Rennac Faintheart

The Endless Game

The Wolkar muttered curses in their own language and opened fire, the cruiser taking position to absorb most of the fire. Their shields and armor were tough, but they wouldn't last forever under such an assault. The FERALs leaped from the cruiser and moved out of the direct fire line, aiming to board from their sides. Finally, the two Wolkar frigates began to open their forward cannons upon their enemies. Meanwhile on the station and the relief vessel Emissary Rover was beginning evacuation protocols and getting all the Wolkar engineering and medical teams onboard as well as any Litharian workers that would board the ships with them. Once procedures were underway, he had a signal sent to Ferran to inform the Sirius of the attack. He just prayed the transmission went through. At the very least, they would notice something had happened if the daily reports stopped coming. Some of the Wolkar had also noticed the Litharians had used their code with some success, the soldiers opting to stay behind as opposed to their orders to evacuate and man whatever turrets were left that were aimed at the battle. Soon the guns roared to life, aiming to give their fellows cover fire as they moved in to assault the enemy.

The Endless Struggle

Rennac sighed and resolved to explain the plan more thoroughly when they got a place. For now he would focus on getting their accomodations and doing the usual traditions to keep up appearances. Once Reaper came back with the gear he lead the way. "Basically, you're posing as a newly recruited bounty hunter. You've got experience in combat, but were discharged because you were a bit overzealous, like with our crispy friend here. This way, fewer questions and we can head to the usual intel spots without it seeming too odd. It's just routine to them at this point. You don't really question why you eat breakfast in the morning, right?" After a few minutes they arrived at the office, trading in the bounties before Rennac tossed a bag with the lower thug's reward. "Congratulations, you just earned your first bounty." Another short walk later and they arrived at their location, a run down looking motel in the red light district. As they entered a lizard looking woman who appeared to have some kind of addiction whistled to him. "Hello there handsome~ Decided to finally give up the hunting biz and run away with little old me?" The Wolkar had to chuckle. "Keep dreaming Ketra. Got a new recruit here for the initiation run. Usual deal." He slipped a stack of money and a datapad with a list of names, going to their usual deal. "Get good info on number 13, and I'll throw in a bonus to get you an extra fix." This made the lizard woman beam happily and ran through the list on the datapad, nothing to her but a list of deadbeats for the hunters to round up. "There's a lot of heat on number 5, but I'm sure I can beat the rush." She handed them a room card and left, leaving them to get settled. "She'll do some of the legwork for us. For now, lets get a secure connection to my people and see what they've got for us."

The Endless Struggle

If the two goons weren't thinking of soiling themselves at Rennac's proclamation, they certainly were when Reaper came out of the ship. The one that was shot writhed on the ground for several long moments before finally dying. The other thug quickly turned and ran for his life, a chuckle coming from under the Wolkar's helm as he set about removing the head from the fried thug. "Bit of advice. If you're gonna be able to pass as a bounty hunter, learn to keep the face intact. Becomes a hassle to have the office identify the bounties if they are unrecognizable." Rennac's plan soon fell into place. His little display and the fact that Reaper was travelling with him painted him as a newbie hunter, taken to the cesspool to hunt lower ranked targets and get some first hand experience. It was more or less a basic and well known right of passage for the bounty hunters in the guild, something few people would question. Though it was probably not what Reaper had in mind, it more than did enough to keep their purpose here shrouded. Soon enough the head was removed on the thug and he hefted up the foam encased swindler over his shoulder. "Ready to trade these in? Gonna need to get a spot in the redlight district. Right by all the known rats on the planet."

The Endless Game

The Wolkar frigates and cruiser were quick to repsond, the two frigates moving over the Cruiser while also deploying the FERALs and having them latch onto the cruiser's hull as they moved to flank the HAMMER and intercept the new signals. Meanwhile the relief ship was put on emergency standby, preparing should they need to evacuate the scientists and technicians whether they be Litharian or Wolkar. The Wolkar dropships were prepped and put on standby for emergency evac should the new contacts be hostile.

The Endless Game

After a day of additional work to finish the translation program they were ready to initiate it. They tested it on an isolated terminal, ensuring it was not connected to anything else save it's own personal data storage. With the test ready they ran the program, watching as the code was translated and put into an external memory unit.

