The Cosmic Ocean

Yvette rolled her eyes. This kid, how did he ever even become an Ensign? Huffing out a breath of air, Yvette chose to drop the subject. There was nothing she could do to force him to do anything, she could tell that already. She would rather not waste her breath on arguing with a lazy, arrogant boy. He might not to have wanted to do his job, but she would. Sure there were things that she would rather do instead, mostly go for a fly on her own two wings, however Yvette knew better than to do something like that, so she kept her feet planted on the ground.

It wasn't long before Yvette heard the sound of gun fire echoing from the direction that the others had gone in. Yvette took no time to draw her weapon and prepare it to fire in case anyone came their way. "So are you going to stop napping now and be on the lookout or do they have to be firing at your head for that to happen?" Yvette asked Alexei in a very annoyed tone as her eyes scanned the the lands that lay beyond for sign of trouble. ​

 

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Ana was still in the lift when he returned. She seemed smart enough to know what kind of danger they would be headed toward. The communications officer and another member of the bridge crew entered the lift, their faces stern as they nodded at him to signal that they were ready to get to business. "Good luck keeping this ship running, Captain." The lift doors closed and their descent down to the lower decks began.

"Security should be at every corner of the ship but with the lifts down everywhere else and the stairwells forcing someone to stop at every floor to pass a locked door, they won't make it to the shuttlebay in time before the intruders make their way up. The moment they do, they'll have an easier time getting around the ship and there will be casualties." The lift suddenly stopped, jolting the four with the immediate deceleration. Quint stood by the door, waiting for it to open. Nothing happened.

"Systems must be down on this deck." He forced the doors open, finding that the lights on the deck were off leaving only the glow of the red warning lights to illuminate the hallway large room. "Stay close to me and keep your eyes open." He whispered, his Emissary raised forward. Storage containers were lined up against the walls, stacked up towards the ceiling. There were hallways that led to the left and right appearing periodically in between spaces of the lined up crates. It was not the armory but, rather, the deck above. The lower cargo room. "The armory is one deck down. We need to get to the stairwell."

A white light shone onto the floor from across the deck. Quint motioned for the group to take cover behind the storage containers. This wasn't a security team. Seconds later, a security drone rounded the corner and spotted the group, even as they headed towards cover. The searchlight turned red, blending in with the lights coming from the emergency signals. A small group of three pirates appeared around the corner, weapons drawn. Irrin fired a quick shot at them, narrowly missing one of the intruders. They returned fire at the four, hitting the secondary bridge officer square in the chest, the green bolt of plasma piercing through his body and leaving him on the ground. Dead. Blood did not even spill on the ground as his wound had been instantly cauterized.

This left only Irrin, Ana, and the comms officer to take cover.

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One pirate took the shot Brianne fired in the side before he could reach cover. The pirate fell over screaming in pain. It was clear he would no longer be able to continue the fight. Another was killed by Winters' HESU fire, never having been able to fire a single shot in return. By the time Winters' second fireteam began to attack the rest of the pirates had managed to find cover, raining on the away team with a barrage of bullets, plasma, and ion shots. Some tried to move in closer, concentrating their fire on Winters and his secondary team rather than Brianne's group. Graybourn was killed in the attack. An ion burst hitting his stomach and a large caliber bullet tearing through his leg.​

The three surviving pirates flailed helplessly in the air as they continued to open fire at the man in the strange white mask. One pirate dropped his weapon upon seeing bullets had no effect in the altered gravity field, his weapon now floating beside him. He pulled out an AER pistol, knowing that the trajectory of the plasma would not so easily be changed by gravity. Bolts of plasma were now fired at Saturday, cutting through his gravitational ability.​

Back at the shuttle, a group of pirates had witnessed the landing of the Ouranos shuttle and waited for the landing party to exit. A girl remained behind. Someone appearing to be familiar but at the distance he and his people were, he could not be certain. The plan was to blow up their only means of escape. There were seven armed women led by one Maraku man, his wings spread as they approached the shuttle. He preferred to surround himself with women. In the harsh surroundings he always found himself in it was a small comfort to have something nice to look at when the rest of his crew were muscular sweaty men. He did not care for men very much. He pulled out a portable scanner and raised an eyebrow upon noticing one lifesign still aboard the shuttle. Probably another pilot. He aimed his rifle at the shuttle and fired at its side, striking a spot just beside Yvette's head before shouting, "Come out with your hands up! Try anything funny and I'll blow your ship to bits and leave your corpses to rot." It was not an idle threat. A few well-placed shots would be enough to cripple the shuttle very quickly. A few more shots in the right spot would cause a chain-reaction leading to a very explosive outcome. Now that he was closer towards the girl, the details of her face were more familiar than he could have ever realized. He knew who this was but could not place his finger on who she was. Yet. "Pull a weapon and your friend in there will be the first to die."

