Heart of Star v2.0

[losthawken]

Heart of Star v2.0

In a distant future, the gap between man and the stars has been bridged. The expanse of the galaxy was found to be more alive and more hostile than previously imagined. But the discovery of a new energy source continues to drive human kind deeper and deeper into the depths of the void; and further into the realm of the mysterious Specters that claim it as their own.

More than an energy source, the crystal shards for which brave souls venture into the depths of the galaxy, emit a unique radiation that draws energy from the universe at the sub-quantum level. Harnessing these shards and tuning their energies can produce massive amounts of power and generate fields with unique and advantageous properties. These properties make the shards incredibly valuable commodities to governments and to trading organizations.

It is for the chance at unbelievable wealth that the Shard Seekers risk their lives to harvest shards from the space faring creatures that live on the outer rim of the galaxy. They venture alone or in small groups to trap the more mundane shard baring life forms while avoiding the more dangerous ones and especially the questionably sentient Specters whose raids on the settlements have become more frequent in recent times.

The Game:
This game will be science fiction with a hint of steam-punk in style as the shard seekers tend to use simplistic but reliable shard powered tools and devices. The feel will largely be up to you however.

To learn about the universe and the feel of the game please read these short story snippets (http://www.writingforums.org/blog.php?u=10381&blogcategoryid=253)

You will be starting at a Shard Seeker rendezvous, where they gather to trade in the shards they have collected and to re-stock their supplies. There will be many types of people at the gathering, from dealers and company representatives to, tradesmen and military escorts. You may have your pick of any profession you can imagine, however, we will need at least a couple Shard Seekers on board for the game to work.

The game will begin with a call to rescue a shard seeker stranded out on the Outer Rim. The story is going to be written mostly by YOU, and as such there are positions for a main protagonist and some supporting protagonist available to anyone with experience who wants them. These roles come with a few minimal constraints that shouldn’t effect the development of the character you want to create. Contact me by PM if you are interested.

If you feel you have a good grasp of shard technologies please make use of it. Shard technology is still relatively new in this universe so more traditional tech is acceptable. The concept of using shards is to make very low-tech tools useful in a science fiction environment. For example an arrow or bolt or bullet shot through an energizing field becomes an energy blast. Likewise simple rods can be used to shape tachyon fields into ‘solar sails’ to provide lightweight and simple transport. See a description of fields below:

Shard Fields
De-energizing/defensive shield – These fields convert any energy including, laser blasts and kinetic energy, into matter. The efficiency of this transfer is proportional to the strength of the shard, the intensity of the field at the point of impact and the amount of energy to be converted. Middle range energy impacts, such as bullets and energy blasts are stopped easily, while interactions at the farther ends of the spectrum, such as a stealthy knife strike or a nuclear explosion will pass through the field more effectively.

Energizing/Blast field – Essentially the opposite of a defense shield; this field converts a percentage of matter into a stream of radiation that follows the trajectory of the original object when it contacted the field. Again, the efficiency of the transfer is proportional to the intensity of the field, and the strength of the shard. In general the efficiency is much lower than a defensive field and results in a blast more akin to a pulse laser than an atomic bomb.

Tachyon field - Sub quantum Tachyon energy was discovered to flow between the stars in celestial winds. Tach-fields harness these currents and translate them into kinetic energy, moving shuttles, skiffs and shard seekers on glowing energy sails across and between the planets.

Shard fields are shaped and controlled by special carbon fiber rods. Be creative with how you use the shards, feel free to use the short story as a guide but keep your devices relatively simple and not so powerful that they god-mode the game.

Specters:

Specters are dangerous space faring creatures that will be developed more in story. Characters need to know that they are intelligent and hate humans. Their sentience is questionable, but one thing is certain they, want your shards. A specter cannot be truly killed, but a strong blast at its core will slow it down enough to allow escape.

AI:

Most individuals on the frontier have a companion AI to control their shards fields do menial tasks and keep them sane. AI’s are not quite self aware, but can develop personalities. However, please avoid turning your AI into a second character as this will become cumbersome. In the game they will be used primarily to develop your characters and expose the plot. As such the GM may take over your AI from time to time to move the plot further.

Character Template:

Keep your templates short and sweet, I prefer you to introduce your character by telling in story rather than by posting a detailed profile. The exception being the history and equipment which you should PM ONLY to the GM so that they can be not only approved but also so that the plot can be integrated your character.

Name:

Gender:

Occupation:

Personality:
Age:

History & Equipment: (PLEASE PM TO THE GM)

The Rules:
1. GM is law and can break and modify his own rules without notice.

2. No god moding. Strive for balance among all other players.

3. No controlling other characters or named Non-Player Characters (NPCs).

4. You cannot kill other players or named NPCs unless told to do so.

5. Players can make generic (unnamed) NPCs if necessary so long as they do not obscure the goals or plot and do not persist for more than a couple posts.

6. No out of character content (OOC). Keep that to the Discussion Thread.

7. Please use third person perspective to maintain the flow of the story

8. Write the NEXT part of the story. Avoid re-capping. Use showing in the present to show how the character responds to previous posts; avoid re-telling entire previous posts from your character’s perspective.

9. First Post: Character Template

10. Second Post: Introduction in the bar

11. All questions should be directed to the GM.

12. No one-liners or short posts. Let’s shoot for 100 words +

13. Read all posts

14. Abandoned characters will be re-assigned or removed by GM.

15. FLAMING, INSULTING, OR ANY OTHER TYPE OF HARSHNESS THAT IS DELIBERATELY USED TO HURT SOMEONE ELSE’S FEELINGS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED AT ALL, NOR ACCEPTED ANYWHERE ELSE AROUND THE FORUM.

16. Edit before posting.

17. View the Discussion Thread for less formal details and to direction in the game.

18. Dialogue from other posts should be put in BOLD type

19. Please feel welcome to make suggestions and negotiate with the GM!

[losthawken]

Game approved! PM me your profiles! I'm hoping to get started posting within a week or so. All OOC (aside from approved character profiles) belong in the Discussion thread HERE (http://www.writingforums.org/showthread.php?t=48120&p=848999)

[Earphone]

Name: Gertrude "Gerty" Ruth Wingleton

Gender: Female

Occupation: Shard Seeker

Appearance: Very short, around five feet tall, with a large round face. Her eyes are grey, and sunken deep into her skull, with heavy shadows around them. Her hair is sloppily dyed pink, with brown roots showing. Her hair is self-cut, and hangs messily around her head, with bangs covering much of her face, with the exception of two small coves for her eyes.

Personality: Withdrawn, and sarcastic. She generally acts out of self-interest.
Age: 24

[Earphone]

(Double-post)

[Mr Mr]

Name: Rael Searwin (pronounced rail or rye el)

Gender: Male

Occupation: Became a mercenary at 18 quit aged 24 and now works as a shard gatherer.

Personality: Rael takes a while to trust people but will never abanden someone he cares for (or needs).

Appearance: Stands at 6ft 2. His body is muscular with short black hair. His eyes are a baby blue.

Age: 26

History & Equipment: Rael carries an energising drill that converts the matter it drills into energy. He uses a special glove to release the energy for offensive attacks. He wears simple clothes over a kevlar vest.

[Question]

Name: Jax Roberts

Gender: Male

Age: 21

Occupation: Pirate, thief and shard seeker

Appearance: He is about 5’7 with a muscled build. Jax right arm has been replaced by a robotic prostethis that extends from his shoulder. He has sharp features only added to by a crooked nose. His eyes are somewhat startling due to the fact that one is brown and the other is blue and his long and shaggy hair is dark brown.

Personality: Confident (some might say cocky), sardonic/sarcastic, definitely selfish, a bit narcissistic, and can be cruel or dangerous.

Weapon: His robotic arm has a tachyon whip, essentialy a metal whip that can be quickly extended from his arm and that can generate a energy field around it. It is a deadly weapon that can slash or latch onto things. Also his robotic arm is extremely strong, and can be used in close quarter combat (In other words he likes punching people with it).

[losthawken]

Name: David Hawkins

Gender: Male

Occupation: Shard seeker

Personality: David is aloof and disinterested in most things he keeps his history close to his vest, but wears his emotions on his sleeve.

Age: 35

Appearance: David is a man of medium build and height with dark hair and hazel eyes. He is rarely seen not wearing his shard-harness and never without his standard seeker issue fitted E-suit which protects him from the vacuum and harshness of space.

Bio (included for story purposes, see Discussion): Born to a poor family on a failing outpost, David got his start in the United Front Corps as an infantry man but washed out within two years. He hitchhiked across the colonized planets and stations surviving on odd jobs and more than a little petty larceny. Eight years ago he found his niche in the shard seeking market. He soon became known as one of the most daring, reckless, and profitable seekers on the outer rim. He was last seen at a seeker trading post saying that he was heading deep into the Outer Rim. Six months have passed since that time and neither the trading company for which he was contracted nor any other seeker has heard from him.

[Evil Flamingo]

Name: Amber Rugarde

Gender: Female

Occupation: Off and on shard seeker; whatever other jobs come her way. Some ship maintenance and mechanical experience.

Personality: Appears rather chipper to most people, but under the surface she is one of the most unhappy people imaginable. Hard to not like as an acquaintance, and impossible to actually know as a friend. Amber has the personality of two people; a rough and rowdy tomboy, and a deeply scarred girl. Nobody’s seen the latter.

Age: 26

Appearance: Rather unkempt, but not dirty. She wears light clothes, and has one platinum ring on her finger. Amber is 5’ 7”, and is very slender and light. Her skin is very tough, and under her clothes are many old scars. Only a partial line of one of these scars can be seen running up her spine. Dark Brown hair, green eyes.

Equipment: An AI Amber calls Jay, who tries to keep her in order, and sane. She has a bag with very few items that are possibly meaningful to her, and a shard in one of her pockets. Also, a small knife is hidden up her sleeve, attached to her arm by a strap.

[W.H. Clay]

Name: Eric Reese

Gender: Male

Occupation: Shard Field Specialist, Tachyon Engineer.

Appearance: Eric is 5'10 and lanky. He wear loose cloths and multi-lensed spectacles. He has messy blond hair and blue eyes if you ever get to see them. He usually gets a little too dirty before washing because the possible stabilization of his Universal Tachyon Nebulized Relocation stream is much more important.

Personality: Eric is extremely smart, The extensive time spent in books and lectures causes him to be awkward around people.

Age: 30

Equipment: Wears a wrist AI with constant access to the information networks. He uses it for on-the-fly programming, planning, calculation, and research. He has named his AI Einstein, consequently he is the only thing that can carry on a steady conversation with Eric. The bracer goes from his wrist up 3/4ths of his forearm and is large and rounded, giving him an off balance look. There are several thick two inch knobs spaced evenly along the bracers top surrounding the lump of grated metal that shields a golf ball sized shard glowing with a vibrant purple hue. Upon a closer look you see that they are actually mini Tach Rods. The palm side is a data display, constantly showing charts, temperatures, and other random text. His Shard harness is a large awkward shape compared to most Harnesses. Chiefly he has a large pack on the back half giving him almost a hunched look. And he has two long tach rods extending from each shoulder. One is the common carbon Fiber while the other is a bone colored gray.

