[IC] Grim Galaxy: Shots and Chances

[POOHEAD189]

"Got the coordinates right'chere," the Pilot responded with gusto, placing the coordinates along with the planet's statistics from the log on the display so they could be seen on any of the holo-monitors around the Highlander. Savran suddenly bloomed in front of Sayeeda's eyes from her station. With a surface area of 4.6023×108 km2 and a mass of 4.8675×1024 kg, making it roughly 8/10 the size of old Terra. The atmosphere was clean and breathable.

The terrestrial planet was noticeably hot and humid, its poles the only place where snow resides in any real capacity. As the hologram hovered before Sayeeda, Neil zoomed in the coordinates, pointing toward approximately 36.1627° N, 86.7816° W near a large mountain range, surrounded by various, heavily forested river valleys judging by the outer map. It looked to be a perfect and verdant place for dangerous life, both man and bestial.

"Looks like a nice vacation spot." Neil commented lightly, now entering the outer layer of the planets orbit. He slowed down the thrusters, powering down much of the ship so as to leave less of an electromagnetic pulse as they entered the atmosphere. As the ship started to jutter with turbulence, Neil informed the Captain to hold on as it might get a bit bumpy. As if on cue, the warning light next to Neil began to blink.

Neil blinked along with it, raising an eyebrow and opening up the display monitor once more, just in time to see a heavy missile of an unknown model jetting toward their position, 200 kilometers from their position and closing.

His next words were fast, and as soon as he was done speaking the ship began to spin. "Hope you're holding on girly." The dive bomb toward the planet's surface was quick and controlled, though the air resistance and the unfamiliar atmosphere made it a bit more difficult than Neil would have liked. Still, he wasn't worried at all. If Sayeeda could see him, he'd be grinning. In fact he gave off a manic laughter, half in jest and half in excitement as he dodged the missing that arced just above their plummeting tail.

"Coming back around, of course." Neil said, flipping open the Combat Manuever Panel. His next words were complete jibberish, with no basis in reality. "Breaker breaker four one niner, we have a bogey buttin' into our flank." The Highlander yanked to the left at Neil's handling, the 'Turn and Brake' indicator lighting up as he did so, dodging the missile once more. Glass from somewhere in the ship would shatter as the Highlander jerked to and fro. "Hey, I'mma head down into that valley below us. If it doesn't explode on one of those giant ass trees, shoot this son of a bitch, pretty please?"
@Penny

[Penny]

Junebug would not have described herself a cautious. No one who took up soldiering for a living put a huge premium on playing it safe, but equally, no one who didn't take some precautions survived for very long. Her body slammed into her restraints as the gravity compensators overloaded, pressed as they were by the additional strain of the planets own modest gravity. In a vehicle when you went suddenly airborne, it was usually because you were moving too fast for the terrain and the correct response was to grip your gun, bend your knees and brace for impact. That was exactly the wrong impulse here and after a moment Sayeeda managed to overcome her instinct.

Instead of firing she slapped her hand down on the weapons lockout she had built into her terminal in the proceeding two days, locking all the Highlanders offensive weaponry out so that it could not be fired by the pilot. He was young and impulsive and as much as it was viscerally satisfying to shoot back, slagging a bunch of missile battery crewman was a bad idea for a number of reasons. Morally Sayeeda had no problem slagging a bunch of half drunken idiots crewing a missile station on a backwater world, and the drunkeness and the idiocy were pretty general for the kinds of troops they were talking about, but it wasn't morality that stayed her hand. Nor was it mercy, mercy being as alien to a mercenary as morality was. The trouble with slagging the missle pit was that they had no idea who it belonged to. If it was a government installation, and she used the term government loosely, then it would cause the problems in the capital when they landed. If it were a rebel installation then it would engender justifiable ill feeling amongst that group should their paths cross. Finally if she oblitereated an orbital defence site it would tell everyone, government, rebel and, for they were surely watching with their excellent sensors, the orbiting Terran's, that the Highlander was extraordinarily well armed.

They plumeted into the canyon juking left and right through vast trees which towered above the lesser jungle canopy. Twice she felt the slap of branches against the freighters hull, but Niel didn't seem concerned, a little crazy perhaps, but not concerned. She was forced to defer to his superior expertise in the area. A moment later a massive concussion rocked the ship. For a moment Junebug thought they were hit but the view from the rear sensors showed ther the trooth of it. The missle had struck one of the giant trees and detonated with a dirty red flash, spraying pices of burning wood over several acres of tropical forest. She hoped the loam was damp enough that it didn't start forest fires.

"Stay low," she directed unnecessarily. The lip of the shallow valley would provide cover from any follow up missiles in the unlikely event they were still in range.

"We ought to be out of any immediate danger."

@POOHEAD189

[POOHEAD189]

Neil completed his twisting flight through the valley once the pursuing missile had exploded, the young man checking his sensors to make sure none were following now as well. "Yes ma'am," he told her with a certain energy, truly enjoying the high stakes flying they were performing. He was a good fighter and loved a good scrap in and out of a machine, but he'd always felt a thrill escaping a pursuer, in a marketplace or piloting a ship on an unknown world.

