Brickwood
Edge of Alliance Space
January 7th, 2368
Dusk

On a large estate a few hours outside the only city on the colony, former Alliance Military Colonel Dominic Karn lived a quiet life. He had retired from active duty over a decade ago, after a long and illustrious career spanning half a century. Now he filled his days in the garden, where at this very moment, he sat on a small bench, waiting and watching as two bulky figures walked up the lane. As they entered the light, he was only mildly shocked to see the seven-foot tall robot and the familiar looking, heavily armored male.

"Finally found me eh?" Karn said to the man "I've been wondering when you'd show up from the moment I heard about the failure of Project Revenant. Though I was surprised when you made contact to organize this deal. Oh, the added security is not necessary, as you can see I'm quite unarmed."
"Colonel" Stryker said simply, his voice slightly distorted through the filter of his helmet "you have the data drive?"
"Straight to business, as always eh boy? What is it they call you now... Stryker? Don't have time for a chat with a very old friend?"
"You and I have very different memories of our relationship if you think we're friends." he said coldly.
"Indulge an old man, would you?" Karn chastised as he picked up a cellphone-sized hard drive and waved it to draw attention "The price is still what we agreed on, though I should double it at this point, given your behavior."

"Apologies Colonel" Stryker replied sincerely as he pulled some credit chips from a pouch on his belt and handed them over "It's been a long three months"
"So I've heard. You always had a knack for drawing chaos" Karn said as he handed over the drive, then laid his hands in his lap "So, how is it going to happen?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't bullshit me. We both know I'm a dead man the minute we're done here. I deserve to know how."

Stryker jutted his thumb over his shoulder towards the silent robot.
"Big guy's partner over there is a pretty good shot with a long rifle. He's off in the trees down on the south edge of the garden."
Karn nodded solemnly "Quick and easy, I taught you well, didn't I?"
Stryker nodded in kind.
The old man chuckled "Lara has no idea of the wrath you're going to rain down on her. The only thing that's still not clear to me is why you aren't pulling the trigger yourself."
"About that...." Stryker's voice was suddenly more feminine as 'he' reached up to remove 'his' helmet and revealed the crimson locks of Tibulass Sepitan's hair.

Karn looked at her with a mixture of shock and amusement. He chuckled slightly and looked up towards the sky with his eyes closed.
"Heh, well done boy.... go ahead."
".... well, you heard him." Tib said quietly into her comms.

A resounding CRACK split the silence, and Karn silently slumped over, a small trickle of blood leaking down from the bullet hole between his eyes. Tib looked down at the data drive in her hand, Stryker hadn't fully explained what they had come to get, but she had a lot of questions. Stryker finally became visible, hoodie partially obscuring his face and long gun slung over his shoulder, as he marched up the same path Tib and SAL has traversed. As the captain arrives, he stands by his companions and looks down at Karn's lifeless body.
"I've been waiting to do that for a long time."

"Any regrets?" Tib asked, her eyebrow raised at Stryker. She hadn't been too sure about his convoluted plan, but sure enough, everything worked out. Now, they both stood over a fresh corpse. With the way things had been going, she'd be surprised if it had turned out any other way....
"Not a bit" Stryker said, still unable to look away. SAL had already begun silently stomping away towards the shuttle. The captain knelt and took the credit chips back from Karn's pocket. He was finally able to look at Tib as he straightened up. Beautiful as ever, her hair blowing slightly in the breeze, the sight of her in his armor was a solemn reminder of the war to come.

"Listen... no doubt you have a lot of questions after all this, but is it ok if we talk about it later? I want to get back to the ship and out of the sector before Special Forces get sniffing around."
"Answers later, yeah, but shouldn't we clean things up a little bit to buy ourselves some time?"
"No need, we'll be ghosts long before anyone gets around if we leave now. The minute Lara knows he's dead, she'll know we're coming for her."
Tib nodded and started to walk off, Stryker took one last look at Karn before following suit.

Shortly after, the group was back on their shuttle and rocketing off for orbit. SAL at the controls as Tib wriggled out of Stryker's armor and they packed it away in a case on the floor between them.
"Thanks for doing this, and for understanding that I had to be the one to pull the trigger, even though I never really explained why, you're the best." Stryker said, blushing a little as he was still getting used to the feeling of having a significant other.
Tib got a little red-faced herself, then smirked "you're not too bad yourself, even though you are a complete dork."
SAL could be heard muttering in an exasperated tone "Mushy meatbags"

Revenant
On the dark side of Brickwood's moon, the crew waited for their captain, chief pilot and sarcastic robot companions to return from their job on the surface. Most were keeping to themselves or longing in the common areas, doing whatever people do when they're trying to keep energy consumption to a minimum. The mercenary known only as Moon walked through the hall on the crew deck, idly eating a granola bar as she stopped in front of the door to cabin #7 and pounded on the door.