[W.H. Clay]

(Double Post)

[Forgotten_Memories]

Name: Gabrielle Escalante

Occupation: Shard Seeker + Medic

Personality: While she takes her work very seriously, Gabrielle is always up for any kind of fun.

Age: 32

Appearance: She is of a slim build, about 5'8". Her skin is lightly tanned, and she has straight black hair that comes down past her shoulders, which is usually tied up in a ponytail.

Equipment: She has shards imbedded into her Tach-Suit to help with creating de-energising fields. On her left hip she holds her Tach-Rod, and there is a pistol holstered on her right. On the back of her tach-suit she has a medi-pack, and her ship is equipped with medical supplies.

[losthawken]

****Game Start****

The dry wind of the desert planet blew through the open air bar, ruffling the dirty tarp canopy. The covering stretched between the shuttle that provided an array of intoxicating beverages to a set of saloon style doors that allowed entrance into the roped-off sitting area beneath. It was quiet inside the bar, save for a few drunken seekers rambling on about glorious hauls of shards and narrow escapes from specters.
A peculiar group of individuals sat at a table nearest the bar. They were all there for the same purpose. Outside the bar the lanes between shuttles were busy with activity as seekers and traders bustled about their business preparing their supplies and securing their fortunes before the short lived rendezvous was over. But inside, the eclectic group waited quietly, mulling over the morning's solemn news; a well known seeker was stranded in the deepest depths of the Outer Rim. Most people would have abandoned David Hawkins to his fate. The seeker had been missing for weeks but his beacon had been detected just that morning. Even if they were be able to find his beacon, chances were more than likely that Hawkins was dead already. But still this group gathered. Seekers, were not the kind to abandon one another.

All they lacked was their mission leader. Johnathan “Bear” Billows, one of the most experienced seekers on the rim had agreed to lead the team. But the legendary seeker was late, and so the group waited, and wondered what fate had befallen David Hawkens so many millions of miles away.

[W.H. Clay]

"I think David will be fine when we finally get there, He was always the one to get out of impossible spots when I worked with him." Eric mumbled nervously clearly not sure of his own words.
"What to drink." The barkeep made his way to their table.
"Water," Eric refused to make eye contact with the grizzled man. "Preferably filtered."
The man laughed with a gravely voice that could only be earned by years of the galaxies roughest liquor.
"Water." He shook his head and looked on to the next person at the table...

[Evil Flamingo]

Amber had already been sitting in her same spot at the table for hour. When it came to something she got paid for, Amber was never late. When there isn’t more than ten dollars in your pocket, and your AI keeps telling you you should eat, there’s probably a problem that should have been addressed weeks ago. But Amber didn’t particularly care, and instead was more focused on how much she lost last night gambling. And then about how she could earn it back off these guys.

Amber dug through her backpack for a deck of cards. She found her worn out cards, soft from the oils of too many players’ hands. She shuffled the deck while staring off into the desert waste of the desert, and then dealt herself out a game of pyramid solitaire. She didn’t particularly care for the game; she just wanted someone else to ask her to play cards. Present herself as less of a threat that way

[Forgotten_Memories]

The waiter turned to her next, but Gabrielle was too captivated with what the man beside her had said. He was odd, one of those intellectual types - used shards rather than harvested them. In all her years of shard seeking, Gabby had learned that to succeed in the profession you had to look tough, and this man definitely didn't fit that criteria. It was peculiar to see someone of this nature so far out on the rim. Although, he did have a giant contraption running up his right forearm with a shard the size of golf-ball embedded into it. That was the one threatening thing about him. But the real reason Gabby was interested was the fact that he had mentioned David. This man knew David as well.

"I'll have a Firespitter," she said, turning to the waiter, who seemed to approve of the order with a low-tone grunt.

Gabby then looked back at the scientist. "Water, eh?" She tried her best to sound playful.

[Question]

Jax walked over and took a seat next to the girl with the cards. His drink fizzed and popped as he rested his boots on the table, leaning back in his chair as if to show his nonchalance.
“Well this is the most motley crew I’ve ever seen.” Jax said looking each of them in the eye.
“Though, I’m sure by now you’ve all guessed who I am.” Jax waited, but they all stared back blankly.
“I’m Jax Roberts.” Again no response. “The Jax Roberts, the most feared and respected pirate that ever lived. I was captain of the red stallion. I’m the fifth most wanted man in the galaxy…” Before he could finish a movement at the bar had caught Jax eye. There it was again, it was a man who was defiantly watching their table. He hurriedly got up to leave as he realized that he had been seen but Jax was faster. Snap, Jax had a metal cord that extended from his prostethis wrapped around the mans neck.
“Tell me who you are and why you were spying on us or ill activate the energy field on my whip and fry you like a score of fyer-flies.”

[W.H. Clay]

Eric sat tapping methodically on his viewscreen. His water sitting untouched on the table, despite the extreme heat of the desert.
"water eh?" the girl next to him said.
"...wha?" Eric barely took his eye's off the viewscreen.
"oh! Yeah you never know what's in these outer rim drinks"
He looked up to see who was talking to him when he noticed a rowdy looking pirate approach, he quickly diverted his eyes back to the viewscreen. But before he knew it the pirate was choking someone with a metallic whip.
Eric saw the mechanics at the base of the whip and realized what he wasn't kidding about frying the guy.
His eyes were glued to the confrontation, not out of fear but interested to see the whip in action.

[W.H. Clay]

Double post

[Forgotten_Memories]

"Oh, yeah you never know what's in these outer rim drinks."

Just then a young-looking man, practically a boy, with beautifully interesting eyes walked over. If only his speech was as interesting as his face. Gabrielle sat and listened, basking in the air of cockiness with a smile on her face - a legendary pirate? Fifth most wanted in the Universe? Did he know how many others like him there were in this trading outlet? Hell, most shard seekers nowadays could easily pass for pirates.

Something grabbed young Jax Roberts' attention, and he turned to the corner of the shadowed saloon. The next second he thrust his arm forward, which turned into a very long whip, and bound itself around the neck of a cloaked man sitting in the corner.

"Tell me who you are and why you were spying on us or ill activate the energy field on my whip and fry you like a score of fyer-flies.”

Immediately, the grizzly waiter dropped his pen and pad and wrapped one arm around the pirate's neck, simultaneously extracting a pistol holstered at his side and digging it into Jax's back. Gabrielle noticed the barman duck below as well, and return only a moment later with a rail gun in his hand, aimed directly at the pirate's head.

"This here's a peaceful outlet - and we intend to keep it that way!" The barman warned, cocking his weapon.

[Evil Flamingo]

Amber leaned on her hands as she elbowed the table on top of her cards. Her head faced all of the action and she just dumbly smiled at the stand-off.

We're together for two minutes, and already this garbage has to be dealt with. I bet there's not a damn soul in this bar who could even recognize him. I bet I'm more wanted than he is. He's not even careful. Walked right up onto my knife arm. Coulda stabbed him in the side and crippled him, without any effort.

The she decided to draw his attention her way.

"Hey, jackass! Ya done flashing your balls around? Get over here and don't get us thrown out."

[Question]

“Don’t worry bar keep, I only wanted to talk to the man.” Jax flashes the bar tender a crooked smile.
“Let him go now.” Said the bartender. The mans face was turning a deep scarlet as he struggled against the whip.

“Hey Jackass! Ya done Flashing your balls around? Get over here and don’t get us thrown out.”

“Kind of busy honey, I’ll be with you in a minute. Fine Bar keep, I’ll play nice” Jax releases the whip and retracts it backs into his arm. The man lets out a gasp as he sucks in ragged breaths. As the men lowered their guns, Jax elbows the waiter in the groan, and with seemingly no effort hurls the man across the room at the bar tender with his robotic arm. Jax turns towards where the spy was standing but he obviously fled.

“Well sweet cheeks, that man was spying on our little merry gang here,” Jax looks at the girl who had been playing solitaire. “And since were not dead I would assume were not the only one’s looking for Hawkins.”

[Earphone]

Gerty sat watching the happenings from her seat at the bar. She had chosen to sit apart from the others that had gathered, she knew they were the ones she was meeting with by eavesdropping. It wasn't hard with their loud voices. She stared enviously at their very customized equipment. All she had was a Seeker starting pack, that was provided by her employers. Her suit was loose-fitting, her shard barely larger than a desert beetle, and her craft was cheap and poorly constructed. This David Hawkins had been a speaker at her training class, and she had taken the job in finding him, not out of fondness -though he had been a fairly handsome man-, but rather at the hopes of lining her pockets. She had been camping in the area for several days, buying whiskey here, getting some smokes there, and some other things. Her eye twitched a little, as a pang of withdrawal hit her, and she slammed the rest of her whiskey to try to numb the pain. It worked a little, but her head still ached.

A self-proclaimed pirate from the table she was watching began causing a scene, by grabbing a man who wasn't sitting too far from her by the throat. The barman was now distracted, and couldn't refill Gerty's glass. Scowling at the disruption, she noticed a woman half-assing a game of pyramid. Placing a few bills on the counter to cover her tab, and grimacing when she realized that she only had a few dollars left, she stood up and bypassed the 'pirate' man, who was now brawling the bartender, to sit next to the woman.

"Poker, five card?" Gerty asked, pulling her last bills from her pocket, and a cigarette from her coat.

[Earphone]

Holy crap, double post.

[Shadow Reeves]

Name: Flint Richards

Age: 21

Gender: male

Occupation: none

Appearance: 5'8" white male with a stocky build. muscular under his plain loose fitting clothing. his dark hair fell straight to his jawbone, but he usually wore it in a high pony tail. his black shirt and dark green pants were complemented with a silver belt - now dirty grey - and a watch that only told the time. carries a small duffle bag over his shoulder.

Personality: perhaps seems a little cold when people first meet him, but he is proud, and his tendency to always tell the truth - even when a white-lie may be better - tends to put him at odds with some people.

[Shadow Reeves]

Flint found the little pub with little effort. there were many drinking holes in this area of about the same calibre, but the directions he had received were quite specific. Inside the pub was not much more inviting than its drab exterior, and a scuffle had broken out amongst a group of patrons in a little roped off area at the far end.

"looks like a good place to start" he thought to himself.

It looked as though one man had wrapped a whip around another mans neck - and it wasn't until it retracted into his arm that he realised the arm was completely mechanic.
- he looked familiar - most of the group didn't really seem to care about the man being strangled and continued on their drinking as did most of the other patrons in the bar, who had already returned to their conversations.

