to sling shot the derelict around into the mass of bio ships.

"Do you think we can get the engines functional?" she asked, her neutral tone conveying her relative lack of skill with starship subsystems.

@POOHEAD189

As Sayeeda spoke, Neil was banking hard. His hands on the manual controls pulling back to the left, and even through the various Xarconian steel walls could they hear the thrum of the engine as it hastened.

"Wh-" Taya breathed, unable to bring the words in her mind to bear at this unnecessary risk. "What, why!? Are you two insane?"

"Hell yes I can get those engine's functional." Neil replied to Junebug, ignoring Taya for the moment. The Highlander arced across the 'western' portion of the bio-fleet. Neil had the ship ducking and whirring around the last vestiges of the greater fleet, the signal beacon going off and on every few moments to announce a projectile or ship that was coming close, only for it to be left far behind from the daring maneuvers Neil had to pull.

Junebug would see the odd Bio-ship splintering off to pursue, but it would be a lax effort on their part. What was one ship that would bring them no sustenance compared to Fornax?

Up ahead, the derelict freighter was so vast it was visible even through the window. The size of a small city, its tail-end broken off. Debris as large as city blocks filtered out lazily, following the ship by no reasoning past its sheer gravity. Neil approached gingerly, though Taya still held onto her seat for dear life after he had slowed. Despite the adrenaline pumping through him, he had to appreciate the quiet intensity of a dead mega-freighter.

He'd heard of deep space graveyards before. Massive collections of various broken ships gathered together by gravity, floating within the nothingness of space. He had to think this is what one of those looked like.

Neil carefully turned the ship's thrusters to and fro as he crept the Highlander through the islands of steel at the derelict's back, finally squeezing into the closest he could get to the ship's center. He turned on the electromagnetic stabilizers to keep their ship grounded as he landed with a gentle thud.

"What happens if one of you dies?" Taya said. "Or both? I can't fly this ship!"

"Look, neither of us are going to die." Neil said with the tone of speaking to an annoying boss or a nagging mother. The irony of his statement wasn't lost on Taya as blood still dripped from his side from the bullet wound. "We'll be back before you know it. Lonney, take care of her." He said, unbuckling his seat.

"Rought sir!"
@Penny

Sayeeda was already out of her couch and pulling on her black and silver vac suit. SHe paused before fitting on the helmet.

"Its all relative Taya, think ho much worse it will be for us," Junebug laughed a bitter amused laugh. Sometimes gallows humor was all there was and if you couldn't laugh at death, at least sometimes, you would crack up sure as the suns burned. She thrust the helmet down and closed the face shield, checking the air bottle both manually and on the aging display.

"Lets do this."

They stepped out of the airlock and into the hold. The light seemed to flatten somehow as the air which usually scattered light was removed. All Sayeeda could hear was the steady cycling of her breather and the soft thump of her pulse. The exterior of the ship was almost unbelievably immense. She doubted there was a shipyard in a hundred that could turn out something like this. It was almost a shame to destroy it, but the vessel was already gutted beyond any reasonable expectation of repair.

They trugged across the deck, magnetic boots clanking to the access port Neil had selected. He knelt down in the enforced silence of vacum and pulled at the handle. Nothing happened. Whatever had hit the ship had torqued the hull bad enough to bind even a solid steel hatch. Sayeeda clicked on her radio.

"Stand back," she instructed and took a gel dispenser from her belt. Carefully she squirted a continuous line around the hatch and then set the detonator pack into the extruded substance.

"Fire in the hole!" she said and clicked the detonator. A jolt of power energized the crystals and the ferrite paste light in brilliant white for a moment then fluttered out. The hatch, propelled by the minute difference in pressure beneath lifted slowly burned clean away from the hull. Sayeeda put a foot to it and shoved hard. WIth the gravitas of ice sliding atop ice it began to drift slowly aside. The door was open at least.

"After you," she said over the radio, already unslinging her submachine gun. Just in case.

@POOHEAD189

The silence of the void was familiar to Neil now, but he recalled a time when he felt very trapped when exposed to the vacuum of space, even within a spacesuit. Though most low-end spacesuits were cumbersome and took away a bit of his agility. Luckily, this one was slimming.