Back aboard the Ouranos, sounds of glass shattering could be heard on deck two, right beside Sickbay in the Astrolab. A strange whirring sound followed along with the dull hum of the power beginning to fail on the deck. The red warning lights dimmed until there was almost no light left on the deck. A figure, its outline almost invisible in the darkness, exited the Astrolab and headed towards the Briefing Room at the center of the deck. It vanished inside.​

 

It was no big surprise that someone came towards the ship, given the gun shots up ahead. However Yvette was not prepared to deal with eight people. She leveled her gun as they got slightly closer, but as threats were thrown at them and Yvette could see how they were armed, she opted not to try and shoot them. Chances were she could take out two before they took out her, the ship or Alexei. It wouldn't be much longer before the remaining would be taken out too. She assessed the threat, the man power that she had verses what they had, and the chances of survival in a fight then raised her Pyre into the air and took her finger off the trigger.

"You would belong to the other ship we spotted in the air I take it." Yvette said slowly, carefully. She didn't want to say anything to get herself shot, she just needed to stall for time. Observing the wings that spread from the man's back, there was a good chance that he had come from her home world, if that was the case then things could turn out dangerous for her. Space pirates, all they want is money and she could be worth a fair amount that if they tried. Between her cousin, her uncle and her father, they would all want her safe. She was to be her cousin's advisory when he became king after all. She just had to be careful with what she said and buy time until Brianne and the others got back. Yvette doubted that Alexei would be of much help, seeing how he had been acting. "What exactly do you plan to accomplish by coming to this planet, look around there is nothing here, unless you think killing two random ensigns will do anything towards your cause, whatever that may be." Yvette spoke, trying to keep them off of her. The wings made her nervous that he might know who she was, caution was the best route, but there was only so much caution she could take. ​

 

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Irrin held an arm in front of the comms officer to tell the man to stay put and let him handle the shooting. One too many had already died and he was not about to let any more to lose their lives. In some strange sense, he felt more comfortable here being shot at than he did on the bridge. At least a fight was simple. There were bad guys trying to kill them. All he had to do was put them down first. Fight or die. Simple. On the other side of the hallway was Ana, unarmed but safe for now. She glanced at the gun the bridge officer was carrying. Irrin knew that look in her eye. If he had thought even for a second that he could have stopped her from going for the gun he would have but the girl was determined.

When Ana made her move for the gun, Irrin popped out of the corner and took aim at the drone and fired a single shot at it, hitting it dead center and causing it to explode in an impressive display of sparks and super-heated metal shrapnel. This caused the three pirates to flinch and stop firing for an instant, stunned as they clumsily tried to make their way to cover. He took another two shots, hitting one pirate in the stomach and another directly in the chest leaving just one left.

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The pirates held their ground against Winters and his team, too distracted with keeping themselves alive to notice Brianne and Crow leave the fight. In the firefight, two more pirates met their end, being killed while trying to poke out of cover to take shots at Winters and the other security.


Upon being dropped to the ground by Saturday the three pirates struggled to stand and regain a sense of their surroundings. The searched the immediate area and, on finding no signs of the alien, spread out to search through the ruins, guns still drawn. This time, they armed themselves with plasma-based weapons as to not have their shots miss the next time they encountered him. ​

"Ya know, these fancy computers don't offer as much security as I thought they would. Then again, I suppose I have an advantage when it comes to these." A lone man was hunched over the briefing room's main computer with a single light illuminating the red skin on his face. The monitors were all turned off but his attention was still fixed on the one light coming from a device attached to the console. The man was large, by any standard, looking awkward with how far he had to bend down just to bring his face towards the screen his eyes were glued to. He wore no armor but, rather, just a ragged leather jacket stained and patched from years of abuse. There was a quiet high-pitched beep from where he stood. The red man took the device from the console and stuffed it in his pocket. "Step aside, Clarity." He looked up at the medical officer, stepping around the central table in the briefing room. The man towered over her by at least two feet. Just barely visible in the lighting was a scar that ran down from his forehead, to his eye, down to his chin. "Now."