The man was gasping for breath as the bartender returned the firearm to its hiding place under the bench. "Defiantly the right place" he thought.

"hello" said flint.

[yellowm&M]

Name: Andrea Dawson

Gender: Female

Occupation: Medic

Personality: Andrea is very quiet and shy and often overlooked.
Appearance: Andrea is small, standing only about 5’4” with shoulder length blonde hair that is often pulled back in a sloppy bun to keep it out of her face when she is working. Her eyes are light green and she has a very fair skin tone and soft features.

Age: 23

Equipment: Andrea doesn’t use much shard technology, but she does have an AI named Melanie and she always carries with her a plain, brown shoulder bag which carries her medical equipment, a notebook, some pictures, money, and a water bottle.

-----------

Andrea sat alone at a table near the bar, quietly watching the scene in front of her. She was pretty sure the eclectic group gathered together were here to look for Hawkins as well. They looked tough and battle scarred and much more experienced than she with anything to do with the outer rims. Of course they did...they were shard seekers. She had no idea how they would respond to her. As it was, they hadn't noticed her yet, which suited Andrea just fine. Jumping into situations wasn't her strong suit. Especially when they were so quick to act. Her green eyes widened as she watched the commontion after the self-proclaimed pirate accost someone as being a "spy." There didn't seem to be much need though, it's not like the Hawkins bussiness was strictly secret. No one was yelling it out of course, but it could be found out.

"hello"

Someone new stepped up to the bar, right past Andrea's table, his dark hair pulled up into a high ponytail. Another player. Andrea looked him over. Just as confident looking as the rest of them. She bit her lip, how she was going to become a part of this group, she had no idea, but she had to try.

C'mon Andrea. You can do this. Still she sat and watched.

[W.H. Clay]

Eric looked up to see if the newcomer was the John they were waiting for. No, but he was interesting. Not quite dressed for the occasion. Whats in the bag? Eric wonders adjusting his spectacles to look for traces of shards or shard-tech...

[losthawken]

Bear entered the bar. The hulking man filled the double doors as he stood taking in the scene. He had passed a terrified merchant that was gasping for breath on his way in and now the barkeep was eying that renegade Jax.

“ROBERTS! If I hear even a breath of you stepping out of line on my mission I'll have you jettisoned on the first rock we pass with naught but your damned whip!” the seeker bellowed in his gruff tone. The large man's thick red beard shook when he talked. “I don't even know why they made me take you on this team.”

John Billow's small piercing green eyes glared at the man knowingly. He knew exactly why the filthy pirate was on the mission, and he made sure that the understanding was mutual. He had no patience for a privateer's personal agenda, not when a seeker's life was on the line.

“Now all you volunteers come your asses down so's I can get a count. I've yet to find a shuttle that can hold us all. Not a willing one anyway,” another deadly glare shot from under his furrowed brow. This time aimed at a scrawny man hunched over the bar. He wore a filthy gray duster, and sat with his large crooked nose staring at his drink. The long thing wisp of hair that attempted to cover his balding head drifted askew as he looked up at Billows and snorted before returning to his drink.

“Now I wanna get going before the next cycle, tell me what we've got for skill here and bear in mind that any baggage will be left behind.” The large seeker walked heavily over to the table where most of the team had gathered and stood there waiting for a reply.

[W.H. Clay]

Eric was the first to reply, eager for someone to take charge of this chaos.
"Engineer! Shard specialist! I got all I need right here," gesturing to the bulk on his left arm. Eric preferred to bring a few comforts along but he didn't want to start out on Bear's bad side, it was hard enough for a man like him to make it on the outer rim.

[W.H. Clay]

Double post

[Earphone]

“Now I wanna get going before the next cycle, tell me what we've got for skill here and bear in mind that any baggage will be left behind.”

Gerty raised an eyebrow, as she lit her cigarette, and breathed in deeply. So, they had to list their talents? Balls, that screwed her over. She'd only been on two previous missions, and even those had been within two thousand miles of the planet's atmosphere. She placed her few dollars back into her pocket, and pulled out a second cigarette, which she offered to the large red man.

"Can't say I have any talents, other than having contacts. Would it help if I said I have a great personality?"

[Shadow Reeves]

Flints greeting was met with only a few casual glances and barely a nod of the head. A girl roughly his own age met his gaze with an awkward tension that forced Flint to avert his eyes. The girl's eyes with their light green hue stuck in his mind as he found a seat at one of the tables.

There was only a moments of idle conversation that passed between a few of the group before the big bearded man who - with a small stretch of the imagination - resembled his namesake.
Like with most people i see, i began to size him up, his strengths and weaknesses if i was to meet him in hand-to-hand combat. it was something i did without a lot of conscious effort but it didn't take long to see that his lists of weaknesses would be quite short. -ego- was Flint's first assessment.

he quickly took control of the situation and quelled the pirates fury with a growl that resembled english, too low for me to catch.

“Now I wanna get going before the next cycle, tell me what we've got for skill here and bear in mind that any baggage will be left behind.”

"Engineer! Shard specialist! I got all I need right here,"

Flint looked between the two and then to the arm proudly on display to Bear. The tree who tries to please another, does so for its own... his masters voice floated through his mind, and the final word seemed to fail him.

Flint thought about speaking up, but "martial arts" did not seem to compete with the educated man with a metal arm, So he stayed quiet and instead glanced to his left to to capture another mental image of the girl with the green eyes.

[Forgotten_Memories]

Bear walked through the swinging doors of the saloon, and immediately the pirate seemed to calm down, almost like if a father walked in on his misbehaving son. A good thing too, the immaturity in this place was beginning to stink. Bear had that effect on people - or rather, his reputation did. He was one of the most respected and legendary shard seekers in the universe. Gabrielle had met him before, but only briefly, and she doubted he would remember her.

“Now I wanna get going before the next cycle, tell me what we've got for skill here and bear in mind that any baggage will be left behind.”

The first to reply was the scientist beside her. "Engineer! Shard specialist! I got all I need right here,"

As she sat next to him, Gabrielle thought it was her turn to speak up. There were also a couple of unpleasant groans from behind the bar, obviously from the people Roberts had injured with his poor display of decision-making skills, who were in need of medical attention.

"First Grade United Front Medic and experienced shard seeker. I have most of my supplies with me, but more on my shuttle. I could leave those behind if needed." She wondered if she should mention that she knew Hawkins personally. No, that might make her seem unsuitable for the mission - emotional attachments were never good. But then, why else was she here? Her focus quickly shifted from Bear to behind the bar. "If you don't mind, I need to see to the injured."

[Forgotten_Memories]

double post

[Mr Mr]

Rael approached the bar from inside he could hear people shouting. He pulled the covering on his hand down and headed inside to look for the other shard seekers.

"First Grade United Front Medic and experienced shard seeker. "

Rael heard someone shout. He turned to look at the speaker it was a tanned black haired girl. She got up and headed away from the group as he approached. The group seemed to be mix of all-sorts, aside from the man like a bear he noticed one of them had a metal arm. Rael stepped into the circle holding out his hand to bear.

"Rael Searwin, ex mercenary and one man digging machine."

Bear shook his hand, he had a stong grip.

"Ok, take a seat."

Rael nodded and sat down next to the metal armed man.

[Question]

Jax grimaced at Bellows words. One of these days he was going to ring that mans neck, but for now he needed him to find that cursed Hawkins. This was the big score he’d always dreamed about, and if he played his cards right he could be set for life.

“Don’t worry Bellows I’ll behave, so long as I get that full pardon we talked about.” Jax said, as he imperceptibly winks.

“Me, I’m a man of many talents. I’m an expert in Item recovery, Security, and can handle just about any job on a Ship. Plus I make great eye candy for the ladies.” He give's the quiet blonde girl in the back a wolfish grin.

[yellowm&M]

“Now I wanna get going before the next cycle, tell me what we've got for skill here and bear in mind that any baggage will be left behind.”

Bear literally radiated a sense of intimidation. It was all Andrea could do to keep from shrinking back away from him as he walked by. It was obvious that she was not alone in feeling the power of Bear's presence throughout the room, but it was also clear that many of the people there were jumping for the chance to be a part of the mission. A young man with glasses and metal gadgets all along his arm jumped up almost immediately.


"Engineer! Shard specialist! I got all I need right here,"

Andrea steeled herself to speak up, it was better to talk sooner rather than later. As her eyes flicked over the group of people, trying to decide if anyone else was a medic, she realized that she had not in fact gone unnoticed. The guy who had just walked in before Bear was looking at her. Her voice stuck in her throat as she once more met his eyes. Quickly she looked away as a dark haired, tanned woman spoke.

"First Grade United Front Medic and experienced shard seeker. I have most of my supplies with me, but more on my shuttle. I could leave those behind if needed."

"Rael Searwin, ex mercenary and one man digging machine."

"Andrea Dawson, medic. Everything I need is with me." Andrea shot to her feet as she spoke, suprising herself. She hadn't intended to speak, but hearing there was another medic with shard seeking experience had spurred her to action. The other woman had gone over to the two men that had been injured in the tustle earlier. Quietly, her face slightly pink from everyone looking at her, Andrea walked around the tables to the other woman.

"Do you need any help? I have supplies her in my bag."

[Forgotten_Memories]

Gabriella knelt down beside the waiter behind the bar. The casualties were both groaning, obviously in pain, and slightly disoriented. She placed her hands below the waiter's jaw, turning his head this way and that.

"Michael, I want an internal analysis, stat." She spoke to her AI as she strung the goggles from her belt around her head, an earpiece neatly placed over the right ear. An X-ray depiction of the man in front of her appeared in her rounded spectacles and Michael began to perform a reading, digits ticking away systemically in the bottom right of her view. It would only be a matter of seconds.

"Do you need any help? I have supplies her in my bag."

Gabriella heard the voice of the young girl who had piped up about being a medic as well. Without turning her head, she asked, "What sort of training do you have?"

[Forgotten_Memories]

double post

[losthawken]

“People, we're going deep into Specter territory. I don't know what crazy hair brained idea David got in his head heading out that far alone, but I'll be damned if I let him stay out there.” Bear tapped the cigarette he had taken from the pink haired girl three times on the counter before notching it safely behind his ear.

He paused and breathed loudly out his wide nostrils. He didn't see much so far that made him feel good about venturing out into hostile territory with these people, but he had little choice. At least one of the medics could prove useful and despite is dislike for the pirate, his talent and experience would be valuable. But the rest...

He had been rescued himself from a desolate rock where his shuttle was ravaged by fyers. Since then he'd done his fair share of recovering stranded seekers, more dead than alive. For reasons he couldn't quite articulate he'd come to accept it as his duty and purpose.

“Fine then, before we can start talking numbers we've got to figure out how to get from this rock to the outer rim. I haven't found a seeker yet with more than a three man skiff, and there's not a merchant in his right mind that will lend us something more substantial. Any ideas?”