He marched past Sayeeda into the hatchway, giving a salute as he passed her by. "You got it, Boss." He said, his voice echoing within her suit's helmet. The vastness of the plaza was now diminished by about one hundred times, though the hall was still large compared to most ships. The ceiling was thrice the height of a man, and five people could walk abreast and still have elbow room.

Dead plants and loose materials such as steel from the walls, packaged food, and even trash cans floated around them. Neil pushed aside a child's toy as he made his way further within. He saw a strange gaseous substance snaking about, yet curiously it behaved like liquid. Neil had seen alcohol in space, but it never ceased to amaze him how it reacted.

"Ok, we're in the presidium now." He told Sayeeda once they made it down the first two hallways. There was a map upon the wall. Normally it would be interactive, but the primitive AI had been destroyed with half of the ship. Next to Neil was a staircase that went downwards. He ran his finger along the halls it would take to get to the engine room, his mind searing the memory of it in his head.

"All we need to do now is to head down to the left through another few halls. Seems easy enough."

From above, Neil was suddenly hit by a Xenonid. Its body moving slowly but powerfully as it had positioned itself just to the left of him from the ceiling. Neil's electromagnetic feet were 'sucked' off the floor from the impact. Sayeeda could tell it was also more sluggish in its movements, even past the lack of gravity. As if the void was slowly reducing its strength and speed. But it still attempted to ravage Neil, trying to find an opening in his suit.

"Shit!"
@Penny

Sayeeda had taken the academy course in zero-g combat but it wasn't a skill that she had found much occasion to practice. Neil and the Xenoid tumbled in the air, their motions made awkward and clumsy in the zero gravity. Reaching back the unsnapped her plasma rifle, bulky but the right choice for the job due to the low recoil, and sighted down the barrel at the spinning pair.

"Would you fucking shoot it already?!" Neil yelled, awkwardly striking at the xenoid with a closed fist, imparting another new and erratic spin to the airborne tumble. THe affair was oddly silent in the vacumn, the only sound coming across the radio. Both human and alien flashed through her sight picture as she leaned back to brace her body against the bulkhead.

"You really want me to rush this?" she replied archly, focusing over the holographic sights and bringing her breathing under control. The alien clacked its mandibles shut, nearly getting a hold of Neil's flailing arm.

"I take your poin..." The room light with cyan as she squeezed the trigger. The Xenoid's neck burst like a bomb as the plasma bolt connected. The thrust of vaporising tissue shoving Neil and the creatures body into a tangle of hanging cables. The head sailed off on its own trajectory, trailing a floating mist of ichor and greyish particulate as it bounced of the metal surfaces like a slow motion holo-snooker ball.

Neil was tangled in the wiring so she clipped the rifle to an attachment point on her webbing and twitched her toes to disengage the magnetic locks from her boots. Gently she kicked off the deck and floated gracefully up towards the pilot, drawing a multi tool from her belt and powering the blade as she drifted. With a few quick slashes she cut the wires that entangled him and kicked off drawing them back down to the deck. In theory there was no reason that the floor was preferable to any other surface but it had the virtue of being relatively clear of the equipment that clogged almost every other available space aboard a starship.

"What are the Xenos doing here?" Neil asked once they were safely magnetically locked to the deck. Junebug unslung the rifle and let if float infront of her in a patrol carry.

"Boarding torpedoes I suspect. Old school pirates sometimes use them but the kinetic shock makes them a bit of a dated choice. From what i understood from the Biologos down there these things dont really have discrete organs as we understand it, so maybe the shock isn't a big issue."

Leaving the presidium they found a large lift shaft that rand down the spine of the ship. The car was unpowered of course but Neil was able to run a quick bypass to get the doors open. According to the scematics they had the engineering section was about a half a kilometer aft. Sayeeda stepped into the shaft and kicked off like a swimmer careful to say close enough to the side of the shaft that she should kick off again should some xenos horror spring up out of the darkness. The headlamp on her helmet stabbed forward like a lance in the darkness.

"Next stop Engineering," she declared over the comm.