"Nnnghh... Go away, 'm not in tha mood."
"You're not staying in bed Grayson, you've barely left your room these last few weeks, and I know you didn't eat yesterday. I'm not doing my job if I let you starve yourself to death. Besides, your neighbors are starting to complain about the smell, so get your ass out of bed, get in the shower, and eat a goddamn banana, or I'm putting my boot through this door."
"Like t' see ya fuckin' try"
Moon kicked the door, shaking it in its frame and nearly bursting it open.
"Jaysus... fine, fine, I'm goin'"
With a smirk of satisfaction, Moon headed off, calling back that she'd be checking on him in a few minutes and bringing backup. The guy had been through some rough times, for sure, but it was no excuse to be a complete slob.

------------

As the shuttle safely arrived back at the Revenant, Stryker was pouring over a mobile star map on his datapad, and talking as the plan formed in his head.
.... 6-2-5 heading, cruising speed until we get past Ichold, then full burn back into the Deadzone?" Stryker looked up and caught Tib staring at him, definitely listening but something else was clearly on her mind "hey.. what's up?"
"Hm? ... I dunno, just still wondering what all that was about? Seemed a little more than a simple milk run for a data drive, or taking out a political figure to send a message" she said simply "I'm not mad about the risk, just curious."
"Like I said when we were down there, it's a long story. How about this? I'll tell you everything when you come to bed tonight, promise. Get us out of this system, and then SAL can take the night shift. I'd ask Grayson but.... well you know."
"Mhm, well see, there are also two seats up in the cockpit" Tib smugly grinned "If we're aiming to get back there quick, two of us could get that job done without relying on the 'bot. Don't get me wrong, he's fantastic, but isn't it the smarter play to have the 2 best pilots on duty right now? At least until we're safely out of Alliance territory?"

Stryker looked back blankly, stumbling over his words a little as he realized she had a point "I, uh, was gonna go back to the terminal in our room and get to work on decoding and analyzing the drive" the smirk on her face and the slightly raised eyebrow told him that she knew she was right, he sighed as he added on "Yeah, alright. I'll drop my armor off and be right there."
"No, really, it's alright, just an idea. I trust you, you'll spill all your secrets when the time is right. Do what you gotta do. I'll fire up the engines and see you in a bit ~Romeo~"
She winked and fired a finger gun at him teasingly as she headed off, leaving Stryker standing in the cargo bay, shaking his head and chuckling at the amazing woman he was falling in love with.

---

---

With the ship going into a comms blackout and dropping to minimal power while the Captain was off ship; Val had decided to do much the same. Sitting in an out of the way corner of the common area, she had little need for anything like an actual bunk, she’d powered down most non-essential external systems, and had gone into a ‘Hyper-heuristic mode’ to work on a few programs and do some trouble shooting. Immersed in the accelerated computer time she’d worked on some new offensive programs, and their counter agents…just in case.

The other thing that ate up even her accelerated time frame was trying to find a memory leak in the Revenant’s computers. So far it was minor, only causing interment lag in some of the ship’s tertiary systems but it’s mere existence offended her on a professional level; the likely cause was sloppy coding during the ship’s initial construction. That said, actually finding the offending code was proving to me trickier than she’d expected.

Her audio input brought her back to ‘real time’ with the sound of heavy banging on a nearby door. Opening her eyes, Val slowly stood and moved until she could see the source of the noise; Moon hammering on Grayson’s cabin door. The diminutive medic was harassing Grayson to emerge from his lair to eat something, and hopefully shower. ”You know,” She said idly, smiling at Moon. ”Guys like that are why I’m glad I can turn my nose off.”

What passed for excitement seemed to be dying down, and she was about to retreat back into her own head, when she got an alert. Being tied into a data feed from the Revenant’s senors, she saw the shuttle as soon as the ship itself did. ”Captain’s back,” she called out to anyone in ear shot. ”Hope he’s got a line on some paying work.” She had an eye on some new software, but it only came in various flavours of ‘painfully expensive.’

---

The Juz’ hissed out when a stray electrical wire sparked at the side of his neck. He reeled back before pressing a palm on his neck and groaning. “Emergency electrical resurgence,” he whispered to himself before heading towards the nearby fusebox to turn the power off again so he could go back to his work on the lower deck’s maintenance.

He had been doing a lot of dirty work in the ship through maintenance work and arguably has had the most fun out of the 3 months as opposed to everyone else while also including others in his excursions. There was that odd one, however: the human that did not smell right. There was a sense of unease wafting about her but he tried to keep his suspicions mostly hidden. He did not think it was his place to talk at the moment, let alone point fingers on dangerously bored shipmates. Another spark nearby shook the thought off of his mind and he decided to finish up maintenance in favor of checking the power systems on a later date and working on refurbishing the old battery lenses for a literal power hub in the tech labs to power whatever device they may need for personal uses as opposed to directly connecting to the ship’s waning power. While the makeshift solar sphere generators is not a solo project, he still fancies himself as its lead engineer.

“Copper wiring… wiring… wiring...” the Juz’ felt around for his supplies, partially nodding to the bop of the music flowing through his headphones. Unaysah was stirred awake from her pod when the Juz’ finished gearing up and started using Hephaestus, his arc welder, to slice and connect parts together. Space junkers are relievingly more than happy to part with seemingly useless parts for ship maintenance and repairs to even fleeing convicts. A sale was a sale he supposes.