[W.H. Clay]

From Bear's lack of interest in his eccentric shard-tech bracer Eric knew he hadn't quite earned his place on this voyage. He will prove himself useful somehow...

"Well if we can at least get something that can hold us all I can get it to the Outer Rim. It will just take some ingenuitive use of rods and interstellar currents. I cant promise a soft landing, or take off for that matter, but we will get there."
Eric ran numbers on his wrist mounted AI while speaking,
"In fact I was on a mission with David when a specter blew our engine off completely. David piloted the dropping shuttle onto a nearby asteroid and that's when I first got the idea, once I explained it to David He was all for it. He went to work welding a steel plate from the floor onto the back end of the shuttle covering the gaping hole, while I fastened two tach rods to the top of the shuttle. A few spliced wires and impossibly complicated algorithms we had a sail capable of lifting the entire shuttle. From there it was just a matter of avoiding space debris and keeping within the channels until we could get to a more hospitable part of space."

Eric failed to mention the extended use of overcharged shards resulted in them shattering a few light years short of their destination, ruining the few shards they retrieved on their voyage and costing them the only credits they had left buying shuttle tickets back to the planet where their voyage had originated. Im sure one of us has a shard large enough to sustain travel for that distance.

Eric was embarrassed when he saw the skeptical faces gathered around Bear,
"Perhaps a fully functioning ship would be a better idea..."

He quickly turned around and ordered a Firespitter, surely this would be better than facing the seasoned Seekers to whom he just made a fool out of himself. These guys have been out there, they would never consider taking a half-assed ship out into Specter territory, no one other than Hawken.

[Shadow Reeves]

There was a short pause after The Bear spoke as the group thought about the odds of finding a shuttle last minute. At least thats what Flint was thinking about,
How did we get this group organised and not have a way off the ground?

The man named Eric regaled the group with a short story that held Flints attention, although much of it went misunderstood.

"Perhaps a fully functioning ship would be a better idea..."

Another short pause.

Although Flint had missed his chance with the original introductions, waiting to hear a little about everyone else, he now stood, slowly but with confidence.
"Im Flint Richards, Martial Arts" he faltered for a second before adding "specialist." He felt as though calling himself a specialist was a little pretentious, and a short memory of being hit with a cane for wearing a black-belt before it was earned flashed through his mind, - oddly the memory was in third person - and so continued
"Well - i know Martial Arts and i just wanted to know how this group was organised without having a ship to take us out." he then looked straight at Bear and asked with honesty "did you intend to steal one?"

[Earphone]

Gerty pursed her lips while the red man Bear spoke. Any ideas... This man was trying to weed out unlikely prospects with every word, and he was being very unsubtle about it. Three man Seeker ships? Gerty's was a one-man pod, with barely enough room for her, and she was almost a midget. Good luck trying to get anyone else in there.

The geeky man at there table began to speak, but he'd lost Gerty by the third word. She didn't know technicals, and she doubted she would anytime soon. She watched the man dial on a wrist-brace he was wearing, then after a while fell silent.

"Perhaps a fully functioning ship would be a better idea..."

Another man stood, and called himself Flint.

"Well - i know Martial Arts and I just wanted to know how this group was organised without having a ship to take us out. Did you intend to steal one?"

Gerty's eyes lit up as Flint spoke. She pounded the table, and rose to her feet in one movement. The height difference between her and the rest standing was quite embarrassing.

"Now you're talking!" She said, tapping Flint with a fist, "If they won't give us a ship the size we need, let's take it!" She flushed as she remembered that she hadn't introduced herself. "Gerty." She said distractedly, pointing at herself. She took another large pull from her cigarette, then grinned.

"Anyway, I know some people who could hook you up with a ship, for the right price."

[Evil Flamingo]

Amber decided to sit and listen to the odd group of volunteers before she made herself part of the team. I can't be in a damn hurry and get myself in trouble.

Some of them seemed normal enough, some experienced, others who seemed to be lying. She didn't know how to take the good with the bad. None of them really seemed likable at all to begin with, except maybe the one who was about to play poker, before the interruption. Amber spent the next few minutes more annoyed with the lack of card game than intent on listening to the crew, but she had really made her decision anyways. And being bugged enough by the AI that "this is your last chance, was enough to get her going anyways. She was going to have to steal to eat in the coming days otherwise.

Fine. What's the worst that could happen?

"Hey, how 'bout we just find a larger ship that needs a few repairs? Ya give me a day or two I can fix the engine good and get us goin', and then finish the repairs while on the way. Easy enough, yeh?"

Seems a little more on the legal side as well. Which doesn't really matter to Amber, but it's better than being stuck in a jail again.

[Question]

Jax thought it was pretty convenient that Bellows forgot to mention he didn’t even have a ship.

"If they won't give us a ship the size we need, let's take it!…Anyway, I know some people who could hook you up with a ship, for the right price."

“Whoa hold on their pint size. The first way to get caught boosting a ship is to go around asking to buy a stolen ship. And I don’t care how well you know these supposed friends, we wouldn’t even make it out of this solar system.”

"Hey, how 'bout we just find a larger ship that needs a few repairs? Ya give me a day or two I can fix the engine good and get us goin', and then finish the repairs while on the way. Easy enough, yeh?"

“Now, I’m all for taking a ship, but we gotta be smart about It. There is a brand new ZZ228, beauty sitting down in Lent’s repair shop. And they only keep one guard stationed there for night shift.”

Jax looks over at Amber and Eric. “If you and Egghead over there could fix the engine in about an hour. Then that would leave us plenty of time to get the ship out of here with out anybody noticing.”

[W.H. Clay]

"That's what I get for hanging out with pirates and thieves..." Eric mumbles into his drink. He gulps the rest and after a short pause while the burning eases Eric turns to the crowd,
"We are going out to rescue David, that's a noble thing. Why tarnish that by stealing?" Eric was steadily becoming unsure of himself. These 'pirates and thieves' could easily kill him, and no one here would think twice about it.
"Why don't we go talk to one of those corporate men and see if they can get us a ship in return for shards when we get back? I mean were going into Specter territory! There is a better chance of finding shards there than anywhere else in The Rim..."

[Evil Flamingo]

"Why don't we go talk to one of those corporate men and see if they can get us a ship in return for shards when we get back? I mean were going into Specter territory! There is a better chance of finding shards there than anywhere else in The Rim..."

"Agreed," blurted out Amber as he barely finished what he was saying. It was one of the only sensible things she'd heard while sitting in this ramshackle bar. "The last thing we need is get thrown in jail, or add bounty on our heads."

But if I didn't have a job lined up that was worth the tie, maybe I would. What am I saying? I'm no bad ass. I'm just a bum. She slightly shook her head, but then caught herself and stopped.

Amber smiled at Reese, letting him know that she was on his side, at least on this subject. Then she turned to Roberts.

"Ya don't have tech people on board with the plan. Good luck gettin' out the atmosphere in your stolen ship."

Amber finally faced the leader of the group. "I'm sure there's a large enough old beater we could get off the ground within the day at the earliest. Once we have him goin' I can shine him up and get it runnin' real nice. I thought a saw an old dock yard when I came in. Soun's like a good place to start lookin'."

Maybe he'll listen to me. I really need the payoff, but I'm just not willing to go back to jail. I've disappointed the family name too many times already. And failed them even more.

[losthawken]

"Well - i know Martial Arts and I just wanted to know how this group was organised without having a ship to take us out. Did you intend to steal one?" a steely looking man with a ponytail spoke up from near the bar.

"Now you're talking!" interjected the pink haired girl, "If they won't give us a ship the size we need, let's take it! Anyway, I know some people who could hook you up with a ship, for the right price."

Another girl spoke up, "Hey, how 'bout we just find a larger ship that needs a few repairs? Ya give me a day or two I can fix the engine good and get us goin', and then finish the repairs while on the way. Easy enough, yeh?"

“Now, I’m all for taking a ship, but we gotta be smart about It. There is a brand new ZZ228, beauty sitting down in Lent’s repair shop. And they only keep one guard stationed there for night shift.”*

Jax looks over at Amber and Eric. “If you and Egghead over there could fix the engine in about an hour. Then that would leave us plenty of time to get the ship out of here with out anybody noticing.”

"Why don't we go talk to one of those corporate men and see if they can get us a ship in return for shards when we get back? I mean were going into Specter territory! There is a better chance of finding shards there than anywhere else in The Rim..."

“Cuz they'd rather have the shards AND the ship, kid,” the egghead reminded Bear of a kid Hawkin's had once mentioned while drunk. He seemed to have some scruples, perhaps he could be of use.

The thin balding man in the gray duster stood abruptly and walked out of the bar while making an obvious attempt to avoid eye contact with the group. Bear grimaced. He looked over at Jax and growled, “Well, it looks like your in good company. Are these friends of yours?”

"I'm sure there's a large enough old beater we could get off the ground within the day at the earliest. Once we have him goin' I can shine him up and get it runnin' real nice. I thought a saw an old dock yard when I came in. Soun's like a good place to start lookin'.” added in the brunette again.

“I'm with the techies, but if we had more time to prepare perhaps we could fix something up, but we only got the beacon this morning. I for one...” piercing sirens interrupted Bear's words. Every ear in the seeker rendezvous instantly perked and hundreds of eyes looked to the sky.

“SPECTERS INCOMING!!” came a shout from outside the bar as chaos erupted in the streets.

“EVERYBODY OUT!” bellowed the bar keep.

“Damn it!,” muttered Bear. This locale for the trade gathering was supposed to be out of the way where specters wouldn't find it. They'd never attacked this far from the outer rim before.

“Everybody save your own skins today; I'll put out a beacon to regroup on within 16 hours. Now get the ...” I screeching sound interrupted the man again. The sound grew so quickly that no one had time to react. Something tore through the bar canopy and detonated in a crater behind Billows knocking him violently off his feet.

As the legendary seeker rose a glowing effigy shot into the air from within the crater. The specter pounced on Bear knocking him to the ground again. Green shard crystals encased in yellow glowing field energy gripped and pinned him to the ground. Like a savage ape the creature raised a hand of immolating energy and shard and thrust it through the shard harness of the seeker, cauterizing a wound straight through the man's chest. It retracted holding Bear's major shard aloft with a piercing cry of victory that sounded like a strange blend of an electromagnetic ringing and the cry of a savage beast.

For a brief moment time stood still as the death of the great “Bear” Billows sank in on everyone. But the inorganic creature wouldn't wait for any grief and leapt at the man with the large purple shard on his forearm.

[Earphone]

“SPECTERS INCOMING!!” “EVERYBODY OUT!”

"Oh, shit!" Gerty dived to the ground, as the action ensued. Something had taken out Bear, and was charging for them. Gerty crawled away to where she'd left her pack by the bar. She placed a hand inside, and felt a small wave of relief feeling the contents were still in it. She shouldered the pack, and was about to make a run for it, when a chair sent flying from the Specter hit her in the back.

