SC - Fugitives

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Keira Kelly
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Re: SC - Fugitives

Post by Keira Kelly »

Ava's masked face tilted ever so slightly over towards Miranda. Though her glance had moved over to the doctor, it was impossible to tell where she was actually looking with the mask on, so she could risk the look in response to the order. Knock the man out. Hm. Not what she would have chosen to do but she trusted Miranda inherently and the ask no questions of the commander's orders mindset was too ingrained in Ava. Her face turned back to the man she was holding the knife to as Miranda headed out to talk to Mira Han. Ava focused her mind on Ben's. Simple enough. A small psionic pulse straight into his brain as she pulled away the knife. To anybody else watching, the man simply dropped bonelessly to the deck, his head impacting with a hollow thud, though not hard enough to cause any real damage. 'He won't be causing any more issues.' she sent back as she swung her rifle up onto her shoulder.

She pointed her knife at the other man. "You're not going to cause me any issues too, are you.." she said, the tone more warning than question.

Dwight shook his head vigorously. "No, no... I won't.... I swear..."

Ava took a deep breath. "Hmph. Fine. Get up and go take a seat with the others." she ordered him after a very long pause, sheathing her knife. "Keep things quiet and peaceful.. and maybe.. just maybe we will let you leave with the others... Not my call but... there is a chance.. if you are lucky." she warned him again. She turned to Nick who had come over, still in his CMC armour. "Watch this bastard for a minute..." she asked him, indicating the unconscious form of Ben. She began to move towards the quarters area of the dropship but was stopped by Mark.

"Is Ben dead?" he asked.

Ava glanced back over her shoulder at the man on the ground and then shook her head. "No, just unconscious. If it were up to me... he probably wouldn't be alive right now but..." she answered with a shrug. "We will see." She could feel how conflicted Mark had felt when he thought that Ben was dead. "Look, the priority now is getting the people who deserve it to safety.. and eventually off this planet, right? Like.. was it Iris? And her granddaughter. You wouldn't want Ben to jeopardize that poor little girl's chances of growing up in safety, would you?" she asked.

Mark sighed. "No. No, I wouldn't. If you feel that would be best though, why isn't Ben dead?"

"Because right now, he isn't a threat. And I intent to keep it that way." she answered. She lowered her voice. "Go keep an eye on Dwight. He doesn't intend to cause issues anymore but there are others who are angry at him right now. You might want to talk to them all.." she suggested. "Calm things down. Like it or not, they listen to you. They respect you." She watched as Mark moved off and finally was able to head for what she was going for. In the quarters and storage area, she found a box of plastic ties, usually used for cargo but they would do well enough for what she had in mind. She took a few extra moments to remove her mask, leaving it in her own locker and taking down the hood of her suit as well.

Grabbing a couple of the plastic ties, she returned to the unconscious Ben, currently being watched over by Nick. She finally gave him the small smile she had been wanting to before she bent to her task. Ben was lying on his face on the ground which made it easy to pull his arms behind his back, tying his wrists together with the first tie. She moved and tied his ankles together as well with the other tie. He could continue lying on the deck like that for all she cared but at least he would be helpless when he awoke. Then she thought better of it, grabbing him through of his arms behind his back, she hauled him up, dragging him with the aid of her psionics towards one row of seating along the inside of the dropship. She threw him rather roughly into the seat then strapped him into it as well. There was no way he was moving anywhere, trussed up as he was.

Ava then moved over to Nick, resting her head tiredly on an arm against his armoured chest. "What a day..." she said. She might not have been hurt at all.. or at least seriously, she was reminded as the graze in her rubbed painfully against the inside of her suit, but the sheer usage of her psioncs both for offensive and scanning purposes as well as cloaking coupled with the worry she had felt for Miranda plus everything she was continuously feeling from these people AND the rescued hostage girl.... Ava felt worn out. She felt Nick's armoured hand land lightly on her own shoulder armour and sensed his understanding. The emotional crash after any sort of combat situation after all the adrenaline was known to all soldiers. Another reason they made such a good match, she thought with a tired smile.

Suddenly she felt a tug against the fabric of her suit on her leg. She glanced down seeing the young girl that had been with the older woman, Iris. The woman's grand-daughter. "Yes?" she asked, not knowing how to speak to little kids.

The fair-headed child smiled through all the grime. "Thank you for saving us from the bad people." she said.

Ava frowned, really feeling the child's mind for the first time, its simplicity but more importantly, its innocence. "Um. You're welcome." she answered slowly, not knowing what else to say. She hadn't really expected thanks from any of them, let alone this child.

"I like your hair." the little girl continued, then frowned and pointed. "You have an ouchie." she added, poking a finger at the mild blood stain just below Ava's ribs.

Ava flinched at the touch, dancing back, making a sound of pain. It might have only been a graze but that didn't mean it wasn't painful. She held her armoured hand over top of the wound as she turned to fully face the little girl. The anger she felt dropped away within a split second at the emotions the young girl was projecting: worry, sadness that Ava was hurt helping them, and a bit of fear at the ghost's reaction. Ava sighed. "Yes, I do.. and it hurts. But it will be all right. It's not bad. And you.. have nice hair too..." She turned to Nick, giving him a sincere look, sensing his worry about her wound. "It IS all right. It might hurt but it's not a deep wound." she assured him. She gave him a lopsided grin. "I've had much worse..."