Even the best pilot couldn't get through the forest unscathed, but the Highlander took nothing more than glancing scrapes from the massive trees and their branches as Neil flew them out of the wilderness and above one of the winding rivers that snaked across the landscape, keeping low just as the Captain had ordered. He checked the coordinates and knew they still had another few valleys to traverse before they made it to the port they were trying to get to.

"Let's hope whoever shot that missile isn't someone we bump into later," Neil said, turning the Auxiliary power on low as they glided. It seemed the forest within these valleys had small geysers of methane that shot out of the planet's surface for some reason. Neil would need to do some more geometric and geothermal readings within Savran at some point, but for now they were just about to make it to their destination.

Suddenly, a hailing signal was sent to their Display monitor. Neil awaited his Captain's go to before answering.
@Penny

[Penny]

Junebug breathed a little easier when no further rounds were forthcoming. For a moment she had allowed her mind to imagine that the port, the ironically named 'Eternal Peace' might be under siege by the more active of the rebel groups. If you held the ridgelines it would be easy enough to emplace missile pits to spike any incoming ships and effectively blockade the planetary capital. Fortunately or unfortunately the rebels seemed neither that well funded, or that advanced. Idly she wondered what the mininum force Andor would have used for the task of taking the city would have been. Perhaps a company of skimmers and two companies of infantry, only a modest commitment but cities could be tricky and urban fighting ate troops the Goddess knew.

The signal pulsed an ugly yellow on Sayeeda's terminal, she wasn't sure if that was the default of if the AI didn't feel she had responded to it quickly enough and was making its electronic irritation known. She grimaced, it was properly her duty so she flicked open the communication circuit.

"... AT ONCE..." an irritated high pitched voice shrieked into the pickup. Wincing at the volume, Junebug dumped some of the gain.

"ALL HOW DEFY THE LIBERATOR HAN WILL BE INFALLIBLEY DESTROYED!" Junebug could imagine spittle flying from the man', she was pretty sure it was a man, lips.

"Roger," she said in a bored, boring neutral voice. It wasn't how she felt but people responded to tone on an instinctual level. You could issue a deadly threat in a pleasant tone of voice and it would take several seconds for the fact to register one somone, her choice of this voice was to deescalate the speaker, some minor flunky she imagined, and dissuaded him from any action that he, or she might regret.

"Highlander Six to Port Control Eternal Peace, requesting landing instructions." There was a moment of silence on the line, it was entirely likely that shouted threats were much more the common medium of exchange here on Sarvan. Certainly her reasonable request seemed to take the spaceport controller, if so grand a term could be applied by surprise.

"We will of course be open to discussing all landing fees once we have touched down," she said judiciously. Translation, pay any required bribes. A directional signal appeared on the board.

"We will indeed!" snapped the controller, "Follow the signal and do not deviate. We are at war here on Saravan and traitors are dealt with as is proper!" The line went dead.

"Well... lets go meet the locals," Sayeeda said in a dry tone.

@POOHEAD189

[POOHEAD189]

"Ouch," Neil breathed when he heard the screaming on the end of the other line. Seemed they weren't used to visitors, or the visitors they were used to decided it would be fun to try to kill them all. Well, Neil wouldn't put it past people from this God forsaken planet. "Roger roger," He told Sayeeda, matching the ships movements with the signals they were given to the T. If he was going to be a hot shot, it wouldn't be now. They needed to get this job done, after all.

They crested another rise in the ground, past another flowing river, and a makeshift port that looked to be just as much timber as it was steel appeared before their eyes. It was a sizeable settlement, nestled into the side of one of the sloping mountains that snaked across the landscape, towering over all but the oldest trees on Savran. A docking port was near the very edge of the city's steel 'plateau' that hung over the drop of the mountain, like an enormous deck.

A beacon was emitted above Neil's right, and he pressed open the display to see the docking port they were to land at. It was on a raised sub-plateau, and Neil raised an eyebrow when he saw five armed men flanking another man who wore a wide brimmed hat standing at the bay, waiting for them to land. At Sayeeda's request, Neil set the Highlander down nice and easy, and he could have sworn he heard the landing pad shudder from their weight when he landed.

"Well hopefully adding another body to the prisoner bay won't tip us over," Neil said sarcastically, unbuckling and powering down the Highlander, simultaneously opening the exit ramp so Sayeeda could walk out and greet their welcoming party. "You want me in the ship or should I walk out there with ya?" the Pilot asked her on the comms.

He was planning on walking out there eventually, but whether she wanted him ready for a getaway...
@Penny

[Penny]

"Well," Sayeeda said, a faint smile playing over her lips, "I suppose we had best not take any chances." The restraint harness withdrew with a click and she stood up and bounced slightly and then froze as though waiting for the platform to tumble into the chasm.

"So far so good," she said after a moment. The design was an obvious attempt to have ships in a position where they could be dropped away from the city in case of crash or worse a fusion bottle failure although Junebug couldn't see how that was going to be accomplished before the resulting blast leveled half the city. From the looks of the place it was probably cheaper to build a new city rather than erect a proper blast wall.