"No." She said, hearing the tinkling of shattered glass within her pack, and felt the pricks of several needles on her skin, "No no NO!"

She threw the pack to the ground, and immediately ducked as another chair was sent flying. This was getting out of hand! Why couldn't the Seeker agency have given her a damn gun?!

[Question]

“SPECTERS INCOMING!!” “EVERYBODY OUT!”

Jax jumped up ready for a fight. He saw the specter that had killed Bellows run towards Eric. As Jax moved to intervene, he saw a bright flash to his right. Jax ducked just in time as a glowing claw sliced the air above his head. A multicolored specter stood before him, its body pulsed with the energy of multiple shards. A calm rage had come over Jax as he stood to face the creature. Snap! Jax’s whip shined with red energy as he slashed at the creature. Jax swung his whip at the creature in a complicated pattern of movements. His speed picked up until it was just a blur light followed by the sound of a ringing snap as the whip made contact. An incomprehensible rage was fuelling him, as beads of sweat poured down his face. The creature was backing up under this onslaught and victory seemed near. The bar had become smoky, and Jax stopped swinging his whip to see the damage done. As the smoke drifted the creature stood up, with only a few singe marks on its shard ridden body. It let out a “Roar!” as it began to charge Jax.

“How the heck did I get myself into this one?” Jax mumbled as he braced himself for impact.

[W.H. Clay]

In the dust left by Jax and the Specter the group barley noticed the arrival of another Specter. Without giving them the chance to wipe the dust from their eyes it launched itself at the purple shard proudly on display...

"Einstein, Shield!!!!!!"
Eric raised his left arm between him and the specter. The beast was a mere second away from tearing off Eric's arm when something quite interesting happened. The several small nobs on his bracer started glowing. In a heart's beat the glow connected from nob to nob until it made a perfect circle and in another beat it enlarged has a whole making a perfect purple shield that covered him from his shoulder half way down his thigh. The beast's claw slammed into the purple shield throwing Eric against the bar. It pulled back a nub where it had previously formed a claw and changed tactics, quickly generating a blast that slammed into Eric's shield keeping him pinned.

"Help Me!!!!" Eric exclaimed has he balled up to get all of this body under the shield.
"I can't breathe..." Eric was gasping...
At this rate his shield would fail in minutes. He can't hope for it to hold up to a specter's blast, no matter how concentrated the shield is. He didn't know what was going to happen first, his shield failing and the specter vaporizing him or being suffocated from the pressure on his lungs, He hoped it was the first.

[Evil Flamingo]

Amber heard the noises without looking. She could feel quick death of their leader as they ravaged the bar. And the only thing she could actually stare at was the exit. Could I do it all over again? Could I leave them to die?

Jay calmly told her to run. Told her to get out the second entrance, since she’d never make it to the first. But all Amber had ringing through her head was the screams of desperation and agony, but not of those in the present. She heard her mother cry out over her dying brother, and her father curse her name, over a dull receiver. And all she could think about visibly was the vast dark of space from the cockpit of the ship she was escaping on. Amber dwelled on the pain for what seemed like hours, but it was only seconds. Then she looked over to the trapped Eric, and ran at the specter, knife pulled and ready to strike.

What in God’s name am I doing? I’m going to die here. I’m going to die like everyone else who’s attack a specter.

She jumped on its back and started chipping away at its head, doing whatever she could to hit it. It released Eric, but grabbed her right shoulder with the same arm, and its claws cut into her skin, burning. It was like five sautering guns started to dig into her appendage. Then it through her forty feet across the room, breaking her rib with a table she flew into.

I’m not going to die that easy damn it!

Amber got up, despite the agony, and ran towards the creature, but noticed Eric free of its grasp, and alive. She changed her course and made it to him. Amber grabbed his arm with her one usable one, and pulled him towards the exit.

“Run Eric! Get the Hell out of here!”

[W.H. Clay]

“Run Eric! Get the Hell out of here!”

Eric was pulled to his feet and stumbled after the escaping Amber.
"Wait!" Eric shout pulling himself free of Amber, "We can't leave it to destroy this settlement!"

Eric raised his bracer again, extending a tach rod from the tip.
"Einstein lock it down!"

At once the small rods glowed with the purple energy again swelling in the back two nobs and in a flash all the energy was siphoned into the large tach rod extending a good foot past his fist. The field was then blasted from the tip of the rod slaming into the specter. The beat was expelled from the bar and skidded to a stop out into the street. he purple field grew around him holding him in place.

Eric knelt down to his knees and supported his extended bracer with his other arm. A faint trail of purple radiation connected the now encased Specter with his bracer, his shard was glowing brilliantly.

"Attack it and attack it now!" Eric grunted, shaking with fear "I have absolutely no idea how long this will hold."
In fact he had never tried this on anything bigger than a single Fyer.
"Remember concentrated blasts to his core. We should be able to disorient it enough to get out of here and make it to the ship yard!"

[Forgotten_Memories]

"Internal systems are 100%." Michael spoke in her ear, and Gabriella didn't hear what the medic girl was saying from behind her.

Relieved of the results of her scan, Gabriella turned around before tending to the barman. The X-Ray vision switched off and she looked the girl directly in the eyes. She was so young, and reminded Gabriella of herself when she had just finished nursing school, before she joined the military. She had that innocent, naive look. Gabby smiled. It was good to know that she would have someone she could relate to on this trip.

Just then sirens sounded, and Gabriella's smile was wiped off her face. There was only one thing that could mean.

"SPECTERS INCOMING!" Came a scream from outside.

The barman stood up, despite probably having suffered a concussion, and held his rifle like he meant business. "EVERYBODY OUT!" He bellowed.

Bear gave instructions for everyone to save themselves and regroup later, and then a moment later something ripped through the ceiling of the converted spacecraft. Steel debris fell at them, and as Gabriella ducked to avoid it, the barman took a plate to the face, blood spattering in all directions. He fell over almost as quickly as it happened - dead.

Gabby forced herself to get up, coughing at the dust the impact rose from the floor. She quickly scanned the room, and amidst the sound of steel bending, screams, and unearthly screeches coming from all directions, there was Bear, with what Gabby had only seen pictures of on top of him. The Spectre ran an ethereal claw through the great Shard Seeker's chest.

No, Gabby thought. How was she supposed to find Hawkins now? She stood still, perplexed by what had occurred. Michael brought her back from her reverie. "Danger Level High," The AI spoke, scanning over the ghostly creature, "Possible casualties: two." Michael placed circular scanners over Bear and the Barman's bodies. "Casualties confirmed. Status: dead."

The spectre leapt at the scientist next, throwing several of the other prospective mission members out of the way. Then an idea struck Gabby - maybe the mission wasn't over. She looked at Bear's slain body, then at the Spectre, only several feet away, being attacked by her companions. This was the perfect opportunity. "Plan escape route," She told Michael, and before the AI could begin to process the command, Gabriella ran forward, diving onto the great shard seeker's body.

She tried not to look at the huge wound that had been cauterised on his chest, and moved her hands to his earpiece, removing the AI. It would have all the necessary mission details - especially Hawkins' location.

"Escape route located." Michael's voice came again, placing a map-like image of the enclosure in her view, detailing a safe path to the nearest exit.

"Remember, concentrated blasts to his core. We should be able to disorient it enough to get out of here make it to the ship yard!" The scientist was saying from behind her.

Gabriella looked at what he was referring to. The group had somehow managed to trap the spectre within a shard field. If she was going after Hawkins, she would definitely need help, and some of these people looked and sounded like they could actually be useful. Gabby drew the pistol from her hip. She didn't know exactly where the core was, but if anatomy was similar across so many other species, why not this one? She took almost perfect aim at the creature's centre, and emptied her round. Then she turned to the rag-tag group Bear had assembled.

"Right. If anyone is still on for this mission, let's move out." She held up Bear's AI, "I've got all the details right here." She then looked directly at Jax. Desperate times call for desperate measures. "You said you knew where we could steal a ship?"

[Question]

As the specter charged, Jax slashed his whip across its neck, using its momentum to swing up on its back. The specter arms strained and stretched but couldn’t reach him. Jax balanced precariously as the specter buckled, trying to fling him off its back. His whip cackled and popped as energy bit into the specters neck. Like a rearing bull the specter charged through a wall in attempt to shake him off. But Jax miraculously stayed on, as the specter reared into the street. Outside, people were running for there lives, buildings were demolished and a massive fire had started over on the east end of town. The Specter under Jax ran, zig zaging across the street, and crashing through side market booths. As Jax held on, he began to feel heat under his boots. He looked down and could see smoke drifting off his feet.

“Crap!” The energy from the specter was eating through his boots. Jax, realizing his only option jumped off the creature, rolling as he hit the street.

[Shadow Reeves]

Flint had been in fights before. Organised fights with rules, and a Master of the Code presiding over the bout giving points and reprimands. When someone fell the bout stopped. He had also been involved in street fights - people with knives and bats who had turned to mugging others as their source of income. Even out numbered there was a chance that you could win.

But this was chaos.

It appeared that just like everyone else, Bear needed the organs in his chest to live, and as they were currently spread from the motionless Bear to where the spectre now stood trapped in a purple bubble, this mission seemed to be over before it began.

Jax had slowed his whip from the glowing blur, and Flint had quickly moved to the bar to gather some wet towels. The small line of fire that was created when Jax had advanced on the spectre was beginning to catch on the wooden floors.

Flint began smacking the flames with the wet towels with only small effect. 30 years of alcohol had been soaked into the wood and was now releasing its repressed anger on the tables and chairs as the flames began to lick up their legs. It will soon be out of control.

"I've got all the details right here." Gabriella turned from Bears body and looked directly at Jax. "You said you knew where we could steal a ship?"
Flint didn't really care where they were going - but out of this building was a good start. his wet rags had caught on fire and had joined the fire in their revolution against the chairs and tables, the walls also began to feel the wrath of the floor's might.

"Guys" flint said to the group still preoccupied with the spectre-in-a-bubble. He didn't want to cause more panic and so simply stated "we are on fire"

[W.H. Clay]

"Guys... we are on fire"

The charge slammed into Eric's bracer, shattering the extended tach rod and overloading the electrical systems.
'Systems malfunctioning Mr. Reese. Please standby...' Einstein's voice was broadcasting from his bracer, His view screen was flashing in and out.
"AWW Damn!" Eric muttered defeated.

He sulked over to his harness that was tucked under the edge of the now inflamed bar, grabbed it under the shoulder pad and started walking towards Gabriella.
"It was almost perfect..."

[losthawken]

Tremors continued to shake the earth as more and more specters pummeled the planets surface. Shuttles and ships began lifting off all over the temporary outpost. Fear was thick in the streets as men's true colors began to show in the face of certain death. Specters never left survivors.