A small noise, maybe a groan, caught Ava's attention. Quickly she turned to the little girl. "Why don't you go back and sit with your...." she trailed off. She had heard Mark say that this was the grand-daughter but she wasn't sure about what it would be in reverse.

"Grandmother." Nick came to the rescue.

Ava gave him a quick grateful nod. "Go back with your grandmother. I think we will be ready to travel soon." she said, watching as the child moved off. Nick began to say something about the kid, and agreeing with the child's assessment of Ava's hair, but Ava held up a hand, something more important holding her attention. "One second..." she said, moving to the dead woman on the ground nearby. She knelt down, noting that there wasn't much blood. As she turned the body over carefully, the woman groaned. Ava quickly pulled off one of her armoured gloves, pressing bare flesh against the woman's neck.

She couldn't really feel a pulse but the woman was still very warm, warmer than she should have been resting against the metal deck for this long. Ava put her hand in front of the woman's nose and mouth. A very faint, slight breath. "Oh damn... She's still alive...." she said just loud enough for Nick to hear but not any of the others. Ava's head came up, looking at Nick for a second then turned towards the cockpit entry. "Miranda! Get over here!" she yelled at the same time she sent a psionic message. 'This woman is still alive! Barely but... you need to try to help her!' she sent almost frantically.
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Re: SC - Fugitives

Post by rivaan »

Miranda was just returning to the cargo area of the ship when she heard Ava's shout and followed rather loud in her mind message.' Wait what!?' She replied in surprise as she dashed to the location, basically jumping to her knees in motion as she leaned over hte woman in surprise and mild shock. She didn't spare anyone any looks as she did so. She did the same check as Ava and found it hell a surprising. The woman barely had a pulse it was weak and rather slow, but she was aliving and breathing somewhat steadily.

"I thought it looked like too little blood..." Miranda mumbled as she pulled a small flashlight from a pocket and checked the woman's eyes for reaction then put it away and checked the stab wound. She narrowed her eyes it was where the lung should She reached and pulled the woman's shirt in with narrowed eyes and saw the huge scars." Hell... she's had a lung removed!" Miranda realized the reason the woman hadn't drown in her own blood or the like and why there was less bloodloss han expected! ' Nick hadn't delivered a near instal kill because there wasn't an internal organ to be injured!' Miranda sent to Ava with a realization.

"Gosh... this is her lucky day." She mumbled as she pulled the case she had brought and from it pulled a hypo syringe wtih one of hte small canisters. She then pulled her datapad from nearby and connected it to the network of hte nanites and within 30 seconds set up a preprogrammed well program into the nanites. She had prepared quite a few programs now and she actually knew how to set up the connections. In differnce from Fat Frank who required specialized machines to actually operate and program nanites, all Miranda really needed was a wireless device with enough processing power to run the needed software. Especially since she had precreated setups for all manner of injuries. If she had a full Combat Medic gear, she'd be able to actually set it up on the fly, but with the lack of that, the modified datapad would serve the same function.

While Miranda was busy dealing with the injured woman, the rescued people finally realized what was happenign and Dwight was basically already broke down in tears, praying to all the gods he knew for her survival. Mark took a deep breath of relief at the discovery of her current survival. Hopefully she would make it through.

Miranda in the meantime, having finished setting up the nanites, directly stabbed and injected them near the wound." She's got missing internals... probably removed when they were captured. Good thing I noticed early... had I direclty injected her with the nanites... it was going to be a mess." She mentioned, as the wound was already healing up at visible rate. It was going to scab and take a lil while longer to be completley healed though and the internal healing would take some more. With this dose of nanites, it would be about an hour for her to be healed completely. Ordinary a wound like that would take weeks if not over a month to heal. It was no longer that medical nanites weer so costly. Though combat medic surgury tools would also have done the job. SHe could have easily stopped all bleeding, close bleeding blood vessels and close the wound if she had the full suite of medical tools, which she didn't for the moment. She really had to take one.

"N'jor, get us into the air. I've set up the coordinates into the computer. Bring us there." She added and finally looked at the main target of their rescue op this time around for a moment. She then looked at Mark." She's going to wake up in teh next hour or so. Once the shock she sustained passes over. Try to keep her from moving violently when she's waking up. It might open the internal wounds again before htey close compeltely. I've got no excess nanites to use." With that stated she walked over to the girl they rescued.

"Hey, my name is Idun. I'm a doctor, would you show me your hand? I will help the pain go away." She said with a really motherly smile and voice that the young girl instantly took a liking to and started to unwrap the injured hand from it's makeshift bandage. The girl looked pale from the bloodloss, so Miranda gave her a blood supplement medicine pill right away and some water." We've got some time till we arrive. Don't worry, by the time you start heading back home, it will not hurt anymore." She added as the ship was getting into the air.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
45min later
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They had arrived at the base. The base turned out to be a proper building, not a mobile one. It was an old hotel building once upon a time. It had long since been transformed into Barracks by Mira Han's people. All the beds weren't new, but they were in good condition. There were even clean bedsheeps on top of it all. Miranda had already arranged the supplies. The price for supplies actually turned out to be the rather effecient 2k credits for the moment. It was mostly canned food and MREs and all that so it was cheap.