"Better get your dismount kit," she told Neil, already pulling her ceramic chest plate on over her black polymer jump suit and fastening the catches. The bruises from the earlier violent maneuvering didn't do a tremendous amount to make the process comfortable, but then comfort wasn't super high on Sayeeda's list of priorites. One of the great strengths of armored regiments was mobility. Movement was a weapon all on its own and one which Colonel Andor had believed in using wherever possible. Most conventional forces couldn't match the modern fighting vehicles the mercenaries used and so they would shift their TOC to threaten the enemy's rear, exhausting or outpacing their foes. The upside of such a tactical doctrine was that troopers learned quickly to be ready to go at a moments notice. Junebug opened the locker by her console in which she had stored a large duffel bag and unzipped it. With practiced ease she donned a utility belt from which hung a mutlitool several pouches and, more ominously, a pair of grenades with colored bands around both ends. Additionally she slung one of the 20mm plasma rifles, a standard infantry calibre with which she was familiar, and hung a small electromotive sub machine-gun from one of the attachment points of the armor. The side arm remained where it was, no point in over doing it. Finally she pulled on her como helmet and dialed the opacity down, changing it from a polarized silver ball to a nearly clear visor.

"Alright," she said, straighentening under the familear weight of weapons and equipment.

"Lets go meet our hosts."

It was true that every planet smelled differently, every eco system, both human and natural had its own distinctive blend of aromas. It was equally true, at least in Junebug's experience, that she didn't notice the smell until later. Usually, like now, arrival on a new world smelled like hot metal and lubricant. Occasionally add plasma gun fire, hot exhausts and the sickly resin of cordite. With any luck she would only have the reek of starship to deal with on this planet fall. Junebug walked down the ramp as it lowered on its hydralic pistons, having left Neil at the top to cover her if things went really badly. There was no reason to expect that of course but who knew with backwaters.

The group of -soldiers was too flattering a term- street toughs in uniform, walked towards her, clearly under the impression they were intimidating. They all looked like gutter sweepings whose only talent in the world was being born with a trigger finger. That was enough talent to kill you if you werent careful of course. THey were all young, all male and all tattoed to one extent or another, but the designs were so poorly executed that she could make them out. Junebug kept her hands clear of her weapons but made no bones about being heavily armed.

"Hello," she called, "I take it you are the customs enforcement here abouts?" she called with false joviality.

@POOHEAD189

[POOHEAD189]

Neil told Lonney to keep Auxiliary power on just in case, and he slipped on down the cockpit access corridor. He skidded to a stop next to one of the many armory portals, and he popped it open to grab his ARC Rifle. He had his sidearm on him at all times when he wasn't sleeping or doing things like entertaining a lady. Then again, him having it might have helped him out a few times in that regard, come to think of it. He'd consider that later.

Neil stopped behind Sayeeda, and grinned when he saw a relaxed bounced to her step. He realized he could have had a bunch of assholes as Captains. At least she was competent and had a cool, experienced head on her shoulders. The cockpit door opened, and she made her way down to greet the 'welcoming' committee. Neil kept his comm on, but stayed near the bay and relatively hidden, just in case. His ARC gun would need good vantage. One shot from it could take out multiple unarmored targets, so he would need to be elevated so as not to hit Sayeeda.

Briefly he had the thought that hitting her might not be a bad thing, but he shook the thought away. That wasn't his actual opinion or preference, just his instincts kicking in. He'd had to do some unsavory things in order to survive alone, and he'd had to watch even worse things done by those he called allies. He might never betray someone like that, but seeing it happen often enough, and he'd see the option open even if he'd never take it himself.

The gentlemen in front of the 'soldiers' looked to be in the latter part of his life, though by no means decrepit or elderly. Experienced and long-time ambition were better terms for him. Not particularly big or strong, with a beer gut and an average height, he nevertheless had a dangerous steel to his eyes, and a knowing smile. "Hello," he said, his wide hat shielding him from the relentless sun. He wore a green tanktop and cargo pants, along with sturdy boots that seemed mandatory on this jungle world. "I'm curious. You see, when I see a freighter like...that, landing on my planet. I wonder who could be driving her, and for what purpose."

He let the words hang in the air for a moment. "You do realize that in order to dock on my planet, you need to schedule 2 galactic standard weeks in advance, don't you?" He looked Sayeeda straight in the eye, though he had a tendency to gesture with his hands. "On Savran, you follow my rules, or you get the fuck off." The wind picked up a bit. "Now, that ship you have was just good enough for me to let you land, because as I said I'm curious. But there's going to be a toll, and that toll can increase if you don't have a good answer on who you are, and why you're here. Understood?"