Outside the bar, the specter within Reese's field raged it pummeled the field repeatedly then paused. With a flash of radiation the field burst and sent a charge back up the energy stream toward the man's bracer. But just as the field broke a shot from the medic caught it in its glowing core. The specter immediately burst apart and shards scattered in all directions.

More and more specters landed, they could be seen coursing through the skies now, the sounds of crashing shuttles now joined the ongoing quakes of more and more specter impacts. This was not a typical specter raid, but a full on assault, getting off the planet alive would be a miracle.

The shattered remains of the specter that was shot by Gabriella began to glow and tremor as the began to glow as they slowly moved toward one another.

[losthawken]

Double mint gum

[yellowm&M]

"Full training-" Andrea started to respond to the other medic, but she was so focused on her victim that Andrea was quite sure she wasn't listening. After her AI confirmed that the man was not in fact going to die, the other woman turned around and looked at her then smiled. Andrea could see a kind understanding in her eyes and felt herself calm down a little bit. Regardless of who else was in the group, it seemed that this other medic she could get along with. She opened her mouth to introduce herself, but was cut off by a shrill alarm.

“SPECTERS INCOMING!!”

“EVERYBODY OUT!”


Everything happened so fast Andrea could barely react. A creature made up of shards glowing with engery burst through the ceiling and killed Bear in a second. Andrea gasped, unable to comprend what was going on. Never in her life had she seen or been part of a spector raid. Her father had occasionally mentioned them, but that was as close as she got to them. Shouts and bangs and the sounds of destruction were everywhere. Andrea ducked behind the bar, watching in horror as the barman fell to the ground right in front of her, covered in blood. She didn't need to scan him to know that he was dead. She peeked around the corner, watching some of the others fight the creatures. On the one hand she felt like a coward for not doing anything, but on the other she had no clue how to fight these things and the last thing she wanted to do was get in people's way. The other medic was bending over Bear's body. Straightening up with something in her hand. Taking careful aim, she blasted one of the specter's through the chest with her pistol. It blew apart with a floor shaking tremor.

If I'm going on this mission, I have got to get a weapon. And some training. Somehow. Andrea thought desperately.

"I've got all the details right here.You said you knew where we could steal a ship?" The last part of her sentance was directed at the pirate-Jax. Andrea decided her best bet was to follow them right now while one spector was trapped and the other blown apart. She stood up and edged around the debris strewn bar.

"Guys... we are on fire" And indeed, fire was spreading gleefully across the floor infront of her. Andrea jumped over the flames and quickly made her way over to the other medic.

"We need to get out of here before this whole building goes up."

[Question]

Jax opened his eyes as he lay on the rough dirt road. The world around him was spinning and blurred as he tried to get up. Bile rose in the back of his throat, causing him to puke out the contents of his stomach. Their that was better. Jax vision was beginning to come back into focus. A sticky liquid was running down his face. He reached up to reveal that he had a nasty cut on his forehead.

Well at least the specter seemed to have fled and I’m still alive. Jax got up slowly his head still ringing. He walked back over to the bar, black smoke drifted out of the windows and Jax knew the building wouldn’t last much longer.


Jax couldn’t believe it when he saw the remains of a specter out side or that all of the crew seemed to be still alive. The medic Gabriella stood in the middle of the bar carrying a deadly looking pistol. This one knows how to handle herself, and Jax made a mental note to remember that.

"You said you knew where we could steal a ship?"

“Yeah, but we have to get out of here now!”


"Guys... we are on fire"

[Forgotten_Memories]

“Yeah, but we have to get out of here now!”

"Guys... we are on fire"

"Danger levels high," Michael spoke into her ear. Immediately the planned escape route began to flash red in front of Gabby's eyes, and a thermal sensor was initiated, illustrating how their surroundings were about to become lethal for more than one reason. A particularly red pattern shone from behind the bar, when a casket of what was probably Euronian Firespitter Ale combusted.

"Shit, let's get out of here!" Gabby holstered her handgun and started towards Jax, disregarding Michael's planned route, which then faded from the goggles' interface. "Lead the way!"

[Mr Mr]

“SPECTERS INCOMING!!”

Rael's hands clapped to his ears as piercing sirens rang out.

“Everybody save your own skins today; I'll put out a beacon to regroup on within 16 hours. Now get the ...” Bear was inturupted as something smashed through the canopy and into the floor behind him. The impact scattered the crew, Rael smacking into the wall as a spectre tore a hole into Bears chest. He started to get to his feet, freezing as he heard a creak from above. A steel beam, melted at the end, fell towards him.

"X full power to the drill, now!" Rael said into his AI. The cover on his hand fell away as his drill roared into action the steel beam being destroyed in seconds. He turned as a small spectre resembling a wolf landed behind him.

"Oh sh-" Was all he could mutter as it barreled into his chest. They rolled its claws tearing into him as he tried to drill its face.

"X divert power to glove." He barked into his AI before firing of a blast. The spectre flew through a wall as Rael got to his feet feeling triumphant. His triumphance was short lived as he heard shout of fire. Flames flowed over the floor, eating years worth of spilled alcohol. He could see the two medics by the door and headed towards them.

[losthawken]

Artemus Antair's hands shook with each tremor as the specters attacked.

'No this couldn't be my fault,' he thought to himself as he swiped his thin comb-over back across his bald head. His narrow eyes focused on the job in front of him. He had deactivated all of his shard devices, including the sails, before leaving his ship. It was probably the only reason his ship was still intact. Uncharged shards give off less signal and draw less attention from pirates, thieves and specters. But it would only be a matter of time before his ship was blasted apart too. They always took out the ships first.

'Its just a coincidence,' his thoughts continued, 'But... they've never attacked this far in before...'

"Leo, power up the sails and get us in the air as soon as the Albatross is fully online. Begin plotting a course to Solaris." He shouted as he made the last of the connections and closed the maintenance hatch.

"Of course sir," came the calm male voice from the ships speakers. Artemus walked to a locker next to the cockpit and retrieved a long barreled blast rifle. One can't be too careful with pirates and desperate shard seekers about.

[Question]

"Shit, let's get out of here!"

Jax ran down the street not looking back to see if they followed. Streams of light crashed into the ground, as more specters landed. Jax kept running knowing that their options of escape were dwindling. The fire had spread, and was now demolishing most of the buildings he ran past. He ran up onto the main faraway. The normally busy street was ominously empty, except for the unlucky ones, ravaged by the specters. Jax tried not to look at their mutilated bodies as he ran on. He was almost there; he could see the shipyard just up ahead, its rusted fence leaning in disrepair. Jax figured there had to be at least one ship there that was still running, since there had been no time for evac. As he ran through the gates, he could see a pristine ship gleaming like the most beautiful shard.

“Hey guys we made it…” Jax words were cut off as flash of light slams into the ground in front of him, the shock wave flinging him backwards.

[W.H. Clay]

Eric followed Jax in the escape, He saw the way he took on the last Specter and figured it would help his own odds a bit. He was in no way as fit as Jax and encumbered by his bulky harness he started falling behind.
WHOOSH!
A splash of color screamed by Eric's head and exploded into the bare ground before him, he thought it was a Specter but he didn't stick around to find out. He knew Jax wasn't looking back, You can't expect that from a pirate. So he dodged down a alley, only to be confronted by another Specter dissecting the corpse of what looked to be a merchant, strewn beside him was a metallic case that must have once hoarded his shards.
"Damn! What in the hell were you thinking!" Eric was panicking, he had only seen death this close twice before. This takes the cake.
He kept running glad that the Specter was too busy with his prey to notice him. There was a safe distance growing between him and the chaos when he started thinking about the shard strapped to his wrist. He blinked down to see his view-screen distorted still.
"Einstein?" Eric asked tentatively.
"Yes Sir?" his AI replied in a calm, inquisitive voice.
"Any tips?" Eric was being sarcastic, he just wanted to know if his bracer had any functionality.
"I would sug.."
BAM!
Einsteins reply was drowned out by an explosion in the old building next to him. The debris blasted Eric into the adjacent building, and knocked the harness out of his hand.
The Specter walked slowly out of the shop, examining the pile of debris that held Eric. Eric was trying to stay quite has possible but he knew the Specter could feel his shard.
"I suggest you run....Sir." Einstein's snobby voice broke the silence.

Eric threw a section of paneling that was covering him into the Specter, it merely broke and caught flame. But it broke the Specters line of sight long enough for Eric to dive for his harness! He slid the bulky Harness over his head but before he could make his next move the Specter threw a 2x4 at him, the force of the blow knocked the air out of him and sent him sprawling...
'He's just playing games with me, he knows im harmless.' Eric thought, trying to catch his breath. 'Even if my plan works he will still chase me...unless I give him what he wants."
"Einstein, locate a current and ready my tachyon field." Eric whispered to his AI. Time for the bluff, Eric reached into the pack on his harness and takes out a red shard. This one is much smaller than the one on his bracer, it was about the size of his pinky. But the glow and the radiation leaking from it would gather his attention all the same.
"You have a 5.36 second opening in the atmosphere for you to catch the channel."
"What!?" Eric was holding the shard in front of him taunting the Specter.
"Your current location is not viable for take of. I have found you a 5.36 second opening for you to catch a channel anyways."
"When?" The specter acted without warning and sent his claw flying at Eric's outstretched hand.
"Now....Sir."
"Do it!" Two brilliant yellow sail erupted from the two Tach-rods on his harness. It stretched up and caught the Solar Channel jerking Eric of his feet. The force of the pull caused him to drop the shard just before the specter snatched him. It immediately went after the red shard completely disregarding Eric.
"We Did it!" Eric shouted triumphantly has he drifted along the current in what looked like a golden parachute.
"We are almost to the shipyard sir, I will adjust the sail for our decent now."
BZZZZ!
One of his tach rods went down causing him to hang from one shoulder, drifting clumsily to the ground,
"Einstein!!!!" He was answered by a buzzing noise on his bracer.... He looked down to see Jax and the rest of the group separated from the Shipyard by a rather mean looking Specter....

[Forgotten_Memories]

They followed Jax out of the bar, and just in time. The place began to catch fire, but it wasn't the only building to do so. Destruction surrounded them. Gabriella looked up at the sky to see hundreds of ships evacuating amidst more and more of the ethereal creatures, which were much larger than the ones that attacked them in the bar. Michael scanned the area frantically for casualties, which made Gabriella have to turn the feature off - there was no time. The injured group members were the only ones she'd be able to tend to, and only after they actually managed to get off this rock. This was why Gabby never went past Helaxus 3.

As they ran, she re-loaded and readied the handgun in her right hand, drawing her tach rod with the left - it had a light blue, almost clear shard embedded at its center. She was near the front of the group, so didn't notice when the scientist - who had fallen behind - ducked into an alleyway.

When they reached the shipyard, Jax stopped. A couple hundred yards away stood a ship that looked operational. “Hey guys we made it…” he began to say, but was flung back by the impact of a giant flash of light in front of him. He crashed down near Gabby's feet.