Miranda was watching the dropship fly off with Nick and the Girl on board." Well... it's only us now." She said to Ava and threw a sideglance look at her." I talked with Han. While you work on infiltrating the operations of O'Banon, I will be working with her on the field instead. Mark will be keeping track here." The doctor explained. The next 2 weeks were going to be rather eventful. Between the two of them, they were going to be entering a rather bigger stage than they had until now. Ava would be doing full ghost longterm infiltrations while Miranda was going into full urban combat. She was told she'd be supplied with a Medic CMC for that time duration though.
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Keira Kelly
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Re: SC - Fugitives

Post by Keira Kelly »

Ava backed off, standing up as Miranda came rushing over to take her place beside the prone woman. This was not Ava's field of expertise in the slightest. She could take a pulse, check breathing and administer basic first aid and that was about it. What this woman on the ground needed was beyond first aid. Ava frowned as Miranda relayed that the woman had had a lung removed. Why... would someone have a lung removed? She supposed that there could be reasons though... perhaps it was diseased or damaged previously but.. there were better ways to fix such things usually. Her train of thought on that though was broken by a spike of concern from behind. She turned, seeing Dwight getting up from where he had gone, beginning to move towards them.

Ava grabbed him by the shoulders as he approached. "Stay back..." she warned him, having to hold him with her psionics as well. She grabbed his chin and jerked his face towards her, forcing him to look at her. "Stay back or we can't help her."

Dwight's eyes focused on Ava finally. "What.. are you doing to Carol? What do you mean help her? She's still alive?!"

Ava gave him a bit of a shove back. "Yes! But we don't need you interfering. You do, and she will likely die. So help her by staying out of the way. You promised not to cause trouble and this time, the life of your friend is on the line...."

Tears were rolling down Dwight's cheeks as his eyes turned back to Carol on the ground being worked on. He nodded distractedly as went down to his knees on the floor, not even noticing the marine in the huge CMC armour walk right past him. All he saw was Carol.

While Ava wanted to go with Nick to the cockpit during the flight, she felt that she couldn't leave the cargo area. There were too many unknowns still back there, too many people that had to have an eye kept on them, too many people she didn't trust fully. It was true nobody else here had thoughts of taking over the ship or anything like that but.. well, Ava didn't know them, so she didn't fully trust them; thoughts could be fleeting and she could only sense what was at the forefront of their minds at any given time. So she stayed back, watching them and watching Miranda work. But mostly watching them.

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

The flight to Mira's coordinates had been fairly short and thankfully uneventful but arriving there had been something Ava had been putting off thinking about. But now she had to. When Miranda had gone off to check on the facility and supplies quickly, the ghost had taken the small window of opportunity to head over to Nick. He still wore his CMC armour as he stood outside of the dropship, watching the former captives gather together before they would be lead inside their new quarters. Ava stopped beside him, not even reaching the shoulders of the suit, looking out at the captives as well, in silence. She had with her everything she would need off this the ship for the coming missions.

"We didn't really get to talk about this.." Nick began finally.

Ava sighed. "What's there to talk about? You know it's the only thing that makes sense. It was the only way to make this deal AND help these people to get out of here.... You know things like this are part of being a soldier..." she answered. "If there was any other way, it wouldn't be my choice any more than it would be yours.."

Nick grunted, then finally let out a deep breath. "I know." he acquiesced. "It's just we... we've had so little time to ourselves...." he admitted.

Ava finally turned to him, giving him a lop-sided smile. "I am what I am, and as much as I wish I could change that, or change what... needs to be done... I can't. We are out here for a reason, a reason that all three of us share to some extent or other. I let you know all of this when you signed on." she told him.

"Signed on to this little rebel unit or signed on as your boyfriend?" he asked in return, though there was a twinkle in his eye at that.

Ava chuckled. "Both?...... Boy.. friend, huh? Odd term...." she added. She had gotten the meaning of the phrase from his mind, though the actual terminology was what she thought odd. Nick was neither a boy nor just a friend. She shrugged it off though, reaching up to grip the lower lip of the opening of the open visor, pulling him down to be closer to level with her. "Two weeks and we will be together again, and on our way home... Just two weeks...." she promised.

With that, she stretched up the last of the bit so that she could kiss him, a long deep kiss, letting him know how much she wished he didn't have to leave either. But finally she had to pull away, realizing that they were becoming the centre of attention for most of the former captives. Hell with that, she didn't really care. What she felt from them was just simple curiosity. She kissed Nick again, shorter but no less emotional. "Be careful out there." she told him after it was over, letting go of his suit finally.

Nick grunted again. "You be careful down here..." he answered back. "Something tells me you're going to be more at risk than I am. Two weeks though....."

Ava nodded, trying to push down and bottle emotions. "Two weeks." she agreed. She sighed. "You had better start getting ready to leave. The sooner that girl is delivered to her father, the sooner you can get back here." she added. She watched at Nick nodded and began to walk to the dropship ramp, halfway up, he paused, turning around to look at her again. He sent her the gesture she had learned on Kalisti, the one meant to represent sending a kiss to the other and she returned it then watched his back as he disappeared inside the ship.

She turned, heading away, giving the ship more distance as its engines began to start up. She squashed down a pang of yearning as the ship began to rise. As it did, Miranda joined her, watching the ship quickly speed up into the sky, growing smaller and smaller. Ava sighed, mentally focusing herself to the new priorities. She nodded. "Yes, it is." she agreed. And soon enough, Ava would likely be on her own, doing what she had been trained to do. She needed to get her mind now completely into that game. She took another deep, centring breath before speaking again. "Did Han have any objectives for me to start with?"