Behind him, she could see one of the guardsmen anxiously grip his weapon, though it was trained on nothing. So far.
@Penny

[Penny]

Junebug was glad that she had opted to wear the commo helmet. The slightly transulcent faceplate didn't exactly hide her face, but it would certainly make her expressions hard to read. Just now her lips were curled up in a slightly superior smirk. The men before her were toughs, not soldiers, and she gave herself even odds of dropping them with a burst from her submachine gun before they could react. Those odds went up with Neil's help of course, assuming he didn't gun her down in a burst of the almost out of control enthusiasm he seemed to have for his other tasks. Force wasn't a good option here, but she needed to get things off on the right foot. Not a friendly foot necessarily, given the caliber of people they were dealing with.Rather than responding to the local she held a hand up to the side of her helmet as though adjusting a control or pressing an ear piece closer to her ear.

"Hold one Windhoven, dealing with Indig officials," she said to no one. The offical's expression colored with a mixture of rage at being interrupted and confusion at the name of the Terran Destroyer. Sayeeda had chosen Windhoven over the Z-49 because it would be more recognizable to the local. She very much doubted that a docking supervisor knew much about the Terrans or their intentions but he would as sure as the sun was hot know of them.

"You are with the Terrans?" the man asked, some of the certainty going out of his voice as he eyed her equipment, all of it expensive and millitary in nature. What does he think I am? Sayeeda wondered, Black Ops? Intelligence? Courier? It didn't really matter, all that was required was to insert enough uncertainty to smooth the way.

"I am Sayeeda Cyckali, Captain of the Independent ship Highlander," she responded, her tone bright and cheerful with perhaps a trifle more emphasis on 'independent' than was strictly necessary.

"My crew and I are here to examine market conditions and perhaps purchase samples for off world analysis," she went on in the same crisp professional tone. The guards continued to grip their weapons uncertainly but there was an undercurrent of concern now. People in menial jobs didn't like it when things grew complicated, they weren't paid enough for that and these men certainly weren't paid enough to get messed up in what might or might not be trouble with the TDF.

"As for your two weeks advanced warning, I doubt there is a computer on this shit hole that could tell you what the weather was yesterday, much less organise astrogational requests from a courier service," she said cheerfully, touching the control on her helmet visor to render it completely clear so that the men could see her face, lips curled up in smile which didn't quite reach her eyes. The tone was friendly and cheerful and glass smooth despite the content of the statement. Dealing with the locals didn't change much between the starts and Sayeeda didn't need to work hard to maintain her amused detachment.

"But if you want to search the ship go ahead and waste both our time," she said. Reaching into a pouch she pulled a credit chip from Paxton, one of the nearby trading hubs and flicked it across the few feet that separated it. The coin flashed with prismatic color, it was a round piece the size of a man's eye but it had an empty center in which a hologram hung in a diffraction grating. It was fancier coin than most worlds used, which was why Sayeeda always made sure to have a few coins. The effect would impress the local bumpkins more than the actual value of the coin, although it did represent a significant bribe and, unfortunately, a significant fraction of what might laughingly be referred to as her disposable income.

Smiling Sayeeda let her hand rest on the receiver of her slung shoulder weapon. It was her experience that you caught more flies with honey and a plasma rifle than with just honey.

@POOHEAD189

[POOHEAD189]

There was a slight twitch in the man's eye, showing he wasn't entirely sure if he should go ahead and order this woman's death and take the Highlander for his own, get rid of the worry. Or, it would be poking a sleeping giant and he could potentially truly piss off the Terrans that were stationed in orbit. He had the look of a man that was used to being talked for or with, not to. He held a lazy hand up to keep his men from doing anything drastic just yet, and he eyed Sayeeda, shaking his head. "If I was only ten minutes younger," he lamented with an amused smirk.

"Val-kan Hatcher." He said to her, and waved his men to keep their guns aimed at the ground. "If you haven't guessed yet, I run Savran." He gestured around him, casually. "And, while you're here you're under my protection, as long as you keep your business over the sheets, eh?" Protection meaning he wouldn't kill her or her crew as long as she didn't stick her nose into anything he didn't like.

"Now, the valley around my quaint little city is free range for you to frolick or pick lillies, what have you. Gather your samples. But going west past the next valley..." He held up a finger in front of Sayeeda's face, his men even going still until he next spoke. "That's a no fly zone. Understand? You got the rebels out there. Anyone who even talks to them, is my enemy. And that's even if they talk to you. They do like the soft meat."

He let it go after that, clapping his hands together. His toughs grumbled, but slowly moved aside as Hatcher presented a way for Sayeeda to walk. "Coin, business, and freelance work are always welcome in Val-kan city. It's a humble place, but it's got spirit I think."
@Penny

[Penny]

Junebug only nodded as Val-kan and his goons turned and headed out, boots clanking on the slightly rusted metal floor as they moved across the improvised hangar floor. Only once they had cleared her line of sight did she allow herself to relax and allow her hand to slide away from the butt of her submachine gun.

"Alright," she said, "You can come on down." Even though she heard Niel moving behind her, she didn't take her eyes away from the hangar door until he reached her side. It had been a good decision to come so heavily armed, toughs like that understood only force and the threat of violence.

"Charming fellow," she said dryly.

"Booster, seal the ship and open it only for a voice print from myself or Neil," she commanded, her commo helmet queueing the circuit to the ships AI. She thought about it for a moment and added.