"Danger level high." Michael uttered unnecessarily while scanning the creature before them. It was a yellow-ish specter that stood as tall as a two-story building. Its gargantuan, crystalline-clawed hands looked like they could shred through the entire group of seekers in one swipe. Gabriella readied her weapon, knowing full well that it would be of no use.

[losthawken]

Name: Artemus Antair

Gender: Male

Occupation: Independent Research Scientist

Age: 58

Personality: Antair, is anti-social and aloof. This is due, in part, to his inherent absence of social skills and his distrust for most people due to the rejection he has faced by his peers. Very experienced in deep space, he has been researching specters since they were first discovered. He has championed the hypothesis that they are indeed sentient life forms, and has even go so far as to describe their social habits and the existence of distinct factions within the species. Unfortunately, many of his hypotheses have not been substantiated and have met with extreme resistance from the scientific community and the funding agencies to whom he reported. Any views that do not characterize specters as savage brutes are not received well by most, far less his insistence that he could initiate peaceful contact with the specters given the right circumstances. For these reasons and many more his funding was revoked some time ago and since then he has been forced to support his research by acquiring and trading shards.

[losthawken]

The massive specter gave another of those unnatural roars of rage. Blasts of energy erupted from its mouth as it hurled fireballs at the stranded survivors who scattered in all directions. A sudden blaze of energy pierced the massive specter's center, sending it flying in a thousand charged pieces. The pulse wave from the explosion immediately knocked all those standing off their feet. Directly behind where the creature stood, the last remaining ship in the yard approached slowly.

“The port cargo bay has been opened. I have been authorized to permit you 15 seconds to board,” came an AI voice from the ship loud speakers. The research shuttle drifted broadside and revealed the cargo bay. The Albatross was medium sized ship, her sails glimmered weakly under as the low power fields gently held her aloft. Many long antennas streaked backward behind her in addition to the tach-rods that generated her sails. Several old blast marks could be seen on her flanks, evidence some would recognize as close calls with fyers and specters. Most importantly however, she was armed and had room enough to hold all of the survivors left in the shipyard.

[W.H. Clay]

The blast from the defeated Specter threw Eric back, the sudden strain overloaded his malfunctioning sail and sent him flailing through the air only to crash into a distant building.
Eric slouched motionless against the metal wall, broken and bleeding. He wasn't going to be moving in the next 15 seconds. He would be lucky to move again....

[Earphone]

Gerty felt a trickle of blood pooling from her lips, where she was biting them. She'd let her more cowardly nature take over, ducking and weaving to avoid confrontation, and using her larger crew mates for cover. Bloody specters, what were they doing here? Once the larger specters had been taken care of (or as much as they could be) Gerty bolted from the bar, grabbing her backpack as she did, and headed toward the shipyard. She felt a blast of heat from the bar behind her, and felt flames brush her back. She felt a fleeting pang of quilt at leaving the others, but her own safety was her priority. Besides, she thought to herself, they were a tough lot, a small fire and explosion wouldn't kill them, right?

Gerty skidded to a halt. The shipyard was under attack as well, worse, her ship was gone.

"Damn it!" Gerty ran, as specters began moving in, and saw some of the crew not far away. She tripped over a body, and fell hard on her side. Hissing with pain, she looked down, and saw a gun lying next to the body. The shard had been taken from it, but it would fit hers, hopefully. She grabbed the gun, and ran, as the specters got closer, trying to place her shard into the gun as she did. BANG!

She yelled in pain, as the gun suddenly went off, sending a shot through the palm of her left hand. She grappled to keep a grip on the gun, and kept running, until she was with the group. A blast of energy launched Gerty off her feet, and sent her gun flying several yards away.

“The port cargo bay has been opened. I have been authorized to permit you 15 seconds to board,”

"Shit, shit!" Gerty had lost her only shard, what would she do now? She didn't have time to retrieve it if she wanted to get on the ship. She whimpered slightly, as she pushed herself up, grinding dirt and sand into the open hole in her hand. She staggered forward, then ran into the ship, turning to see if the others would make it.

"Come on, damn it..." She whispered, looking up to see the bespectacled man fall from the sky and crash into a building.

"Uhh, you stupid-" Gerty felt her heart drop to her toes as she ran from the safety of the cargo hold to where the man lay. He was a broken mess. This would be difficult.

"Get up, we don't have time, I'm not going to die for you!" Gerty felt tears of panic fall from her eyes, as she grabbed one of the man's arms with her still good hand, and began dragging him toward the ship.

[Forgotten_Memories]

The specter bellowed furiously, sending fireballs of bright yellow energy at the group. One of the projectile came straight at her and Jax, who was still on the ground. Gabriella ran forward, holding out and activating her tach rod. A clear blue de-energysing field in the shape of an isosceles triangle formed almost instantly. The fireball disintegrated as it made contact with the shield. Gabby attached the tach rod to her left forearm, its shield still activated. She then kneeled and hit behind it, taking aim at the giant creature before them. Hit the core, she remembered.

Out of nowhere came an immense blast of concentrated energy, literally shattering the monstrous specter into a thousand pieces. The ship they were heading for was now hovering in the air towards them, its sails glowing a soft yellow. An AI spoke loudly,“The port cargo bay has been opened. I have been authorized to permit you 15 seconds to board,”

Michael began a countdown in the corner of vision, and as the group started running forward to board, Gabby de-activated her shard and turned around to face Jax. He didn't seem to be injured, but she offered him her hand. "Come on, get up. We've got to go!"

[Question]

Jax laid on the ground, his mouth gritty from the dirt stirring in the wind. The shockwave had caused his cut to reopen, causing driblets of blood to slide down his face. As he looked up, a giant yellow specter stood before him. Its gaping jaws, bellowed out a mighty roar. Fire poured from its mouth directly at Jax. The medic Gabriella immediately reacted and activated a sky blue shield that deflected the blast. Suddenly, a huge beam of light hit the specter, blasting the beast to pieces in a spectacular fashion. Billowing clouds of dust filled the air, as a massive ship hovered in front of them. Its lights glowed like a beacon in a storm.

“The port cargo bay has been opened. I have been authorized to permit you 15 seconds to board,”

Gabriella turned to face Jax, her hand extended. "Come on, get up. We've got to go!"

Jax graciously accepted her arm as he pulled himself up.

“I guess I owe you one.” Jax said smiling, as if their lives still weren’t in danger. Jax ran up to the ships outer bay entrance, pulling himself up and over into the craft. As he looked back he could see that the Eric was lying on the ground, and Gerty seemed to be yelling at him to get up. Jax thought,
Dam they’ll never make it in time.

[Mr Mr]

Rael headed out of the bar to see a figure running down the road. He followed, building burning to the ground, as the figure headed onto the main faraway. The street was abandoned except for corpses pilled at the sides of the road, some still being torn into by spectres. Rael prayed they wouldn't notice him as he headed towards where the figure had been. He spotted a gate swinging up ahead and barged through it, tearing it off its hinges as his drill caught on the edge. In the middle off the ship yard he could see the figure and behind him a beautiful ship.

“Hey guys we made it…” The figure started to say before being cut off by a shockwave. It swept across the ground throwing Rael into a pile of scrap metal and knocking him unconcious.

He opened his eyes to see a giant spectre being blown to pieces by a beam of light as the ship floated down towards them. Pulling himself up he could feel bits of metal cutting into him, it didn't matter one of the medics could fix it later.

“The port cargo bay has been opened. I have been authorized to permit you 15 seconds to board,”

Rael started running towards the cargo bay before he noticed a woman trying to pull a man with two sails on his back to his feet. He could see they wouldn't make it they were moving too slow.

"One of these days I'm going to get myself killed." He muttered before running over to help carry the man.

[losthawken]

Gerty saw the faces of Jax and Gabriella as they watched their struggle toward the ship. Thankfully the Albatross was drifting toward them, cutting the distance the had to travel. A mere 10 meters away, however, a whirring sound and warning tone startled Gabriella as the door-ramp began to rise, closing off the escape for the unfortunate souls struggling with Eric.

A few other figures from the bar rushed aboard just in time. They apparently didn't see the struggle as they passed and couldn't hear the cries for help over the din of destruction as the specters continued to wreak havoc on the outpost.

Just when Gerty thought all hope was lost a voice chimed in her ear. Her AI chimed in, “The AI of the crippled man has a suggestion.”

Gerty looked at Eric. He was too weak to talk, but his eyes were pleading with her.

“Raise the mans arm holding the rod. Aim it toward the ship and hold on tightly.” Gerty nodded in agreement.

“Here, help me pick up his arm,” she said to the drill wielding man. As they worked together a glowing field materialized ahead of the tach-rod.

“Hold on!” shouted Gerty as she felt the pull of the field take hold of Eric.

The threesome shot into the air, toward the closing door. The ramp was almost closed, but Einstein’s calculations were precise. The field cut out as the crested the raised door-ramp. Tumbling and sliding as they fell down the ramp Eric, Gerty and Rael joined the others inside the cargo bay hold.

The door closed with a hiss and all was silent and dark for one eternal second. The overhead lights flickered on and a heavy metal door opened at the rear of the room. The first thing that greeted them was the long barrel of a shard-rifle, followed by Artemus Antair. His brow furrowed as he took in the group.

“Leo, take us to the back side of the planet as quickly as possible. No higher than 1000 kilometers above the surface.” Antair's eyes never flickered from the strangers in his cargo hold.

“Of course sir,” came a the reply from the ships speakers in the same voice as that heard offering escape outside the ship moments ago. As Antair approached with rifle raised the ships computer Leo began an extended welcome and safety warning speech.

“Welcome aboard the Albatross, we are a class three research vessel independently run by Dr. Artemus Antair and company. Research and engineering regions of the shuttle are off limits to guests...”

“Yer, the same fools from the bar aren't ya?” Antair's hoarse voice finally addressed them, “Of all the damned luck.”

“Lavoratories can be found in the rear of the common area and immediately behind the cockpit...”

“Drop all yer weapons. If you sit quiet I'll drop you in Cerelin, back in the borderland system, but there ain't no way I'm taking you to the outer rim like that fool Bear wanted. Anybody that objects can take your chances with the specters,” the older scientist jerked his head toward the door and then leveled his weapon specifically at Jax and silently waited for a response from the group.

[Forgotten_Memories]

“Drop all yer weapons. If you sit quiet I'll drop you in Cerelin, back in the borderland system, but there ain't no way I'm taking you to the outer rim like that fool Bear wanted. Anybody that objects can take your chances with the specters,”

Gabriella holstered her handgun and tach rod before taking off the goggles strung across her face. Two paler circles surrounded her eyes as the dirt and dust from the chaos only moments ago had built up around the spectacles. Any other day she would've happily accepted a ride to Cerelin after such an incident, but not today. Their mission was now in the hands of this man, because he had a ship, and there was no way she was going to let him simply drop them off in the opposite direction.