( Up to you whether you want to continue here or get into some time skips through or even past missions. )
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Re: SC - Fugitives

Post by rivaan »

Miranda watched calmly and silently as Ava and Nick spoke. She kind of felt bad about separating them, but this kind of had to happen this way. Ava had ghost jobs to do and Miranda sold her services as Medic on top of simply mercenary to Han in the meantime to get the people they freed from slavery off world. The mercenary leader wasn't as kind to simply went them the ship, but Miranda had heard a lil bit of gossip that she was trying to clean the drug dens and most of the slavers as she wasn't keen on any of them. If she finished her clean up, Paradise might actually become rather safe as long as Deadman's Port doesn't bomb it into oblivion and this was teh reason why Ava and Miranda were here now.

When Miranda returned and asked if there was a goal Han wanted her to start with. Miranda looked at her friend." Weeeeeeeell............."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The time for the contract between the group and Mira Han was rapidly diminishing. It's been nearly 2 weeks now, Nick would be returning from dropping the girl to pick them up soon. Ava's tasks were many for that timeframe and there wasn't any chances to meet up personally with Miranda during that time. They could still keep in touch with the comms at rare cases, but they simply were too far apart for their telepathy to work.

All in all O'Banon's operation was rather big which was normal considering he had control over most of Dead Man's Rock settlements. Mira Han had sent Ava to secure a few secret warehouses and turn off the alarms and defenses so her forces could take them over with nearly no casualties. There was also some other sabotage missions, infiltrations and so on. Finally there was the big one, the PsiEmitter. As the biggest issue and the most important assent in O'Banon's possession right now, the device was being kept on one of the battlecruisers under his control. This was technically the flagship of them all. The biggest they had, the most modern one and the one that had the heaviest ammount of modifications. It quite a few aspects it probably surpassed even some of the best ships in the Dominion fleet. The defenses adn security certainly was raised to a whole other level.

Mira Han didn't even have a way to actually bring Ava into the ship. The only thing she could provide on her end for this, was to locate a cargo shop that would rejoin with the BC that was in orbit to drop of supplies and have Ava get onto it that way.

The cargo ship was taking off from Deadman's Port. Mira Han smuggled Ava into the city easily to allow her to spare the drain on her generators and the like and to safe up time since they got a new info just as the crew Ava was working with to provide her with all logistical support and the like was about to head off. One of the people of the transport vehicle(a van kinda thing after all they had jeeps in sc1 makes sense there are otehr regular vehicles) left the front seat and through the small door from teh driver area to the bag area of the van, handed Ava a datapad." New info just arrived." He said with serious voice." Apparently O'Banon has found a confederate scientist who had worked on that thing in the past to help him crack it and set it up. Han confirmed it with your friend, they both agreet, you need to take out the scientist as well. It's someone called Salazar Valenko." He explained, though the info was on the datapad given to the ghost. Anyway the picture on the profile showed a photo of a man in his 70ties. He had glasses, was balding, had a huge moustache and graying hair.

"Your friend didn't have mych info on him, but did confirm that he was part of that project. Said that he was one fo those obsessed with finding a away to control the zerg. Apparently he among others believed those psi-thigns were the first step to it." The man added and threw Ava a curious glance." You friend made me tell you that she would have wished to personally shoot his brains out, but since she cannot get to him in the BC, she has to rely on you for this one. To be precise added to make it a sure kill... one to the heart one to the brain. Explosive rounds to make sure no amount of nanites can help him."
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Keira Kelly
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Re: SC - Fugitives

Post by Keira Kelly »

The trip in the back of the transport vehicle had not been a fun one for Ava. The cushioning was shot and a number of times, Ava had ended up off the crate she had been sitting on and on the floor. Added to that, she was pretty sure that the exhaust system had a leak in it somewhere along the line. Not enough to overcome but it had left her with a pounding headache and her nose and lungs feeling decidedly gritty. She had opted to leave her mask off for the journey but she guessed that had been a mistake. It was also not well temperature controlled back here and despite her suit, she was not at all comfortable. Cramped, hot and with a headache. Not fun. But in the end, Ava was not one to complain about physical discomfort.

Eventually the vehicle came to a stop and Ava heard the engine turn off. She could feel the minds of the driver and passenger in the forward compartment and knew that this was the predesignated stop, that the start of this operation was getting close. The door beside her, leading from the cabin area to the rear where she had been travelling, cracked open, admitting one of Mira Han's people. He quickly passed her a datapad which she quickly read over as he spoke. It was a personnel file on a scientist apparently. The picture was of a much older man, definitely not very active looking. She glanced up at Han's man with a raised eyebrow. As the explanation of who this scientist was progressed, the eyebrow sunk and Ava's face became an expression of coldness.

The more that was explained about the scientist, the more cold Ava became as she stared down at the profile on the datapad. Her head snapped up suddenly. "Even if she could have gotten to him... he is mine to kill...." she said venomously. If looks could kill, hers would have at that moment. Her temper was already up at the thought of this scientist but... being insulted wasn't helping. Even if the words had come from Miranda. Especially so! Ava was a ghost. She never killed without being sure of it. Despite the anger, she snorted a laugh. "One explosive round in any of those locations and there won't be much of a body left, even with all the nanites in the universe..." she muttered.