The arachnid behind him stretched her legs after another spark from the welder before scurrying over to Koren. She tapped her front legs on the side of his face and he responded with a soft acknowledging grunt. Another spark urged Unaysah to move behind the welding visor, and the two continued their work in relative silence.

---

There was little technical work that she could do, so Taleste was currently at her old spot, in the cockpit, watching the radar. Or at least she should have been. What she was actually doing was whittling wood with a knife whilst glancing at the radar every minute or so. She was leaning back on her chair, and had her bare feet resting on the console, cross-legged. When she was a thief, there was little she could actually help with on the ship besides cargo, inventory and watching the radar. Now she was a pirate, that was still all she could do to help. She knew next to nothing about software or engineering or piloting. She knew how to lie, cheat, steal and fight, and there was little cause for any of those things in her day to day life. As such she was usually left to her own devices, and as such, had taken up the Skaldrum hobby of wood-carving in her spare time. She wasn't very good at it and wood, though plentiful in markets and port towns, was scarce on this ship, so she just worked at the three pieces of wood she did currently have, ever so slowly and carefully.

She saw the shuttle approaching on he radar out of the corner of her eye and smiled. It was about time. Sheathing her knife and setting the carving down on top of the radar, Tal left the cockpit and headed down to the docking bay to greet the captain and his lover, the pilot of the ship. When they left the shuttle, they'd see Tal waving at them from the doorway. "Cap. Horrorshow. 'Ow went the mission?" she asked in her thick accented voice, which had admittedly become much easier to understand now that it had been heavily influenced by the Skaldrum dialect. She still said 'whun' though.

@Crossfire @Gardevoiran

---

It was a beautiful sword even before he'd gotten his hands on it. Black blade, with a golden sheen to the edge. Expertly crafted. Perfectly balanced. Some would say he'd ruined it, with what he'd done to it. He scoffed to himself, as he picked up a small, delicate-looking tool. He'd improved it, in both form and function, after he'd stolen it. One only had to look at his records to see the truth of that. With a quick few turns of the driver-like tool in his hand, his maintenance was complete. He held Himawari up to his gaze, appraising and scrutinizing his work. He hummed in thought.

...Looks good to me, he thought to himself. His instincts were generally good in regards to his sword. Without another word, he sheathed it, promptly and smoothly, before looking over at the Black Hawk armor, rolling his shoulders as he stood up straight for the first time in at least an hour. He grumbled low in his throat as he worked out all the pops and kinks that had accumulated.

A proper maintenance rig might be worth looking into, at this rate. Might be getting too old to hunch over a workbench anymore.

It wasn't as though he was decrepit. Good genes, a few procedures, and a good exercise regimen kept him looking like a much younger man, despite his hair. But at the same time, it couldn't be too healthy to stay bent at 45 degrees over his sword. Still, it was hard to trust anyone, or anything else with his darlings. A robot would probably just scuff the paint or worse. He sighed- he'd think about it later. Right now... he cast an appraising eye over his armor. Then at the doorway to the armory. Then back again. He could just keep going, but...

S N A R L

...His stomach protested loudly enough to that avenue that he couldn't deny it.

"Fuck it," he muttered to himself. "Been a while since I had a break." He headed toward the door to the armory, intending first on the latrine to wash his hands, then to the kitchen to get some food and probably a drink. He'd have plenty of time to work after he'd been fed.

---

“I’m betting you thirty credits that she’ll just up and leave him and he’ll come running after her,” Matija lazily stated before tossing a popcorn into her own mouth. ”Tha’s too cliché. This thing wouldinna’ got 4 star reviews if it wus tha’ simple” Benny responded, sitting forward and leaning out from the edge of the bed. The monitor they had mounted onto the wall occasionally went fuzzy and would flash like a TV with bad reception, but it was one of the few entertaining things they found to do. Matija nodded, hoping that the cliché twist would be different. Unfortunately for them, she became thirty credits richer for being mostly right.

”Fockin’ reviewers, all sizzed tha’ lot of ‘em…” Benny muttered as he passed the change to Matija to which she grinned over. ”Told ya. People are suckers for that.”

The past 3 months have been rather mundane for the entirety of the Revenant. The few run-ins with feds and alliance thugs were fun, but even that paled in comparison to when they were being gripped by the throat. What was there to do other than exercise and train? Sure, Stryker had offered each and every one of them deals that had piqued their interest in staying with the crew, but that too was not enough to fill the boredom that set in every now and then.

“Hey!” Matija and Benny was interrupted by demanding knocks at their door. “Tia, mind giving me some back-up?” added the voice behind the door. Matija got off the bed and opened it to see the new red-headed medic. “What are YOU doing here?” Matija said with a teasing tone. The red-head, Moon, fixed her with a glare, to which Matija responded with a chuckle and her hands raised up defensively. “Just kidding. What’s up?” Moon flicked a stray hair off of her face and sighed. “It’s Grayson. I need backup to clean him up. I doubt that he’s done anything in the bathroom.” Matija pursed her lips in response. “Okay. You need supplies or..?” Moon nodded morosely at the question and Matija sighed as she looked for some spare soap and shampoo to use on Grayson. Moon hesitated at the door after taking the supplies.