"She's a clever one." The pirate spoke towards the women in his group. "I like it when they have a strong head on their shoulders. It makes me more inclined to keep it there." He eyed the boy who walked out with suspicion. The boy hardly seemed like security assigned to guard the pilot. Unfortunately for Alexei, he was a he. The pirate did not enjoy death but killing a male was far easier than a female. "The name's Janus Themis. I will be the one plundering you today. With a fancy starship like yours, I'm sure your captain won't mind us taking a single shuttle for a spin, won't she?" Janus lazily pointed his rifle at the boy. "Go. Shoo. You can either run to your friends or crawl there." To make a point Janus fired a round at the ground beside Alexei's feet, kicking up dirt from the bullet's impact. "And you," He motioned at Yvette with the barrel of his rifle. "You seem familiar. So you're joining me on a little field trip until I can figure out where I've seen you before."

 

Yvette kept her arms raised as Alexei stepped out behind her and didn't seem to be helping the situation at all. However in reality she couldn't expect too much, she was a pilot and he was an engineer. Neither of them trained or equipped to handle severely stacked odds. Sure she could use a weapon, it was required of her, but fighting eight vs two was not something she was trained for. That would be more for the security guys to handle, and unfortunately none was left for them.

At least she had one thing going for her, he liked that she was using her brain. It would keep her alive a little longer. Though he didn't so much like Alexei, and Yvette honestly didn't blame him for that. "Go." She told Alexei with a small gesture of her head. There was no use that they both get captured or he got killed. At least if one got out he could provide details to the others, in the meantime Yvette just had to out think them to keep herself alive for the time being.

"I am certain my captain would mind, but you seem like a smart man Janus, you don't care and would find a way around it. The question is though could you control the thing. New technology and very finicky. You need to know and have practiced on a ship like this before flying it you know." She stated to him. She didn't feel the need to explain that he would need her to fly it, she figured he would pick up on it possibly. Though if they made her fly it then she could go wherever she wanted, because if she died and they didn't know how to fly it, then they would all be dead and no one would be further ahead.

It was an effort to keep her ocean blue eyes calm and passive as Janus mentioned trying to figure out where he knew her from. He still hadn't figured it out, but someone was going to recognize her soon. She fought the urge to bite her lip in nervousness before speaking once again. "I don't know how you would recognize me. Your mind may be playing tricks on you. I never was allowed out much until recently when I joined the coalition. There is no reason for you to have ever seen me.... Unless." Yvette hesitated as if she was trying to recall something. "... Where you at uncle Johnny's funeral! Oh he was so well loved there was so many people there. I had to go up and make a speech for it too. Is it possible that is were?" She asked. The first part was not entirely a lie, the second part however was completely made up. She was just hoping to throw his thinking off a little bit. Get him distracted before he could come up with who she was. Her arms started to sag a bit as they tired of being held in the air. If they went somewhere, hopefully soon then maybe she could at least put her arms down and get some movement flowing again. From there... well she would take things as they came. ​

 

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Irrin walked towards Ana's side just in time to watch as the pirate's form dissolved down into nothing but a murky puddle at their feet leaving ~description censored by Arch for being too graphic for KHV~ until the acid was neutralized. He turned his head to look at the expression on Ana's face, feeling that something was quite off with her given that any other person would have lost the contents of their stomach from witnessing such a scene. The words she had spoken just before killing the pirate were worrying as well. How did she manage to pass the psych evaluation? Then again, the fact that he was still serving the Coalition was questionable on its own.

Knowing there was no time for them to relax and check on how the remaining three were doing Irrin motioned for Ana and the comm officer to follow him. "Come on. The armory is only one deck below and the stairs aren't too far." He headed forward, stepping over the corpse of one of the pirates he had shot, using the red lights as a guide. "Actually, even if you hadn't tweaked the formula, it would not have corroded the hull of the ship. It's nonreactive, highly stable, and a few hundred times stronger than diamond. We could submerge this ship in an ocean of acid and nothing would happen. Though the same can't be said for older ships. It's not common knowledge but the ship's namesake-"

The ship shook slightly, causing Irrin to press his hand against a nearby storage crate to keep his balance. He picked up his pace and headed over towards the other end of the hall they had started on and rounded a corner, expecting the others to follow. Something was wrong. The stairwell was locked showing no signs of forced entry. Yet he knew this was where the pirates had come from. He had no time to question why none of this was making any kind of sense and pressed his hand against the sensor on the stairwell door. Thankfully, there was still power on it and--

"Access Denied. Biosignature not recognized." Was what the screen read.

"Dammit not now." He growled, removing his hand and placing it on the sensor once more. He waited a long moment before, finally, he received a response.

"Access Granted."