She stood, stretched out all the kinks of the bumpy and cramped ride. Truth be told, the past two weeks hadn't been much more pleasant and she was sore all over. Ava could barely remember the last time she had actually got to sleep in a cot, let alone an actual bed. Hell, it had been at the start of the two weeks, hadn't it..... The rest of the time, she had had to sleep wherever she could, often times, tucked away in some wreckage or abandoned building, getting only a couple of hours at a time at most before having to be on her way again. The best naps she had had where the times when Mira Han had been able to arrange transport to the far-flung target locations and Ava had been able to sleep, albeit briefly, during the trips. She was so past sleepy at this point that she felt almost wide-awake. She just hoped her decision-making capabilities weren't too badly degraded by the lack of proper sleep. She had always scored well in sleep deprivation activities at the Academy though.

"This cargo ship I'm supposed to be infiltrating, it still a go?" she asked.

The crewman nodded. "We just got confirmation of that too. We had someone watching it. It's there, and apparently filed a flight plan to leave within the next hour." he answered. "You want me to show you a map of where it is?"

Ava pulled up her hood and pulled her mask on before she replied. "Just walk in the direction of the ship. Go for a stroll. Pass as close to that one as you can. I'll be following you in stealth."

The crewman frowned. "Should I signal something when it's the right ship? Like scratch my ear or something?"

Ava paused for a moment, staring at the man. "Uh... no." she answered shortly. "Just think in your head 'this is the ship'. That's all I need..." she instructed. Maybe she should cut the man some slack, she realized. Not many people ever dealt with high-level Psionics. It would be like trying to describe how to listen for an alarm to a deaf person. She wanted to ask about security aboard that cargo ship but... she could already sense that this man had no idea. Outside the ship there were some people watching but... Mira's people were not able to get inside without notice. "Okay, time to get going. Lead the way." she gestured, the extended arm towards the door only visible for a few seconds before her form shimmered into invisibility.

As she followed the man out of the truck into the hot afternoon after he had conferred with the driver, Ava was glad to be moving again, to be able to stretch.. for the moment anyways. As she walked, she noted missile turrets around the port landing bays. She wasn't exactly happy about that.... Some of those things could see through her cloak. Would these ones? They were fairly old style but who knew if or how they were upgraded. The best she could do was try to keep her distance as she followed. There were a couple of times she had to take severe detours to avoid turrets but she always kept the crewman in sight.

Eventually though, she could feel from his mind that they had come to the right ship. Of course, though... he stopped walking and raised a hand to rub at an ear, kind of glancing around. She quietly growled to herself. While Mira might have loyal people working for her, they weren't always all that experienced, especially at operations like this. With a sigh, she increased her speed, pushing past the crewman, giving him a hard tap on the shoulder as she passed to let him know to head back and she continued on towards the ship. The other bad thing was.. there was another damned missile turret very near the ship, on the far side. She was fine now but as she got to the ramp of the ship, that might be another matter... It would be close, at least.

During the final approach, Ava began to use scattered debris and stacks of crates as cover, despite being cloaked, using her mind to scan around. This particular cargo ship had a fair bit of activity going on, being close to departure, as the final cargo was being loaded. There was one stack of crates nearby... She found the mind of the lead labourer and he was thinking about how to get these last crates onboard. They were empties, to be used for.. something, he didn't know, for the cruiser this shipment was headed to. That... would work, she thought.

Ava crept out to the palette of the empty crates and paused, choosing one kind of in the middle. With a glance and another mental scan all around, she waited until she was sure that no one was watching and opened the lid of the crate and slipped inside, securing the lid once more above her. This was even more cramped than the ride in the transport vehicle had been... and she'd have to wait an hour before the journey up to the ship, plus however long that would take. This... was not going to be fun. At least she had a closed respiration system with this Umojan ghost suit so she wouldn't have to worry about air for now.

Suddenly, she felt the box she was in rock as the palette was shifted. Eventually, her box was picked up, by probably someone in an exosuit of some sort and begin to be carried towards the ship. The movement paused, the mind of the labourer wondering if there was something in this crate. It had felt heavier than the last. He shook it and Ava had to brace herself to keep from flying around but she just managed it. She could feel that the labourer hadn't noticed any shifts in weight but he was still curious. She reached out with her mind into his. It's nothing... she tried to convey, just your imagination that this one feels different..... Somehow, she didn't know how, it seemed to work. She felt the mental shrug. He decided he didn't get paid to snoop through someone else's cargo, and continued on to the ship.

Ava had purposefully left her cloak on and just as she felt the angle that she was being carried ascend upwards, her cloak failed. Damn, that would have been bad had she not been in the box. Just as she had thought, the edge of the detector field must have been covering this ship... After a minute, the feel of walking stopped and her crate was dropped. Ow... Just as suddenly, it was knocked over on its side, the lid-side of it hitting something with a dull thud. She hadn't expected that either and she slammed into the lid, though thankfully it did not fall open. Something was pressing against it. The internal wall of the ship? She got the vague impression from the labourer that he was fitting the empty crates against the wall. Well then.. that just might make it a little more difficulty to get out of here once she arrived on the cruiser. At least she could call on more strength than a normal person but.. well, that obstacle would have to be figured out when she came to it. For now, all she could do was rearrange herself as comfortably as possible and.. wait.