"Also anyone with the vocal code Junebug Six, if anyone does try to force entry into the ship, issue a verbal warning and if they dont desists light the plasma thrusters for thirty seconds." That would fill the confines of the hangar with roiling flames and free ions. It might not be instantly leathal to anyone trying to break into the ship but it would certainly make it impossible for them to continue the attempt.

"Alright, lets check out this lovely 'spirited' city," she said to Neil.

@POOHEAD189

[POOHEAD189]

Neil slipped down next to Sayeeda with his hands in his pockets, the large ARC Rifle strapped to his back with its barrel sticking out by his left shoulder, which kind of destroyed the image of him being casual. "Oh I dunno." Neil mused. "He seems like an ok guy, once you get past the lazy eye, the lewd looks, and the utterly terrible personality."

The pilot waited for Sayeeda to order Lonney around, and then they headed off as the door to the ship behind them closed up, with a confirmation from AVLN. Once they passed the landing pad railings and into the archway that led to the settlement, they were suddenly finding themselves within a truly makeshift, backwater city. The smell was appropriate at least. Something close to a mixture between sweat, dead fish, and gasoline.

The closest section was the marketplace, filled with humans of various sizes and ethnicities, along with the occasional Xenos among the milling throng. People haggled and yelled at one another, displaying and waving around bits of coin and things to sell or trade. There were a few grummy entertainers, mostly stationed around the entranceways to alleys and cantinas.

Past the marketplace was a landscape of industrial steel buildings that were two to three stories in height. Whether they were living quarters or small work places was unknown, but the iron-grey, rusted materials that made the buildings gave the entire district an oppressive, tragic look. There was in fact fume wafting from some of the buildings, filtering into the greenish yellow atmosphere that blanketed the sky.

Above the landscape of steel and smoke was other sections of the city, built upon circular platforms, connected by bridgeways made of steel and railing. The platforms were brown and green, covered in foliage. It took Neil awhile to realize that the platforms were not built for the city. They were...

Neil whistled. They were engines from some vast warship, a strcture even bigger than the Terran destroyers off Orbit. It must have been before the fall of man. He then looked around, to notice most of the city shape indicated it could, in fact, be built upon a crashed starship of ancient humans.

"Where to first, boss lady?" He asked.
@Penny

[Penny]

Junebug looked up at the vast wreckage of the ancient ship. Generations of scavengers must have stripped it of components and hollowed out the living spaces which now thronged with dirty desperate people. Her nose wrinkled at the mix of smells which rose from the streets. Smoke coiled from street vendors carts where makeshift braziers charred meat or warmed tepid soups. The common garment seemed to be shapeless brown cloth and broad brimmed straw hats but dozens of different styles were present. Some of them were familiar from other worlds Sayeeda had visited but others were alien even to her broad experience. Weapons were much in evidence all so, slung casually or peaking from waste bands or coat pockets. Few of them were as well armed as Junebug herself but she did spy a couple of Terran's in some sort of light body armor.

"Well," she said, temporizing, "I don't think we can count on finding him just hanging around." They headed off down one of the alleys, chosen by virtue of the fact that slightly more people seemed to be heading that way. Large three wield rickshaws seemed to be the primary form of local transport and several rattled by loaded with some sort of stalky vegetable that reminded Sayeeda of sugar cane. The city had been augmented with whatever had been to hand. Plastic sheeting printed with beer logos or soup flavors made improvised awnings. Here and there handmade signs declared bars and brothels with varying degrees of artistry. A particular memorable brothel was doing a roaring trade beneath the sign of a purple cat that lifted its haunches invitingly.

They walked for perhaps fifteen minutes before they found what Sayeeda was looking for. The area was upscale in the sense that the omnipresent graffiti was slightly less dense on the rusted metal walls. The bar had a large blinking neon sign out front that declared it the Ground Floor, men and a few women lounged in an outdoor beer garden with plastic decorative trees. It was far enough from the landing pads to have more locals than transients. If the kid had been here a while, it was the locals who would know about it.

"I suppose we can ask," she said and headed into the bar.

@POOHEAD189

[POOHEAD189]

Harbinger Flagship.
50,847 Kilometers above Savran.
Command Deck.

Admiral Corvus strode powerfully onto the Command Deck, stepping past highly trained men stationed around the raised dias he was to command from, in the form of a semi-circle. When he stopped at his station, before him was displayed the information of the world Savran, though he had read the details a thousand times over since given leave to bring the planet to heel. The High Lords had offered him this fleet to see the task done.

On the Display Monitor, the green world of Savran whirled slowly before his eyes, hanging amid a velvet black sky dotted with twinkling stars. It looked almost beautiful from up here, but he had seen the reports from down below. Massive and dangerous local fauna along with a high amount of methane in the air made it a essentially a powder keg that bit anyone who touched it. And of course that was not mentioning the so-called ruler of the planet, Val-kan Hatcher, who's oppressive grip on the world was tighter than a Vorlax tentacle.