“D-do you guys mind doing something else? It’s just…. Fuckin’ Grayson might just stay barricaded in his room, there’s not much I could really do to force him to get up, y’know? Might need an extra set of hands or two.” Matija raised a brow and turned towards Benny. “Well... I find tear gas is a real good motivator for gettin’ people off their arse,” Benny added nonchalantly as he got up and walked up to the other two.

”I don’t think we need to go to those lengths, but… keep it handy, just in case.” she chuckled as she led the way back over to Gray’s room. To her surprise, he had actually vacated the place, the door sat slightly ajar, so she instead went to the men’s bathroom at the end of the hall and barged on in. ”Mhm, just as I thought gang” she said as she saw Grayson standing in front of one of the sinks, splashing his face. ”Not even a clean shirt to be seen” she said, shaking her head before turning to her companions and pointing at one of the shower stalls on the far wall. ”You know the drill guys, drag him in there and toss his ass behind that shower curtain. I’ll go find him something clean to wear.”

Matija looked over Benny with a grin at that prompt. Without a word, Benny moved forward and used Skelly to grab Grayson by the shoulder and his organic hand to hold him by his torso. With the force of Skelly’s servomotors, he (literally) strong-armed Grayson to the showers. Matija held an extra shower head towards the terrified Grayson and held down the hose to let loose a torrent of water that made the man shudder before screaming and thrashing about, getting Benny soaked as well. “Oi! Watch where yer blastin’, fish eyes!” The shower’s heating system isn’t working outside scheduled times anymore, so this was a rather cold shock to both men...

“So that’s that,” Matija said, nodding to the now violently shaking Grayson, and displeased and soaked Benny. “That wasn’t in the bleedin’ plan...” He muttered, shaking himself out of both the cold and getting water off his clothes. Matija shrugged and offered a sheepish smile. “It's tha best thing that I cain do. How about I make it up to ya later?”

Benny sighed. “Just get me somethin’ ta’ dry meself. I’m not walkin’ the halls like this,” he responded, still looking very cross. Matija left and immediately came back with a fluffy towel and a bottle of shampoo-soap that she handed to Benny. “Here. Sorry,” she said with an apologetic smile. Benny took the towel, thankful that both he and Grayson were too cold to do anything but shake themselves dry. “Hope Gingy comes back with somethin’ fer the drunk, ‘cause I’m not drying him,” Benny said as he began drying himself off with Matija’s towel, noticing the scent of the fabric matched with her. He felt a bit awkward at realizing that but tried not to show any outward sign of it. The cold and his resentment from earlier helped that along.

Moon walked back in the room, carrying a bundle of clothing in her arms. She cracked a smile as she saw Grayson and Benny’s state, knowing immediately what had happened.
”Hm, well, can’t say I didn’t expect this. You, back in there, I can still smell it on you, actually wash stuff, in fact, throw the clothes out here once you’re in the privacy of the stall, or we’ll be here all night”

She shooed Grayson back inside the shower stall, slowly but surely, his soaking wet clothes hit the floor with a sloppy slap. Realizing he’d left the soap and shampoo out with them, Moon lobbed both over the top of the stall like a grenade, both of them smacked off Grayson (who swore heavily and unintelligibly through his slurring accent) with slight thuds before clattering to the floor.

Benny meanwhile, after managing to dry himself off enough with Matija’s towel, took the opportunity to walk out and away with his soaked clothes and head back to his room before either of the girls could rope him into doing anything else that could make his day worse.

Matija looked at the shower stall \and sighed when she fully realized Grayson’s sorry state. “So. Why are ya so concerned with him anyway?” she asked Moon.

“Huh?” Moon looked up quizzically. “Well, it’s my job… kind of. As long as I’m traveling with you guys, it’s kind of my duty to keep everyone as healthy as possible. Guy being a slob like this, his room’s a breeding ground for disease. And besides, he’s clearly going through a really hard time. I feel kinda bad for him, yknow?”

The Mecorian nodded. “Well… just don’t burn yourself out with him. He’s sad an’ shit but his happiness ain’t your responsibility. Though,” she said, hearing Grayson nearly finished. “-granted how much of a wreck he is, I doubt that he’ll take care of himself right. Wanna clean him up more? I got some clippers an’ a razor back at my room?”

“I just, I don’t know, think he needs someone to have his back for a while, that’s all. Least I could do for him since he masterminded our little prison break back when we met.” Moon spoke quietly to not tip off Grayson that they were talking about him. “As for cleaning him up… really it should be his choice, but if he doesn’t fight us, I don’t see why not?”

Matija grins mischievously before leaving for her room and coming back with an electric clipper, a straight razor, and a bottle of hair conditioner. “A’ight, you going for his hair or his beard? Straight razors are easier to clean but not everyone knows how to use em. The clippers are pretty straightforward.”

“We should probably ask him first, if he’s gonna fight it, we can call back Benny to hold him but the razor will be out entirely”

They waited for the shower to stop, then several minutes later, the lock on the stall rattled and the door popped open as Grayson shuffled out, still fairly disheveled looking, but cleaner. His shirt was on backwards, but other than that, he had successfully managed to shower. He even looked a little steadier on his feet. Moon carefully worded the question that followed. “Feel like a bit of a trim big guy? You might feel a little more like yourself without that mop in your eyes all the time.”