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

Ava awoke with a start at a loud metallic sound that reverberated around her box. Damn, had she fallen asleep? Once the cargo ship had gotten airborne, the ride had been very dull and in complete darkness. Her tiredness had caught up with her it seemed. In short order, there were more workers entering the cargo ship and removing the crates, moving them.. to the cruiser's storage. She worked the same trick again with the mind carrying her's as she had before, pleased to see it worked again. Eventually she was set down. She would have to wait though until all the crates were unloaded. This was one situation though where being a telepath was invaluable. She would be able to feel when the coast was clear.....

After what seemed an eternity, it finally felt so. Ava activated her cloak before she cracked open the lid of the container, thankfully this time it had been placed the right way up, and glanced out, making sure. It looked like a storage room. Seeing that it was currently empty, she quickly jumped out of her crate and headed over to a far corner, where a number of other boxes formed a small, sheltered alcove in which she took up residence and began to try to get her bearings.
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Re: SC - Fugitives

Post by rivaan »

The storage room wasn't of the biggest ones that could be found on a Battle Cruiser. THe crates also weren't the biggest ones. It was clearly this wasn't made to store things like weapons, spare parts or ammo for either the ship or the troops. Instead the crates were smaller with different brands on them, mostly common luxuries like food or drinks or the like. All in all stuff of little importance on a military ship, but then again this was not a military ship was it. It was a outlaw one. Basically mercs/pirates. Still there was no one close enough to the storage room so it was probably low in the priority right now.

Still there wasn't too much time to waste. No one knew when the ship might mover or a random search party might happen or the like. The state of the ship showed that it was actually near brand new! Even in the storage room, a near sheen could be seen on the metal panels on the walls. The lights were bright, clearly factory brand new. How criminals got their hands on a brand new off the shipyard Battlecruiser would be a subject to many scholary debates, but the likely answer was credits. A whole lot of credits.

In any case, the air was clean and fresh and there was nary a tremble across the ship's frame. All was tuned and new, no 'patch ups' probably. From reading the signs on the wall in the storage room, Ava as trained and educated ghost, would know that designation. It was indicating the storage room was at the port bow of the ship, at the lowest levels. Here it was mostly maintenance tunnels, misc storage and other lesser systems. There were few things of huge interest on this level and honestly those were the weapon mounts systems and defenseive batteries. Those usually had fulltime staff working around them to keep an eye on them and rapidly fix issues or the like. Still luckily those weren't close to her current position right now, so she could easily avoid them if she so decides. The targets on the ships consisted of the scientist, the emitter and possibly the captain if she manages to get to the bridge which on itself with be a hard run even for a ghost because of all the automated security and detectors for the bridge plus security once the stealth fails. There were alternative locations across the ship to try to take the captain out, but the priorities were on the labs right now. The only problem was... on the standard BC schematics there wasn't any locations put for the labs. It could be located across the whole gigantic ship!

Maybe some spying was in order.
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Keira Kelly
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Re: SC - Fugitives

Post by Keira Kelly »

Ava sat there, hidden for the moment and closed her eyes, feeling what she could with her mind. Nobody close by.. that was good. It wasn't really the people on board that concerned her though. Would a ship like this have any kind of detectors on board? Of course there would be security systems that had limited detection, but it generally did not link back to central security. If it had truly been military.. maybe? It wasn't exactly standard, as far as she knew, at least not within a ship. She was hoping it would be even more unlikely on a ship owned by bandits. They would usually have to be more concerned with threats from the outside than worrying about a cloaked enemy, which was rare to begin with, within. Still, dismissing something as very unlikely was something that got ghosts killed. There was no way for her to sense a mechanical detector so.. she would just have to be sure that she always kept an escape route open behind her and kept her eyes open for hidden turrets and the like.

Okay, so just keep her mind open for any hint of someone detecting her presence.. Easy enough. Then the hard targets. Eliminate the captain. Eliminate the scientist. Her best bet was to find their quarters and take them each out there. The scientist, Salazar Valenko, would be the best to take out first. In his quarters, nobody would miss him for several hours at least, if they assumed he had gone in there to get some sleep. The captain, again it would be easiest to take him out either in or near his quarters where there would hopefully be less protection... but him she would leave in the hallway to be found. If what she had been told, his death would cause the crew to change sides. She only hoped that was accurate and not start a man-hunt for her.

The final target was the Psi-Emitter. That was the one she hadn't figured out yet. Explosives on it would damage the ship, and she wasn't that well-versed in battlecruiser design, nor if the device was behind held near anything that would react badly to an explosion. Ava certainly did not want this to be a suicide mission. She had every intention of seeing Miranda and Nick again. She had promised Nick they would be together again at the end of the two weeks. After this mission. He had to be on his way back already. Well.. the first two targets first and then she could decide about the device once she scouted it out.

First things first though: she had to find where the labs were. Where the Emitter was. Once she began killing, her time to act would shrink and knowing the location to head to was important. Ava took a deep breath and stood up, heading out of the storage room. She paused at the doorway, looking at a map of the ship that was on the wall there. She was in the lower sections, understandable. Hm... she would have to find someone to tell her where things were though.