"Finally." He pulled on the heavy metal door, and looked down at the stairwell which spiraled down steeply. Though someone could take the stairwell to reach any deck on the ship a lockdown forced anyone trying to move about to pass a security check at every floor, including a second check to actually enter a deck. Irrin led the way downstairs, stopping only to unlock yet another door to head down a floor and once more to make the final security check to enter the armory. It was the smallest deck on the ship due to the fact that the unused floor space behind the walls enclosing the armory actually housed several pieces of sensitive equipment that ran the ship that were not meant to be accessed under normal circumstances. Quint looked around the area, seeing that it was unoccupied and that (aside from the gear the landing party took) nothing had been taken. Yet another oddity. Surely if pirates had passed through here they would have made an attempt to raid their weapons and armor.

"I don't like this. There's no way those three intruders could have made it onto the cargo deck without passing through here. Every other access point was sealed off."

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The red man stepped closer toward Clarity, closing the distance between them almost instantly despite appearing to have been moving very slowly. "I know you. I know everyone aboard this ship. No one knows of me however. My name is unimportant. I have a name but it is of no import. Knowing it will not do you any good." His voice changed, as the brutish demeanor he had put on earlier vanished instantly. "You have caught me in a merciful mood, Clarity." His eyes flashed with an intense fire behind them.

"There's no doubt that someone on this ship has figured out that there is something amiss." The man's red fingers wrapped around Clarity's neck though there had never been any sign that he had made a move to grab her. He did not choke her though his grip was strong enough to prevent her from escaping without hurting herself in the process. "Tell me, in your opinion as a woman of medicine, is it ethical to dig through the mind of another against their will even if it will spare them unimaginable pain?"

The three pirates who had attacked Saturday were still on patrol, keeping close together as they kept their eyes open for the strange alien. Their eyes were focused on the upper levels of the ruined buildings as they walked through the deserted streets. Unknowingly, they stepped right into the path of Brianne and Crow. Only one of the three caught an eye on the strangers and aimed his pistol at Brianne, firing a single shot of plasma hastily in a twitch reaction to get the first shot.


The leader of the team of six engaged in combat with Winters and his squad watched as their enemies began to retreat. No doubt due to the loss of their comrade. The pirate smirked and motioned for his men to follow in hopes to corner the Coalition grunts and slaughter the lot of them. Aggressively, the moved forward, rarely taking cover as they made their advance to follow after Winters while occasionally taking potshots at the remaining five.
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Janus looked off to the side, hearing and seeing the lights of gunfire in the distance deeper into the ruins. "It seems your efforts to buy time nearly paid off. But I'm gonna have to speed this up a notch." The man shifted his attention back towards Alexei and aimed his rifle at the boy before hesitating a moment. He flipped a switch near the trigger of his rifle to set it on the lowest power setting and fired at Alexei's leg to ensure the boy would not do anything to stop him. The shot would hurt like hell and leave a nasty burn but it would not permanently maim Alexei.

"Come on girl, move along. Maybe I'll remember who you are on the way back to our ship." Janus's gun was aimed once more at Yvette. "If you play hero and I will do more than shoot someone in the leg." He motioned for Yvette to get in the shuttle.

 

There was some sense of hope that people were coming back, but that was crushed by Janus realizing the same thing. Yvette couldn't really be surprised though, it was pretty obvious and now they were being rushed. Yvette couldn't help but wince when Janus turned his attention to Alexei and shot him in the leg. She hoped that he would at least get away and back to Brianne if she was going to be kidnapped, but it seemed that he was remaining there while she was being forced into the shuttle. At least Alexei was left alive with some basic information on what the group taking her was like, what they looked like and their threat level and such. That could be of help... when Brianne could return to them.

Yvette put her hands down at last and holstered her gun. She rotated her shoulders a few times to try to get her blood moving through them properly again before following instructions and boarding the shuttle. "So would that be a no about being at Uncle Johnny's funeral? Such a shame his death. Well that is all I have for ideas. But would you please hurry it up and figure it out. I would love to rejoin my friends soon." Yvette commented with as innocent of a voice that she could muster.

On the ship the girl quickly took a seat in the pilot seat and began to start up the ship, checking all that she would normally check, but also doing a couple more silent things. For one she sent a distress beacon back to the main ship to let them know that she was in trouble. And the second thing she did was make sure the tracking beacon was on and there was nothing to hinder it going. She needed to make sure the main ship could find her after. However she did this in quick succession with the rest of the start up procedure making it seem like part of it. And then she took off, she didn't want to but she had to keep her calm and keep them distracted and hope that she could soon get back to the main ship. They couldn't really stop her from going there, but unless the main ship was prepared for it, she would be bringing eight enemies on board that could harm them. That wasn't an option. So unless she got some sort of signal that they were ready for trouble, she would have to follow Janus' orders for now. Just to keep herself alive. ​

 

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Irrin headed over towards a console near one of the weapon racks. The panel was offline like most of the systems on the Ouranos. "That's what I would have suggested if I was in your place." He holstered his pistol and removed the panel to expose the inner workings only to sigh in frustration when he saw the damaged systems housed inside. "Never seen a virus overload so many systems before. It could take weeks to repair everything but I think I can get some basics working again." Quint narrowed his eyes as he reached inside the console chassis to reconfigure the the system to bypass the burnt circuits.