Grayson simply shrugged, his body language practically screaming ‘I don’t give a fuck’ so Moon took that as the green light to go for it, and nodded at Tia while reaching for the clippers.

Matija pursed her lips as she folded out the razor and placed herself in front of Grayson. “Look, man, it’s gonna be a close shave so don’t move while I work on ya unless I make you move.” With a bottle of conditioner and a freshly changed razor, Matija started working on Grayson’s scraggly beard with utmost care and precision in hopes that the man would be more bearable to look at than whatever sorry state he is in at this moment.

Moon set the guard to a respectable length then flipped the switch on the clippers and began running it through Grayson’s hair. The man sat perfectly still with a blank stare, that all-too-familiar look of deep sadness plastered over his face. He seemed completely disconnected from that moment in time, his mind wandering off to another time and place.

Matija tried her best to not look at his eyes. She did not like them, nor did she appreciate the emotions, or lack thereof, that it carries. With quick and light strokes, she manages to avoid cutting his skin somehow to which she found herself proud of. “All done! Just bring back the stuff I lent y’a when you’re done.” She took a few paper towels from the dispenser nearby and shoved it at Grayson’s chest. “Clean yerself up and thank the nice lady foar her concern, okay?” She said with a tap on the side of Grayson’s face for emphasis.

Moon blushed a little at Tia’s comment, then took it on herself to gather up the soaps and stuff to give it back to the Mecorian.

“Thanks for your help, I owe ya one” she said quietly as she passed it over. Grayson had wandered over to a sink, and was wiping away the stray remnants of hair. Tia chuckled and commented something about being paid back before she bid her farewell and left the two of them alone….

The Revenant
With @Athol

Sadaet had the data drive on his desk ready to plug in. Stryker had, rather sheepishly, knocked on his door and asked if he could help get into the device. His voice was stuttering like he was somewhere else, his cheeks were blushed, and he had been looking over his shoulder every few seconds: Sadaet, figuring that the captain was probably in a rush to get laid, took the drive and bid him a good night with a slight smirk. He shut the door and tossed it onto the table in the corner. In the room, particularly the closet, laid the Revenant’s internal networking hardware. Sadaet had lobbied Stryker to give him funds to purchase some computer equipment to set up a small, enclosed network within the ship that was totally isolated from any of the larger electronics and systems. He had reasoned that any collected intel was to be first tested and decrypted on this closed network to detect viruses or other malicious software before it could get to the ship. As advanced as cyber warfare and viruses had gotten, there was simply no way for it to jump to the ship if there were no physical or wireless connections to the main system.

The result was a mess of whirring and bleeping boxes in his closet that provided an almost comforting white noise at night. After years of fighting, Sadaet had developed an annoying case of tinnitus that kept his ears ringing if there wasn’t anything to drown it out. He liked to play music or one of his podcasts – usually something boring like economics or obscure scientific research – on his speakers to help him go to sleep at night. But, in a pinch, usually if he got too drunk to turn on the music, the server would at least keep the ringing from interrupting his sleep. It served the crew well, however, and Sadaet had used it to test out software before. At least a few of the devices picked up by the Revenant’s misadventures had some sort of anti-handling measures on it, so he felt a little bit of relief that they weren’t directly plugged into the ship. If SAL had plugged into the ship with some of those viruses in there, there would have been some nasty consequences for the crew when his target discriminators were overridden and he shot at everyone.

Sadaet had stubbed out a cigarette in his ashtray when he heard a ring come from the door. He looked up from his monitor and dropped his headset from his ears to his neck. The beat of lofi music was drowned out and he got out of his seat to answer it. The door slid open, and Sadaet made eye contact with Val. Sharing an equal height, he had to look her up and down to confirm that it was, indeed, the cyborg that he thought she was. He nodded his head: “How’re you doing? What do you need?”

“There’s something that needs to be decrypted, I came here because you have it,” she said simply.

“Well, I do,” replied Sadaet as he looked back towards the data drive that was on his desk. “If you want to help, then that’s good. I’ll let you take a spin on it.”

Val walked into the room silently, taking note of his eclectic decorations and surroundings. Sadaet hadn’t seen much of her since she came aboard with the crew and always considered her to be an introverted weirdo. He hadn’t really gotten to know her over a drink or several, and had his own preconceived notions about people who decided to replace their bodies with cybernetics. Regardless, he showed her the workstation where the drive was ready. “It smells awful in here,” she remarked upon sensing the faint odor of cigarette in the air.

“Well, the captain lets me do it in the room,” Sadaet quipped. “If you don’t like it, I’m sure you can turn that little robot nose off and be just fine.”

The computer spun up and blew through its welcome screen, before Sadaet scanned his fingerprint and offered up a password to get into the system. On its screen was a simple blank wallpaper that read in white letters on a red background: “TEST SYSTEM, DO NOT NETWORK.” He snatched the drive from his desk and searched for a cable with a piece of red tape around it, which he plugged into the drive. The system initialized its drivers and began talking to the piece of equipment in his hand, which he laid down. A file folder came up on the screen, with only one option to access the data inside. He tried clicking on it, but was instead met with a password lock. Sadaet closed that out and looked over at his second monitor, which was running the software tracking anything introduced into the system. So far, nothing was making its way through the fake network like a virus would. After Val cracked open the actual drive, he’d need to run a full scan on everything just to make sure, but it seemed alright for now.