If Corvus did not have orders to the contrary, he would have simply blasted the place from Orbit and flown his fleet back home. But the instructions had been clear. An anomaly, mechanical in nature, had been detected by one of their informants before he had mysteriously been killed. Or eaten, perhaps. So far all negotiations with Val-kan Hatcher had been unsatisfactory at best. The old man wanting a fortune, as well as official independence from Terra Imperial rule, in exchange for allowing them to land on-world. Needless to say, Corvus was not returning to Terra and informing the High Lords he had made costly deals on their behalf.

They could invade, but there would be massive casualties. Val-kan knew where to place Anti-Orbit gun emplacements, and he knew the terrain. Corvus knew the High Lords would be growing impatient, and he could not blame them. He was, as well. The Admiral gripped the railing of the platform he stood upon, and brooded.

---

The music was catchy and smooth, played by a ragtag band of long haired humans adorned with indigo and brown tattoos that looked to be in the vague shape of swirling atoms. The crowd within looked much like the one outside, only now sitting at squatted tables. Smoke from pipes and lung-sticks wafted around Sayeeda and Neil, the latter of which wrinkled his nose at the smell.

The bar was 'manned' by a woman not even 35 summers old, statuesque and supple of figure, though her features had aged prematurely due to stress and lack of nutrition. She wiped the counter with a cloth, stray strands of hair framing her sun tanned face. Beside her was a monstrosity of a Xenos. With three chins, eight arms crossed, smokey-coal scales for skin, and a head taller than either Sayeeda or Neil, it looked repulsively ugly and mean, eyeing anyone who came up to the bar to speak with the barmaid.

Three tables from the bar, a suave man with blonde hair spoke to three men in Terran uniforms, and Sayeeda could hear the short cropped, blonde haired man talk openly of gun running while he chewed on what must have been the local cuisine. It had the look of a sponge-y crab leg that crunched from something deep within its flesh.

Just across the way, one burly mutant with red eyes stood up suddenly from his table, his chair knocking back to totter and hit the ground. He didn't look at the newcomers, but at who he had been sitting with, who also in turn stood up and began cursing the mutant with profanities that had Neil smirking. "Go home if you don't want to die!" The mutant cried, and threw the bottle of brew in his hand at his partner, who ducked the spike.

The bottle sliced through the air, only to be caught by Neil with a nonchalant offhand. "Ooo, still got some in it." He said, popping the cork off and taking a swig.

"Can I help you?" the Bar woman said, placing her garment down and putting her hands on her hips.
@Penny

[Penny]

Sayeeda gave Niel a skeptical glance but said nothing as she took a seat at the bar. The stool was vaugely sticky which she figured was about par for the course.

"What is the local?" she asked pushing a small metal coin across the slick top of the bar. The bartender and her alien companion were silent for a long moment as they took in her weapons and armor. The alien had a strange odor too- him? it? - something vaguely akin to stale ginger which tickled the back of her throat but she refrained the urge to sneeze. After a moment the woman seemed to relax and reached under the table and produced a large earthenware jug and a none to clean glass. Halfheartedly she swabbed the glass with a cloth and then slopped three or four fingers into the bottom of it and slid it across the table.

"Scotch," the woman said monosyllabic, her eyes still guarded. Scotch was a fairly general term for any kind of hard liquor, Sayeeda had tried variants of it distilled from as more plants, and in a memorable case a fungus, than she could recall. She lifted the glass and sipped the faintly greenish liquor tinge to it and tasted vaugley of some sort of sweet fruit. It wasn't the worst thing she had ever tasted and so she knocked back the remainder of glass and beckoned for another.

"You are out of your way, there are other bars for spacers," the Alien rumbled in a voice like rocks breaking.

"Not a spacer," Sayeeda responded.

"Soldier then."

"Maybe a soldier," she agreed and took a sip of the second glass of liquor.

"I'm looking for someone, a Xenos scholar named Ferenhall."
@POOHEAD189

[POOHEAD189]

Neil plopped down beside Sayeeda, taking another swig from the bottle he had caught a moment ago. The bartender spoke as he got comfortable in his seat. "Scholar?" She huffed, crossing her arms. The massive Alien merely rumbled at the mention of the name. She continued. "He's more of a criminal, and someone who doesn't pay his bills." Her last words ended in a snarl, and Neil raised an eyebrow.

"You don't like him?"

"Not in the slightest." She said, the more she spoke, the more prominent her accent. It was rough and coarse, but hard to pinpoint. Neil looked between her and her 'bouncer' if that was who this Xenos was. "Then can you tell us where to find him?"

"Probably inside of a large predator's stomach by now. He went and stole my land-drifter not three days ago, saying he would be back that night. He's not been to the city since." She slammed her towel onto the bar, the cloth hitting the counter with a wet slap. Neil blinked, wiping a bit of perspiration from the light splash from face. He picked at his ear as he yawned, not quite seemingly to fully appreciate the news. "Which way did he go?"

"Eastward into the valley." She said, pouring Neil a drink himself when he tossed her a coin, as well. "Good riddance I say." There was real venom in her words. The pilot pointed a finger at her from the hand that held his glass. "When was the last time someone took over a shift from you?"

Her next words she had difficulty forming. "Took... over?"