After a few minutes worth of inelegant repairs, Irrin felt that this was as good as it was going to get without wasting too much time. An engineer could come by later and undo the extra damage he had done during the repair. He replaced the panel back on the console and the screen fizzled to life. "Good." He flicked through several screens to check the status of the ship and weapons inventory to make sure nothing dangerous had been stolen. Thankfully, their inventory and life support on all decks were intact. "Hm..." The inspector scratched his chin. "What the-This can't be true. I'm not reading any other intruders. The last time I checked the sensors, on the bridge, forty had managed to force their way in." Quint made an attempt to use the console to send a message throughout the ship for non-security to keep their heads down but the panel refused to respond.

"Damn. Contacting the rest of the crew is out of the question." Irrin motioned over towards the combat vests hung by the cases that held the firearms. There was no time to put on full armor. If his most recent scans were wrong and there were still intruders aboard, going down to the lower deck without protection would have been a stupid move. "Put one on and follow me down to the shuttlebay. Keep behind me. If we run into a firefight and don't have any backup on the way, I'm venting the shuttlebay."

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"Oh. That hurt." ​

The red man grinned when the blade penetrated his side, a thick black liquid oozing out of his open flesh and bubbling around the wound. The handle was separated from the blade letting the sharp edge to melt and completely disintegrate upon contact with the black fluid. The ooze retracted and reentered the man's body leaving his skin, but not his clothing, completely intact as if nothing had happened at all. His grip tightened around Clarity's neck as he lifted her off her feet with his hand as if she was little more than a rag doll. "I suppose I agree with that assessment. I appreciate your moxie but I suppose I have no use for you." He closed his eyes for a brief moment, tilting his head back to face upward. "Mm...no. Two would be redundant."

His grip tightened around Clarity's neck even further in a display of power. "One thing I love about your people," he chucked, "their necks aren't as difficult to snap as one of those holier-than-thou Peras." The man released his hold on Clarity and dropped her without breaking her neck or causing her permanent harm. He saw no need. As far as he was concerned, he was nothing more than a brutish madman to her. The man turned his back on Clarity and stepped out towards the open doorway and stepped out of the room and into the hall. His eyes flashed towards the girl, glowing like hot embers before vanishing around the corner. Slowly, the lights on the ship began to flicker on deck by deck.

One of the pirates, the one who had shot Brianne, was struck down by her gunfire. The other two fled to dive behind the cover made by the nearby ruins. "Surrender the alien, woman!" Shouted one of the two remaining pirates. "We still have you outgunned!" The pirate popped out from cover to fire a few potshots of plasma bolts at her position. "That freak is coming with us! Why risk your life for a stranger? You can walk out of here with your head still on your shoulders, girl!"​

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Janus and his troop settled themselves inside the shuttle, the Maraku eyeing Yvette's motions suspiciously as the vessel took off. He knew anyone trained in the Coalition Corps would be prepared for a situation like this but fortunately, his people were well-equipped for a stealthy escape. "There's a set of shuttle doors at the back of our ship. It should be located near your own vessel." He made a short pause as he strapped himself in his seat. "I'm sure this thing has a decent scanner. If you look at your sensor readings over there you'll find that the Ouranos is having a little engine trouble. It will be some time before they will be able to break orbit." The man shifted in his seat and looked over at the seven other women aboard from his group. They each moved around uncomfortably in place while their eyes darted around the interior of the shuttle. "Relax. We'll be home soon."

Resting the stock of his rifle on the floor Janus leaned forward, his grip still tight on the barrel of his gun. "My memory is a little fuzzy but I know I recognize you from somewhere. Perhaps if we had been allowed to stay on Tyche I would actually-"

"Give it a rest, Janus. If you're so curious, look her up on the database, otherwise shut up. I've still got a headache." One of the women spoke up as she buried her head into her hands and hunched forward. Though the women who boarded the shuttle with Janus were of varying ages, with the youngest looking to be in her late teens and the eldest(who had spoken) appearing to be in her thirties, they all bore similar features to each other. Straight black hair.

"Alright. Fine." Janus sighed and returned his attention back to Yvette. "What rank are you, girl? Ensign? Lieutenant?"