Val stood a good distance behind him, observing the Solarian as he looked back. He scanned her and recognized her off-putting posture, hesitated for a second, but then pulled a cigarette out of an old mint tin in his pocket. He motioned for her to take one as well, but she gave him an icy look. He wondered if cigarettes, alcohol, or anything else that “mere mortals” like himself enjoyed did anything for her anymore, but didn’t voice his thought. Sadaet shrugged, lighting his cigarette with a silver-plated flip lighter and inhaling deeply. He finished setting up the continuous scan on his network and tapped his ashes into the ashtray beside his keyboard. The man stood back, bathed in the red light of the computer monitor, and pulled out the chair for Val with an inviting hand wave.

“It’s all set up… I suppose you can take a crack at it now,” he said.

---

---

Val wrinkled her nose as Sadaet lit up a cigarette; since she was a kid she’d never understood some folks fascination with poisoning their organics with cigarettes. Alcohol could at least get you drunk, loosen you up a bit; all tobacco did was fuck up your body and make you stink. In that vein, she did do as Sadaet said and shut down her olfactory receptors…which improved her mood greatly.

”Don’t mind if I do.” She replied, as he offered her a chair. Sitting carefully, she’d broken more than one chair by sitting too heavily, she was a fair bit heavier than she looked, she looked over the pieced together rig until she saw a data port. ”Let’s see what sort of fun we have here.” She added, interlacing her fingers and ‘cracking’ her knuckles, rather unnecessarily.

Reach up to the base of her skull, she pulled a data jack out, the retractable cable disappearing into her hair. Plugging the cable into the rig she began typing at a furious pace, the screen before her flickering madly as she opened and closed dialogue boxes, implementing a whole series of tasks before ever going near the encrypted data.

First, even though it was an isolated system, she created a virtual hard drive for the data to isolate it from the rest of the machine. She then downloaded a couple types of military-grade firewalls from her own system and wrapped them around the virtual drive. Once those were up and running to her satisfaction, she shielded her own connection with a barrier of her own design.”Quarantine online…” She muttered before realizing, unlike normal, she had an audience. ”I know the rig is isolated, but even with only a cursory look, that encryption is pure Alliance…and they can hide some nasty shit in there.”

Another dialogue box popped up, showing another string of programs being loaded into Sadaet’s computer. ”First, a couple ‘sniffers’ I wrote. Sometimes the like to slip auto-execute attack barriers into the encryption to go on the offensive the moment you start running a decryption. The sniffer sort of passively probes the encryption to try and get a look at it; not the most detailed, but it should give me a rough idea of what I’m up against without prompting any active response.” As the sniffers ran, she made a bit of a face, this machine was so slow…well, not really, but compared to the processor in her head it was; they took a whole 50 seconds!

”Riiight…. here we go,” She said, as streams of code began appearing in a new box of the screen. ”Definitely Alliance…a version of the CXD type encryption, older yet still very effective, but not as likely to hide ‘surprises’ fortunately.” More programs were loaded in, the first ones starting to actively ‘map’ the encryption architecture, while the follow up one set to work on actually breaking it down.

Reaching over, Val unplugged herself and sat back with a smile. ”Now all that’s left is for the program to run its course…assuming there aren’t any ‘surprises’ along the way.”

After Tib had left him alone in the cargo bay, Stryker hauled his armor kit out of the shuttle and onto a small luggage dolly. On his way up to the main deck, he stopped off on the crew deck and dropped the data drive with Sadaet, quickly explaining that he needed it decrypted, then headed off again.

He took a cursory glance around the crew lounge while he waited on the elevator, saw Val and nodded, quickly waving her over to explain that Sadaet was working on the drive, and maybe her skills could help.

“Once it’s done, can you push the files to my server? These Alliance black boxes have a built in safeguard that cause them to wipe the memory if its accessed by any unauthorized tech, even Alliance registered terminals need a high clearance level to safely get inside it. My server’s disconnected from the network, but proper clearance should still be hardwired in it.” She nodded affirmatively and Stryker offered his thanks before moving on.

Once his armor and everything else was safely packed away, he made his way up towards the cockpit, going slowly and lagging where he could to ‘check’ on things, because deep inside he was scared of the conversation he was about to have. He didn’t want Tibulass to think any different of him once she knew the truth, and with what he knew of his girlfriend, that seemed at least a little bit likely.
When he finally walked in, he found Taleste in the co-pilots chair, whittling. If the two girls had been talking, their mouths snapped shut the second the door slid open.
“Tal can we have the room? Thanks”
He waited until they were alone and locked the cockpit door to ensure they wouldn’t be interrupted, took his seat and jumped into action with the rest of the pre-flight checks.
“Babe?” He asked once they had taken off “once we clear the system, hit the autopilot on so we can talk with each other’s full attention? I decided that you were right, that being here with you now is more important than the drive…. Sadaet and Val are taking care of it anyway, so now's as good a time as any to tell you… everything.”