She moved out into the hall, slow at first, rifle up and ready for any automated defences. There was another benefit to the Umojan mask she wore: it highlighted imperfections in the walls, showing where plates of metal were not solid against their neighbour... hopefully that would allow her to see some of the defences that might exist before they saw her. Maybe. What she needed to find now was to find someone that would not be missed. She kept moving down the hall, eventually feeling minds getting closer. How to do this... how to do this... She needed one of those minds to show her where the locations she needed were. Would subtlety work or would she have to accomplish that by force? It took a while before she knew people were nearby. Unfortunately by this point, her cloak only had a matter of minutes left of charge and she could feel the strain of using it. She needed a rest soon but... first....

She concentrated on one particular mind, chosen because of a lack of resistance to her, a bit of dullness to the quality of the thoughts. A mind that was easily swayed, gullible. She probed the thoughts. Shift change was coming up and this guy was looking forward to getting a drink in the cantina. Or more than one. He really liked his drink, apparently. More than anything else, it was what was in his thoughts. An alcoholic? Well, that probably explained the dullness. He wasn't even thinking about socializing with compatriots. Just getting drunk. She could use that...

Ava hid in another storage area, far enough away but still close enough to keep her link to that mind, allowing her cloak.. and herself to regenerate as she hid behind crates. Eventually, she could feel that it was shift change. Time to get to work. She had done something like this once or twice before, and though being unpractised at it, tried again. She gently reached into the mind, not merely.... 'listening' now but trying to feed it with subtle commands. You know there is a store of the 'good stuff', she thought at it, trying to send an imagining of having seen bottles in crates like the one she had come in on. The really good stuff, just down the hall, kept for the higher ups. But they won't miss one bottle. You know you want it... Take it, drink it and then deal with the evidence. They won't ever know it was you. Finally the mind agreed, thinking her just another part of itself.

In short order, a figure stepped into the darkened room she was in. Ava cloaked, moving around silently behind the figure. Suddenly, she grabbed him, planting a hand over his mouth and jaw, keeping him as silent as was possible. The other hand held a knife which went to his throat. "Quiet!" she hissed, right beside his ear. "Stop fighting and do exactly as I say...." When he froze, she yanked him back, pulling him into deeper shadows. Finally near a corner, she twisted around, shoving him into the corner but still keeping her knife on his throat and hand across his jaw. She kept the cloak on, letting him only feel her there, not see for the added intimidation in the dark corner. "Where are the labs?" she asked, keeping her voice so low that he could only barely hear her. "Where are the sleeping quarters? What decks and areas are both located? If you promise not to yell for help, I'll release your mouth..."

( Ava should be able to feel if this guy is going to comply. If he isn't she is going to keep her hand there but try to read the locations from his mind. Asking a question about something usually immediately makes someone think of the answer even if they don't intend on answering XD. If he will comply, then she will remove it and hear the answer as well as reading it from him. )
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Re: SC - Fugitives

Post by rivaan »

The man was scared out of his wits right about now. Were the shadows this scary before? He was horrified of the dark right now. He couldn't see anything, but there was a female here. She felt too strong. He couldn't see her, but felt her hands and knife. Heard her voice, but couldn't see anything. In the other side of the room that seemed so distant like a whole continent away, there was light. But he felt the light was impossible to reach.

He heard the woman speak, his mind was nearly frozen from the terror, he was one of the outlaws here, but well... he was only really a low level thug at most. He stared at the invisible thing that held him, well not really seeing it, but he could swear his terror was given shape before his eyes.

He froze all over, not daring to move even an inch anymore, just holding steady and really terrified until the woman continued to speak about what she was wanting. He nodded really carefully when she told him that she'd let his mouth go if he didn't scream. Well he wasn't going to, he wanted to live. He was betting on the small chance that she might actually keep him alive now. To hell with teh crew... it was his life here! Besides these people didn't pay him enough! He was told no one would make it to this deck unless there was a boarding party! They weren't even in battle, they were over the planet right now, supposedly safe!

"Labs?" He asked in confusion, not sure what exactly she meant for a few moments, before in his mind flashed the fact htey were doing a lot of modifications and the like at a section of the ship. THey weren't told what was there, but he had wandered all over the other decks and sections, that one was so well protected and guarded. No one from the people who worked there were allowed to meet with the rest of the crew. All the guards lived and only stayed at the section. The rest weren't allowed to get near it.

"Not sure if it's the Labs you search, but there is a place on the ship that the rest of us aren't allowed to. " He explained with shivering voice." It's on the Broad side... there's a section that covers part of 3 decks there, one over hte other. Most entrances to it were sealed, leaving only a small number plus it's own secured landing bay for cargo and transport ships to land... Been over the rest of the ship there weren't any labs there." He was telling the truth here after all. He also quickly added the deck numbers of the locations. Basically in the middle of the ship vertiality wise, at hte core of it, most protected on all sides.

"As for sleeping quarters..." He mumbled." There are those all over the ship!" He added, afraid she'd kill him now. He wasn't able to tell her the ones she needed since he didn't know what she was searching for. He knew it was unlikely for her to let him live if she told him what she wanted. He was SOOOOOOO dead." Please don't kill me! I promise I will keep quiet. You won't ever hear about me or they hear about you!" he was begging, he was actualyl honest here. He was of the dumber, but honest to their words thugs. It was his destiny to be a small fly that never acomplishes anything grand in villany and maybe even one day would be secretly doing something nice like helping out old folks or feeding street animals or the like in secret. He wasn't a good guy per say, but wasn't an outright evil one either.
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Keira Kelly
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Re: SC - Fugitives

Post by Keira Kelly »

Ava could not only clearly feel the man's fear and played on it, but she could also feel how easily he reached his tipping point. Had he been military, this probably wouldn't have worked. Pirates though.. they were in it for the greed, for themselves, not for any higher ideals. Making his life be the price if he impeded her was all that needed to be done to get him to spill all he knew. This was not a man who would ever put himself at risk for another, but only for personal gains. Despicable. While it was true that Ava had killed... and had quite the count by now, but she had never, not once in her whole life, killed a person for personal gain, unless you counted in self-defence. Killed because she had been ordered to, yes, but never to gain a reward for herself. She glared at the man she held in the dark, her visor showing her a mostly clear image despite the lack of light.