The Endless Struggle

The Wolkar was quick to respond, arriving in the cockpit in short order and plugged himself into the system. He had done further improvements along their journey and was confident the system would not have any negative side effects when he links in directly. As he did the computer's speakers came to life. "System link complete. Retrieving landing vectors from Shad-noir air control... Fuck it. Not gonna bribe those assholes. I'll find my own vector. Starting approach." They quickly turned and headed to a nearby landing zone, touching down shortly to have a few men coming out to meet them. More than likely concerning how they did not pay for the landing coordinates. Unhooking himself Rennac got up and donned his helm, heading down the gangway to see a fuming, though corrupt, looking traffic official come down with a few thugs. "Just WHAT do you think you're doing?! You wanna land, you gotta pay like everyone else!" The visor in Rennac's helmet lit up giving him an unseen grin, relaxing his posture. "Oh don't worry, I got that covered. Afterall, this planet is rife full of bounties to catch, including.." The Wolkar brought his wrist up to the unsuspecting official, a cold sneer under his help. "You." His Incapacitating foam quickly coated the man, solidifying in seconds while ensuring he still had oxygen. "Dino Ray, former triad smuggler. Wanted for seven counts of smuggling, two counts of murder, ten counts of grand theft auto, five counts of racketeering, and three overdue library books. Wanted Dead or Alive. Alive 1500 Cells. Dead 1000. You are hereby under arrest under the authority of the Mercenary and Bounty guilds and will be brought to the nearest office before you are sent to face justice on the worlds you have wronged. Any who interfere will be considered to be aiding and abetting and will be summarily given death marks and hunted." With Dino immobilized his guns were pointed at the two thugs, each only worth maybe a 100 cells each, and was ready to blast them. Of course, there was a hidden method to the Wolkar's madness. Start tagging bounties, and it just looks like you're cleaning the trash out of Shad-noir. This alone will have already given the two a cover story as to why they are here.

The Endless Struggle

Rennac's look was impassive as he felt the punch and rolled his body with it, having to shift one of his feet back to absorb the impact. Regardless, he was hardly hurt from the punch. Honestly, he was almost more worried about Reaper's fist considering the Wolkar literally wore his beskad plated armor EVERYWHERE. "Heheh, fair enough. Just grunt in pain when you want a cold pack for the hand." Respecting Reaper's wishes he stayed silent for the rest of the trip short of humming or whistling a tune as he managed his gear or did some of his limited training on the ship. Soon enough they would arrive and he could consider the speaking ban over.

The Endless Game

The Wolkar technical team kept hammering away at it, using trial and error as well as establishing a list of most likely commands. While a full force handled the attempts in the day, they kept one or two working on it at night while the rest rested. After a little over a week, they had drawn up a manageable conversion template for letters and coding, those back at the university recording their efforts to make a translation. With as it was now it would only be a day to type up a full translation file that would, theoretically, copy the files within the station to galactic standard language.

The Endless Struggle

Rennac laughed seeing the near double take thanks to the knife embedded in the cutting board and gave Reaper a shit eating grin, enjoying how embarrassed the Litharian was quickly becoming. "Well, that shouldn't be a problem. There are plenty of bars in the universe and plentiful songs to sing. Most are FAR worse than the one I sang at the bar of course. How did that verse go? Oh yes! 'Ol' Rover was 80 though his wife was just a pup, he died upon the honeymoon when she got his hackles up!'" The Wolkar was laughing merrily at the even more raunchy verse, wiping a tear from his eye. "The Wolkar enjoy what little time we have among the living. A moment wasted in sorrow is something we know only leads to a more depressing life. Live life as if there is no tomorrow, and you will never regret a day in your life." (The verse is modified from this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vz9nHvmdAb4 )

The Endless Game

The Wolkar, though initially thrown off by the language barrier, was more than up to the challenge. They soon established a galaxy not connection to the university on Ferran and began to consult with the proffessors there. One of them was even willing to take part in a conference connection via holo comm. The linguistics professor began to work with the technicians to work through their code piece by piece. It was tedious trying to manipulate the ancient system that used a different written language as well as programming, but working together and using the technicians knowledge of known programming language structures they were slowly working towards reconstructing a list of basic commands that would allow them to access the system.