”You act like I can’t drive the ship while giving you my full attention.” Tib teased the resident bounty-hunter before reaching towards the autopilot switch. With a quick flick of the switch, the autopilot was turned on, and Tib turned to Stryker. ”Auto’s on, though I don’t wanna leave it on too long with recent events, so… ten minutes most?” She asked while gazing up and down the vast expanse of the space road they were on, returning her sight to Stryker immediately after.

“I’ll try to cover it in 10, but there’s a lot to tell. So if that’s not enough time, we’ll just have to flip to a full burn and keep going as we fly. Though now that we’re here….. I, I don’t even know where to start? Do I go to the beginning, do I start with Karn? I really don’t know.”

“Ok, fuck it, I’ll just go in. I was raised by the Alliance.”

”Hm?”

“It’s true. Years back they ran an experiment, highly classified of course. Orphan kids, and if the rumors were true, some that had been…. Let’s say ‘donated’ to the project. They raised us to be the perfect soldiers, injected us with stims to enhance our combat prowess, tactical aptitude, and physical abilities. They trained us to be anything a situation could have called for- frontline duty, battlefield commander, special ops, covert assassins and anything else that you could think of. Karn was the guy in charge of our training. He was hard on us, cruel even. A lot of the kids didn’t make it. He’d push just a little too hard and they’d break, either die of exhaustion, or on a training op without any safety measures enabled. Hell, some of them just straight up killed themselves rather than stay in the program. Eventually there were only 5 of us, then before you know it, just 2. Somewhere along the way, I stopped believing in the cause, the spell, the brainwashing they’d put us through over the years, telling us we were the galaxy’s saviors…. That faded away, and I just wanted to get out of there….. So I turned on them… killed my brother-in-arms, broke out of the facility, and hid out in the Deadzone for a while. I had no legal identity, so it was easy to get some false ID records, I earned my way into the Hunters Guild, got myself a ship, and became the Stryker you know now. I’ve been waiting for a chance to get back at the Alliance my whole life, and now….. Now we may finally have the means to do it”

As if on cue, his datapad dinged with the notification of the decrypted Alliance files arriving.

“Yeah, this is it” he said out loud as he scanned the files “We hit the jackpot, and more besides. Once we slip into the Expanse, instead of chartering deep into the Deadzone, hit one of the fringe stations like Raiza. We’ll re-stock and head out to the Persepholis system. I’ll gather everyone and tell them what’s what.”

Tib had returned to the space road ahead of her to process things. “I… uh… kinda relate to that, actually.” She looked over at the co-pilot beside her, turning off the autopilot as she kept driving. As Stryker stood back up to leave, a curt voice from Tib echoed in the cockpit. “Nah, sit. I can talk and fly, and those files need some time to finish decrypting anyway.”

“Ok, sure….. what’s up?”

”I figured that, since you let me know about you, I could stand to do the same,” Tib answered plainly, clearly in thought of where to begin. ”I guess… let me start by saying I was born in the mid 90s.”

Stryker blinked “You mean like, the mid 2290’s? I know Funganoids can have a long life, and you had a whole life previous to that, but-”

”1990s. I was a worker for one of the first burgeoning space stations for intergalactic travel.”

“Wait… are you being serious?” Stryker said incredulously. He thought his background was the stuff of fairy tales… once you included the couple of details he had decided to keep to himself....

Tib smiled to herself. ”Around… 2030 I’d say it was. I forget the specifics. Safety standards were shit and this whole war between the Feds and Alliance wasn’t a thing, since neither really was yet.”

“This is insane..” he could tell Tib had more to share “Go on…”

”Being an engineer pertaining to the concept of intergalactic space travel is great, and something that kids back then only dreamed of. Rigorously, I worked, getting my ass into good schools and eventually I got on a station and managed to make a good life there. That station was Lykor Alpha. The Lykor incident that happened about a decade ago, if I’m remembering properly, was Lykor Beta.” Tib explained everything as if she rehearsed it before, but it wasn’t a monotone lecture from a professor, rather a proud-told tale.

”I ran into a mushroom one day while I was working. Didn’t think much of it, since glowing shit appeared all the time on Lykor Alpha, but that mushroom left something with me on that faithful day, and within the week my wife and kids were noticing I was a bit different. Physically, anyway. Almost like I radiated static.”

”Then… Lykor exploded. Well, imploded, but the entire station was destroyed. I was caught in the resulting sonic boom after the implosion, leaving my bloodied corpse stranded on a piece of debris.” Tib paused, turning on autopilot so she could return her attention fully to Stryker.

”Guess how long I was on the debris, Stryker? The flying piece of metal shards, somehow retaining the artificial gravity device that kept a part of the station from being 0-G, how long was I on it?”

“I don’t know… a few weeks? A month?”

”Eighty. Seven. Years. Tib’s voice was venomous, like she hated the experience. ”At least, the first date I saw when I got off that hunk of junk told me it wasn’t 2041 anymore. Time flew, and it was 2128. But the other point was, Funganoids weren’t recorded to have existed before around 2075. I proved that wrong with the guy who picked me up - famous alien species researcher, Bartholomew Nan.” Tib glanced over. ”Odd fellow. Never was told his race, and couldn’t describe it since he always wore a helmet. Read any of his books?”