She slowly took her hand from his mouth and jaw, but kept the knife pressed to his throat, below his voice box. Any sign of threat, and the cut would go deep. Deep enough to sever his trachea, which would leave him unable to make any sound. And she could do that as fast as he thought to rebel. Thankfully, it didn't have to come to that though as the man quickly began to answer her questions, giving her locations of the entry points to what had to be the labs. Three decks... damn. That would make it harder to try to locate the Psi-Emitter. She could only hope there was access between each deck within that secured section.

"Damn..." she muttered out loud at hearing that quarters were all over. In a true military ship, they tended to be grouped, as it had been on the Illician's ship, though usually grouped by units or the like. These pirates really had no sense of order. He likely wouldn't know where the scientists were roomed either, as he hadn't even realized that the secured section was labs. This was definitely going to be harder than she had hoped. Hm... What if the information though from Mira's people was true though? She let the cloak slip off, sensing there wasn't anyone else close enough by right now to walk past, though she kept her senses open for anyone approaching. Her previously invisible form became a dark form in the unlit room, with strips of cyan light moving in lines across certain sections of her body and the eye lenses of her visor in the mask glowing red as she stared at the man.

"Last question then." she began. "Who are you loyal to on this ship? Are you loyal to your captain? Or someone else? Tell me the truth, not what you might think I want to hear or you are dead. And I can guarantee I WILL know if you are lying to me.... If you have any clue as to what I am, you would know the truth of that. I am IN your head...." she said, leaning closer as she pressed the knife just a bit harder to his flesh for a second, emphasizing the threat. So far he had been honest that he wanted to live and was cooperating thus, but, he was only cooperating as long as she was the only immediate threat to his life. She only hoped that Mira Han's reputation might be a better carrot to dangle in front of this creature. "What would you and your shipmates do if your captain was to.. turn up dead?" If she could in fact turn some of this crew against the captain, get their help to draw him out...

"Someone has plans to liberate this ship.. and well, my being here is proof she has the means to do it. So either I go on a bloodbath and eliminate everyone on board... or your captain is the one to meet the axe and the rest of you... the rest of you pledge yourself to Mira Han. What choice will you and your crew make?" she asked, keeping her voice low enough that he could only barely hear her. She paused, waiting, scanning his mind, not only for what choice he would make but any hints at his thoughts about his crew mates and their loyalties.
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Re: SC - Fugitives

Post by rivaan »

The man was listening to Ava speak for a while, asking him questions and finally she started asking about loyalty and the captain and so on. He was confused, at first until she finished her speech. He blinked, staring at her. He knew what she was... sort of. He had heard stories, rumors and the like. That was a ghost! Well he suspected it when he realized his attacker was invisible that seemed to be the main point of many of the stories after all, you never saw them coming until it was too late.

"Eh... the captain...?" He replied in a confused expression and voice when she asked who would he be loyal to and what would happen if the captain was found dead. While the ship was rather new and bought by O'Bannon, in the end a pirate crew only cared for their own captain and crew at the end. Sure they worked for him, but a crew was only really loyal to itself in the end. If their captain worked for O'Bannon, so did they. Also as for the captain. The man thoughts were a rather jumbled mess on whom he supported cause he was confused what exactly she was trying to ask here. This was the difference in experience. To the situation he had grown in and how he viewd the ship, the crew and the captain could be summed in a phrase that Miranda had mentioned a few times in casual conversations when she was telling Ava stories to pass the time during travels and that was - The king is dead, Long live the king! The man had no care who was the captain as long as he got his benefits really.

This was also probably the reason why O'Bannon's personal troops were located to guard hte labs, not people from the pirate crew. With those guarding his prized possession, he could be at least somewhat calm about the safety of the emitter and the rest of the lab and all the things happening in it.

"Han? What?" He asked in confusion as if thinking really hard about something." Well... pretty sure the next captain in case the current one dies is Wesker. Fella got elected by the team leaders a few months back." The man mumbled as if thinking, where Mira Han got into the situation. He was honestly a low ranked person even among the crew. As Ava could note earlier, he just worked for whomever was running the ship at the moment, anything beyond that was out of his desires to care for. Though Wesker was someone Ava had heard of. In the files from Mira Han, that was the 'alias' for her man in the BC. Still even for a pirate crew, the folks here had at least made a proper succession rules. A big pirate crew had a lot of teams and devisions and people of importance and the like. A number of people on a BC numbers in the thousands after all. Thus infighting wasn't really a good thing to have most of the time. This proved the way to reach the conclusion that the leaders of the different teams and the current captain would chose who the next one would be in case of emergency. Poor current captain, had no idea he promoted and put the mantle on a guy who was just waiting for the moment to take the reigns.
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