"That explains it." He mumbled, before turning to look at Sayeeda. "So, whats the boss lady thinking?"
@Penny

[Penny]

"You know, just once, I'd like to show up somewhere looking for someone and hear. Oh of course Captain he is right over there, let me introduce you," she said with a touch of disgust in her voice. With the flick of a finger she sent another coin spinning across the bar towards the bartender by way of a thank you. One of the alien's bony hands slapped down with enough force to shake dust from the shelves behind him and pocketed the coin. It seemed like improbably good fortune that their target was known personally to the first people she asked but if he was a drinker it made since to spread his tabs around the various establishments.

"Seem's awful convenient that he hops town about the same time we get the contract," she said, idly rolling the remaining liquor around in her glass.

"Whatever tipped off dear old daddy must have given him the intel too," she mused. That was an interesting but not particularly useful piece of information. Either he was tipped off or it was a piece of bad luck, either way he was either dead or out in the jungle somewhere. In either case it behooved her to get out there and verify it it soonest.

"Alright," she said turning to face Neil.

"We are going to need some sort of transport, they dont seem to go for aircars on this benighted mud ball so that means some kind of ground transportation." She wished she had a skimmer and a crew, given the local megafauna a trio of 2 inch plasma guns would be real handy. Still they would have to take their chances.

"Better see if we can scare up some sort of scanner too, something that will help us locate metal debris at a distance. Once that is in place we will load up and head out after our boy."

@POOHEAD189

[POOHEAD189]

Neil scratched his chin, at a loss on if they had the cash to find a transport. Then again, he supposed they didn't need to buy one of their own. Maybe rent, or pay someone to use theirs to drive them into the jungle. Then again the latter version probably wouldn't want to go balls-deep into monster territory for some punk kid he had likely never met, or for Sayeeda and Neil for that matter. They could potentially ask a favor of Val-kan Hatcher, but Neil had a sinking suspicion that Sayeeda would hate that kind of plan.

Neil spun in his chair, placing an elbow down on the counter and asking the bartender a question. "Can I get your name?" He asked her. She raised an eyebrow, clearly unused or unamused at people trying to get to know her. "Why would you want that?"

"To be...po...lite?" He said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She blew a few strands of her hair out of her eyes, and replied with 'Braenala.' Neil enjoyed the way she rolled her 'r's.

He blinked, and then looked at Sayeeda as he spoke. "That is beautiful." He took a sip of his drink, and cleared his throat. "Braenala, I have a proposition for you." Neil said, meeting her eyes. He seemed to catch them in his own, brown orbs. "If you let us know where we can get a cheap, or better yet free transport for a few days, not only will we do our best to get your land-drifter back, but I hear there's salvage out there. We will..." He reached up to her, and the monstrosity at her side lurched forward, until Neil's hand flourished beside her ear to produce a coin. A small sleight of hand gesture, but it seemed to impress the backwater woman. "-give you 25% of whatever we manage to haul back here. Not only that, but we'll boast about you to our esteemed employer, who just happens to be the father of Ferenhall."

Braenala blinked, and looked between Sayeeda and Neil, gauging their face as she thought of that. She was clearly on the brink of a decision, as Neil piped in. "You might have enough to take a day or two off..."

Within three hours, Neil and Sayeeda had purchased a dirt cheap land-drifter from a junker named Roklemore.
@Penny

[Penny]

Junebug found it worked best if she considered the land-drifter as a gun jeep. It mounted four fans which compressed air beneath it to lift it a few fingers breath of the ground but lacked the power to weigh ratio for true flight. The fans hadn't been tuned, perhaps ever, and the asynchronous vibration rattled Sayeeda's teeth annoyingly as well as giving the thing a pronounced pull to the left. If she had the time she would have prefered to tune the thing, lest the vibration freeze a bearing and perhaps mount a heavy weapon on a pintle through the roll bar but she didnt believe they could spare the time right now. The thing was made mostly out of a dark green plastic that kept the weight down and made it reasonably resistant to the occasional collisions inevitable in a jungle environment.

The thick green foliage brushed by them at about 40 kph as she followed the curve of a sluggish river east along the valley. The vegetation thinned closer to the river which made the passage along the marshy ground possible. Sayeeda figured that this was the logical route for Ferenhall to have taken as well, although she had yet to see any sign of him. She had shed her flight suit for the excursion and, though she still wore her body armor, wore only a T-shirt, khaki shorts and combat boots in order to make the stifling heat more bearable.

"See anything!?" she called to Neil over the buzz of the fans. She had taken the driving chore for herself, having spent plenty of time driving similar vehicles in her time with the armored. It was possible that Neil might have been the better choice, particularly because it would free her to use weapons, but she didn't fancy spending the afternoon staring into the scanner they had bolted to the passenger side of the dash. Sayeeda still wore her helmet and she was using its thermal imaging mode at a twenty five percent opacity overlay, rending the landscape around her in subtle shades ranging from the cool blue of the water to the hot red of the engine. It was an old trick she had learned in forest warfare that made it more difficult for ambushers to lurk behind the cover of foliage unless they had serious tech to mask their infrared signatures. Sayeeda was much more worried about animals than human ambushes, although thus far all she had seen was a few lazy looking crocodillian type creatures sunning themselves.