“Can’t say I have, to tell you the truth. What does he write?”

”Boring stuff. Mostly phylogeny and all that. His contributions were incredibly important to the expansion of Earth into space though, since he did a lot of the writing on different races and species throughout this. It’s what made him famous as an author originally, and hell, he was even the guys that got me onto Project Revenant, since I owed him a favor, but that’s a story for another day...”

”After I met Nan, he dropped me off at a new station. I wasn’t the old Jackson Rhodes I died as, but I took up a new name for the station. I can’t say I stayed a perfect child, since God cursed me with undeath, so I turned to wanting to make myself one of the most notorious crime lords in the land. New names everywhere, bribing the police, connections, everything. Became a great pilot while I was scamming the shit out of races. That turned into me needing to have a getaway ship, one thing led to another, and my past of being a simple worker on the first station left me. I was a crimelord, and I fit in quite nicely among the crew here.”

Tib chuckled to herself. ”Heh, if Rosa caught me now, she’d beat the hell out of me with a broom after sending the boys to their rooms.”

Stryker chuckled “And look at us now”

He continued after a pause to let the situation set in “I was Adam when I was born. Never knew my last name so they gave me one- Elias. When I broke free, I knew I couldn’t keep their name. So I became Jason Stryker.”

”Stryker as a last name. Totally not edgy.” Tib teased, offering a smirk. ”Eh, but Jacqui Rhodes isn’t much better, honestly.”

“I needed to think on the fly” he chuckled “When the registry guy needed a name there was an ad running on the vidscreens for a kid’s show ‘Striker Dawn’ or something like that.”

”I mean, you could’ve gone with ‘White’, or even ‘Dawn’ as a last name. Stryker just seems… a bit on the nose.” Tib stood up from her seat and stretched. ”I mean, I don’t very much care. I know you too well as Stryker already, so...”

Stryker shrugged “Rising Dawn was the ship’s name, so I panicked a little on my own name. I was gonna go with something worse, but there was already a similar name on the registry- Elias T. Ryker”

”Pfft, Elias?” Tib chuckled. ”I’m totally calling you Eli at the next briefing.” She stepped towards the cockpit door, stopping just before it opened. ”Thanks for… uh… telling me about everything.”

“Ditto for you. Knew you’d be asking after everything Karn said down there, figured it was time for you to know why I hate the Alliance so much. I’ll tell the others when they need to know.”

He was about to turn back to the screen to see how the decryption was going, then finally realized Tib was walking out. “Hm? Where you off to babe?”

”The bathroom. That’s honestly the one thing I miss about being a true Funganoid. I can’t flow as well with time since I have to now sleep, eat, shit, all of that biological stuff.”

“It’s not all that bad” he said with a knowing wink “I’ll keep an eye on things up here ‘til you get back.”

”I’d hope so.” Tib offered a small smile before leaving the cockpit, leaving Stryker to the silence for just a little bit, whether it was to reflect on the pasts they shared or even if he wanted to review the data himself… though, there was a box that had shuffled below deck after a stray chunk of space-debris scratched the ship.

“Hm?” Stryker said, cocking his head to the side to peer down into the pilot’s den below the bridge. A small crate had fallen from its perch, the captain got up, walked down the 3 or 4 stairs and bent to pick it up. Before he put it back where it was, he couldn’t help but peek inside, since the top had become somewhat ajar in the fall. Inside were a few stray bits and pieces of a robotics kit, some clothes, and a single printed photograph. Stryker was intrigued, and against better judgment, pulled it out for a quick look. It was a close up of a family, a husband and wife (their rings were visible), each of them holding a small boy in their arms, they were virtually, if not completely identical in every way. He felt a pang of sadness and guilt, like he was intruding on a part of her life that he shouldn't be, so he put it back, fixed teh cover on the crate and put it back in it's place. Slowly after Tib returned, and Stryker decided it was time to fill everyone in on the plan.

"Everyone, report to the War Room... we got a job to plan for"

---

---

Earlier

While the decryption ran, Val found herself in the unfortunate position of needing to kill time with another person in the room, which meant ‘small talk’; something that she freely admitted she was terrible at.

Her own lack of social graces were compounded by Sadaet’s smoking, not that the smell bothered her with her nose ‘off’, she just disliked the habit on principle, and the fact that he kept giving her odd looks for a reason she couldn’t pin down. After a few clumsy attempts that didn’t go anywhere, she settled on sitting in silence until the programs had run their course. Mercifully that didn’t take too long, so upon their completion she shuffled the unlocked files back onto their drive, before handing said drive to Sadaet to send to Stryker, after all the rest of the setup in the room was his baby and she knew how much it’d bother her to have some rando messing with her gear.

”Well…um, see you..” She said awkwardly, as she stood, before leaving his room.

Now

When Stryker made the call, Val headed for the War Room and claimed the first seat she found. Since she got there before everyone else, she immediately went back to trying to chase down and plug Revenant’s memory leak; it was looking to be a project that was, unfortunately, going to keep her busy for some time.