@iTem@Gardevoiran@Rultaos@superservo27@BKburke"Here we go" Stryker told himself as he checked the datapad one last time to make sure all the ship's surveillance gear was disrupted and engaged a ship-wide P.A. broadcast. With a last breath in, he began to speak.
"I want to begin by saying that, thanks to an exploit the AI platform Ren discovered before it left the ship, I've been able to disable the cameras and microphones the Alliance have planted throughout the ship, so we can talk openly about what happened down there, because if anyone knew the truth, we'd be finished. Our current route is taking us through a corner of the Deadzone infamous for flarestorms from an unstable sun in a dead system, I'm gonna blame the electronics disruption on that in my report."
"Right from the start of the mission, I had a bad feeling about it. There were very little good things the Alliance would be developing at a secret lab hidden in a mountain, on a planet at the ass-end of the galaxy. And my fears were confirmed the moment I was taken into the main lab. The men and women working there were under the impression they were working on some sort of new-energy program, a renewable power source for the galaxy or something like that. They were altruistic about the whole thing, completely indoctrinated by the Alliance's lies, because they weren't developing something to make the galaxy a better place. In fact they were doing exactly the opposite."
"There's no other way to say it, they had created a functional dark matter generator. Of course, the head researcher spat out some garbage about converting it into raw energy and harnessing it, but all of us here know the Alliance's true goal was to turn it into a weapon that creates black holes. I don't care about any of your personal stances on that, but I believe that no one in the universe should have access to a weapon that devastating. I mean, imagine having the power of a million nukes at your fingertips. Now multiply it's destructive power by thousands. Entire systems wiped out in the blink of an eye, just gone entirely without a trace they ever existed. And if we had done the job, and delivered those scientists, they would have made us accomplices to the eventual genocide of billions of innocent lives. I wasn't going to let that happen, so I gave the order to Grayson, Amy and Benny to open fire, and kill them all. After that, we gathered up all of their research, everything they had developed, every backup in sight and Benny and myself rigged it and the place to blow. None of it, not a single shred of data was allowed to go back to the Alliance, hopefully we were successful there. Obviously things were complicated by the Skaldurm showing up, Taleste being captured and all of that. I wish things had gone differently, but that's where we stand."
He glanced at the holographic galaxy map at the center of the room and did a quick calculation.
"We've got roughly an hour before we pass out of the flarestorm, after that I'll have to turn the cameras and mics back on, but until then, I'll wait right here in the war room. Ready and willing to talk about anything on your mind after what I just told you all."
@T2waveHarriet arrived a moment later, an auto injector in her hands.
"Best that I give everyone another treatment. That gas I used isn't something to take lightly."Stryker nodded and motioned towards his arm.
"Yeah, good call, a few others should show up in the next couple of minutes, and if not, I can flip the intercom back on and tell them to come by for the dose. I wasn't directly exposed like some of the others, but give me a shot if you think I should have one."
@Xandrya"Wow... that's... wow." For one of the first times in his life, Grayson was lost for words "I mean, what're th' chances really? If she was kin to ya, I mean, the odds of the two of ye crossin' paths like that, millions-to-one at the least. Alright well, stow it away for now, let's get on up to med bay, see what the doc can do fer us."
They made their way up and Harriet made fairly quick work of their injuries, applying salves to the laser burns and setting both Grayson's shoulder and Amy's leg on the road to recovery. After both of them being told to stay in the medbay for observation, Harriet headed off to speak with Stryker, who was nearing the end of his speech by then. Once they were alone, Grayson turned to Amy in the adjacent bed and spoke in a low voice.
"Ya know, I just thought of somethin'. I remember passin' by a few places in my travels, clinics like, promisin' cheap, discrete an' quick DNA testin' maybe once we hit port, we could track a place like that down for ya?"
Simple Unicycle