"This opens up into a river delta in about six more clicks," she went on, gunning the throttle to keep them airborne as the went over a large muddy creek feeding the river.

"I dont see any settlements marked on the maps but who the fuck knows." She hoped they would find some sign of their quarry before nightfall, although driving that long on this course would take them all the way to the shallow saline ocean several hundred clicks distant.

@POOHEAD189

[POOHEAD189]

"Noooope!" Neil called back, having made himself an elevated but precarious spot atop the back end of the back seat of the drifter. Planting his rump on it, and placing the safety belts around his legs for added stability, Neil had his ARC rifle revved up and in his arms just in case they saw anything worth shooting at. A few times he had to duck down or lean back as the razor edged leaves from the lesser trees around them threatened to cut his skin every now and then.

Honestly, Neil doubted they'd see any sight of Ferenhall in the first valley. From what this guy was looking for, if it was somewhere close to the city it would have been discovered years ago. Then again, maybe not. The jungle was so thick with foliage that anyone or anything could get swallowed up by it.

As the drifter thrummed and screeched, moving downhill at faster speeds than was probably safe in such a tightly packed rain forest, various types of birds began to flutter out of the tree canopy above them. Neil turned to look up, and now noticing the birds were actually small reptiles that seemed overly spooked by the drifter. "Guess they aint used to progress," he said to himself, before a bestial grunt was heard to the left.

It was good that Sayeeda was moving so fast, for a mere second after they past a copse of bushes, a huge form lumbered out of it and swiped at the vehicle. Neil raised an eyebrow and spun, to see what looked to be a cross between a river gator and an ape, only thrice the height of a man with hate filled eyes. Frills frames its draconic face, and using its two massive forearms, it began to lumber after the drifter aggressively, roaring into the sky as it did so so ferociously it shook the very trees.

True, the drifter was the faster, but this thing didn't seem to be slowed by the terrain like they might be. "We got company!" Neil said, calling for Sayeeda to keep her steady as he aimed his ARC rifle at the beast now chasing after them at a terrifying rate. Hopefully they'd reach the river soon if Neil couldn't get an unshaky shot.
@Penny

[Penny]

"Well fuck," Junebug said in the calm that only the truly stunned can summon, "You dont see that everyday." The creature, the dragon - they called them the classics for a reason afterall, whipped through the air like a demented kite. The thing didn't have wings perse but rather what Sayeeda though might be a kind of membranous strip that ran from the things armpits down towards its tail. Wasting no further time with xenobiology she rammed the gates open, pouring all the available power she could to the engine. The little jeep rose two hands breath and nearly dumped its air cushion but she caught it in time, angling the blade incidence as close to vertical as she dared. The little jeep bucked forward on a spray of dirt and leaf litter that roostered out thirty meters behind them.

"Fuck," she said again as their speed rose to over a hundred kph, far to fast for anything but paved roads or desperate emergencies. This certainly fit the later category. The little jeep raced towards the river, foliage whipping by like the talons of dead gods. One of them struck Sayeeda a blow that would have knocked her senseless if she wasn't wearing her armored helmet and she felt the thing draw blood from her unarmored neck as it slid from her face-shield. More concerning yet the red which overlay the engine block was deepening as they poured on the coal, the little vehicle wasn't a combat unit and wasn't designed to take this abuse. Still, better the risk of burning out the power train, than the certainty of being torn to shreds by whatever was chasing them. Junebug expertly dodge a large tree bohle that loomed up suddenly and a moment later they were airborne, the ground having fallen away into a stream about twenty feet wide. She dumped the blade incidence almost completely and they still hit the water hard, spraying a ring of dark brown mucky water out in a vast donought before the lift stabilized and shoved them up over the back. Sayeeda was grateful for her armor which probably saved her ribs and neck during the violent maneuver.

"Any fucking day now!" she yelled over her shoulder at Neil, although that was unfair, she couldn't have made the shot with the jeep bouncing over rough terrain like this and she was plenty fucking good. The thing let out a scream that was loud enough to engage the sonic cancellation fields in her helmet and lashed down at them like a thunder bolt. She through the control yoke to the side and narrowly avoided the things talons as they tore plow ruts in the damp earth of the river bank. It recoiled back with a reptilian shriek of rage.

"Goddess damn it," Sayeeda snarled and dumped a quarter of her throttle, "Hold.." She didn't get a chance to finish the sentence as she chopped the incidence again dropping the jeep to the ground with a tooth rattling bang. It bounced and bounced again, the plastic shrieking in protest as the skirts tore a muddy brown scar across the river bank. The maneuver was many times more efficient at scrubbing of velocity than the coupling of ground and pressurized air could be and the creature overshot them for a few seconds. Junebug cranked the incidence enough to lift them again, relieved not to have torn the skirts to ribbons, and the jeep wobbled forward at half its original speed. In front of them the thing coiled around with serpentine grace and rushed back towards them, great fanged maw agape.

@POOHEAD189