Artemus Antair, where had she heard that name before? He said he was a researcher, and by the look of him, he didn't seem to be doing too well either - balding, thin, hoarse; the man could barely dress himself properly, which is why he wore a cloak. The outdated shard rifle just completed the picture. Gabby thought she had a bargaining chip.

"Relax, we're not here to cause any problems," she gave Jax a warning glare and then took a good look at their surroundings. "How much does a ship like this cost to maintain?"

[losthawken]

"How much does a ship like this cost to maintain?"

Artemus sneered, “It costs less than a trip into hell with a bunch of scoundrels and privateers. Not that there isn't work to be done for someone less inclined to such foolishness.”

Artemus looked past the girl to the injured star seeker being tended to by a pair of medics.

“That one looks worse for wear. I've got a small infirmary back this way. You girls can move him along, but no funny business. The rest of you stay-”

“Doctor,” the ship's voice interrupted. “We are nearing the position on the opposite end of the planet, shall I accelerate to escape velocity?”

“Yes, of course,” the scientist replied. “We're not out of the woods yet. Like I said, you two move the injured to the infirmary, the rest stay... No come with to the helm, I'd rather have you shoot me to my face than take one in the back.”

With that he turned and disappeared leaving the door behind him open.

[Question]

“Drop all yer weapons. If you sit quiet I'll drop you in Cerelin, back in the borderland system, but there ain't no way I'm taking you to the outer rim like that fool Bear wanted. Anybody that objects can take your chances with the specters,”

Curse Hawkins, this little mission was going to get us all killed.
But Jax knew what was at stake; he knew the reason Hawkins had been in the outer rim. Hawkins had already escaped him once and Jax would be damned If he did it again. The only reason he joined this party was because Bear had the coordinates of his last location.

Jax sneered at the man pointing a second rate tach rifle in his face. He was pretty sure he could take that rifle and shoot him befor he could blink. But something about the mans stealy gaze stopped him. He looked more like some of the beggars wandering the streets back on Serepten then some company researcher. This man clearly hadn’t been paid in a while, and that may be just the angle Jax needed.

"How much does a ship like this cost to maintain?"

Gabriella must have been thinking the same thing. Jax was becoming more interested by her. Jax eyed her; she had firm but slender looking body, and smooth mocha colored skin. She was pretty, if not a little older. And she definitely wasn’t just an ordinary medic.


Artemus sneered, “It costs less than a trip into hell with a bunch of scoundrels and privateers. Not that there isn't work to be done for someone less inclined to such foolishness.”

Jax turned his attention back to Artemus. Well if he wouldn’t cooperate they could always take the ship by force.

Jax glanced back at the rest of the group. The giant with the drill stood over in the corner and was contrasted by Gerty’s short stature. Eric lay unconsious on the ground between them. That was sheer luck, releasing their sail like that to fly up into the ship, they could have missed the entrance completely.


We're not out of the woods yet. Like I said, you two move the injured to the infirmary, the rest stay... No come with to the helm, I'd rather have you shoot me to my face than take one in the back.”

A small smile spread across Jax face, as he followed him through the door. He was beginning to like this Artimus.

[yellowm&M]

What was I thinking? That was Andrea's first coherent thought after running through the burning, dying port town. Somehow she had gotten through with only a few minor cuts and scratches. Between buildings she had glimpsed specters and passed mangled, dead bodies. Each person she passed felt like a punch in the gut-it was so wrong not to try and help them. But most, if not all, of them were already dead and she knew that stopping to try and help in her defenseless state would probably just get her killed. So on she ran until she reached the ship with the AI telling any survivors to board. The other people from the bar were rushing on board as well and she slunk into a corner, hoping not to be noticed. No doubt these experienced, brave shard seekers had tried to fight some of the specters rather than running by.

The cargo hold was dark for a few seconds then the AI began to speak again, but was cut off by a gruff voice.

“Drop all yer weapons. If you sit quiet I'll drop you in Cerelin, back in the borderland system, but there ain't no way I'm taking you to the outer rim like that fool Bear wanted. Anybody that objects can take your chances with the specters,”

From her position in the corner, Andrea didn't have a good view of what was going on-the curse of being short. She heard what sounded like weapons falling to the ground, then the other medic's voice, Gabriella, speaking.

"Relax, we're not here to cause any problems. "How much does a ship like this cost to maintain?"

"It costs less than a trip into hell with a bunch of scoundrels and privateers. Not that there isn't work to be done for someone less inclined to such foolishness.”

It was as Artemus spoke that Andrea noticed Eric near the door. Most of the company seemed to have arrived at the ship without serious injury, except for him. Trying not to make a noise, Andrea slipped over to Eric's side and knelt over him. There was blood everywhere and what looked to be a few broken bones. Hopefully that was the worst of it.

“That one looks worse for wear. I've got a small infirmary back this way. You girls can move him along, but no funny business. The rest of you stay-”

It was as if he had heard her thoughts. She looked down at Eric again, not knowing what was potentially broken she hated to move him, but she also knew that she could examine him and take care of him much better in a proper infirmary. Scanning him quickly she decided it was best to move him as he didn't appear to have severe injury to his neck.

“We're not out of the woods yet. Like I said, you two move the injured to the infirmary, the rest stay... No come with to the helm, I'd rather have you shoot me to my face than take one in the back.”

Carefully Andrea slid her arms under Eric's head, bracing in in the position it was in so as not to worsen an injuries. Normally she hated addressing crowds, but right now that fear was gone, replaced by the confidence she felt when she was in her element as a medic.

"I need someone to help me carry him to the infirmary. Carefully."

[losthawken]

Artemus led the way through a narrow corridor and up a flight of stairs to the helm. The ship was cramped inside, but well lit. He kept a firm grip on his weapon, and a close eye on the refugees that followed him. He had no trust for these people, but at the moment he had to focus on getting off the planet alive.

"Leonardo, punch up the planet in position with its largest moon. Mark the position of the settlement and our current coordinates on the surface."

The computer obliged and a 3D display appeared in the main view screen in front of the shuttle's front windows. Outside the desert landscape could be seen racing by as they traveled a breakneck speed across the planet.

Artemus raised his hand and touched the point on the planet marking their location. "Set a course away from the planet while shielding us from the far side by passing behind the moon. Then run like Hell"

As he spoke he traced a line that was marked by a luminescent thread across the path he intended. Several of his guests arrived behind him. More specters would be waiting outside the atmosphere above the outpost; he knew from experience. They had to be very careful if they wanted to escape in once piece.

The infirmary was within earshot of the helm, Artemus could hear the scuffling as the wounded man was moved that way. For a moment he wished he hadn't replaced most of the equipment there with his research instruments. But then, he was sure they would find enough to patch the fellow up until they got to Cerelin.

"They had better not break anything back there," he thought to himself as he continued to plot their escape.

[Forgotten_Memories]

"It costs less than a trip into hell with a bunch of scoundrels and privateers. Not that there isn't work to be done for someone less inclined to such foolishness.”

Artemus spoke again before Gabriella could bring up a counter argument. “That one looks worse for wear. I've got a small infirmary back this way. You girls can move him along, but no funny business. The rest of you stay-”

Even though tending to people was what she did, Gabriella couldn't just sit there and accept the fact that they were going to give up on the mission. She caught Jax eyeing her up. It was always nice to receive attention from younger guys - even if they were slimy pirates. But there was a sort of look in his eye, as if he had a plan.

"-No come with to the helm, I'd rather have you shoot me to my face than take one in the back.”

A grin spread across Jax's face, and Gabriella thought that at this point, even the help of a scoundrel would do.

"I need someone to help me carry him to the infirmary. Carefully."

Gabriella turned around as more of the shard seekers shuffled past to follow the researcher to the helm. The innocent medic girl from the bar was attempting to lift the scientist, who had barely made it onboard the ship. The man looked extremely rough, bleeding everywhere, a couple of broken bones. A few others were injured, but nothing like this guy. Gabriella made her way over and knelt beside them. This was going to be difficult, and she would have to leave the negotiations to the others. Hopefully they all had a good enough reason to be here.

She carefully got next to the man and placed his arm over her shoulder. Together, her and the other medic lifted and brought him to the infirmary, where they placed him on the only table that seemed to be empty. The entire room was covered with what looked like research instruments. Gabriella came to the conclusion that a lone man didn't have much use for an infirmary.

"Alright, let's see what we have here." She strung the goggles back around her head.

[yellowm&M]

The other medic walked over and the two of them carefully carried the injured man down the hallway and into the infirmary. They laid him down on an empty table. Andrea glanced around the room to see what medical equipment the infirmary held. However it seemed to mainly house reseach instruments and wouldn't be much help.

"Alright, let's see what we have here."

On the other side of the table the other medic put on her goggles and began examining the injured for his more severe injuries. Reaching into her bag, Andrea pulled out some gauze and began to gently clean the blood off of him and patch up the cuts and scratches that were still bleeding. She quickly fell into the calming rythm of helping someone. With all the chaos outside it was almost relaxing to do something that was familar and normal.

[Forgotten_Memories]

"Michael, I want a full body scan, stat."

The AI turned her goggles back to the X-Ray vision, as well as initiating a vitals scan on the side. The scan highlighted several areas, reading short reports for them in the corner of Gabriella's view. Broken left arm and dislocated left shoulder. The scientist's right arm was alright because the contraption he had strapped to it seemed to have taken most of the blow. His legs were just heavily bruised, but showed no sign of break or fracture. The man's heart rate was a bit high, probably because he was in panic about what happened to him.

"Scan complete." Michael spoke gleefully.

The scientist was lucky, having smashed into a brick wall at such a high speed and only come out with these sorts of injuries. Gabriella walked to the head of the table, detaching the medi-pack on her back and placing it in the space above the man's head. She looked over at the medic who was assisting her - the pretty girl with the green eyes. She seemed relaxed despite the circumstances, cleaning the man's more visible wounds.

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch your name back there. I'm Gabriella."

[yellowm&M]

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch your name back there. I'm Gabriella."

"I'm Andrea. It's nice to have another medic around..." Andrea smiled at Gabriella, letting her sentance trail off. It probably wouldn't help her cause to say that she felt out of place in the group with such a lack of shard seeking experience. Of course she had heard about the outer reaches, specters, and shards from her father but that wasn't anything like actually experiencing it. Plus those stories had been a long time ago and she had no way to hear them again. Pushing those thoughts away she glanced back at Gabriella. With her tanned skin, dark ponytail, and air of confidence Andrea had no trouble believing she did some shard seeking. Still Andrea meant it when she said it was nice to have another medic around, at least on that level she didn't feel so out of place. Regardless of how out of her league she felt, however, Andrea had no intentions of leaving the mission-she had to be on it.

Looking back up at Gabriella she asked, "What did your scan come up with?"

[Forgotten_Memories]

"What did your scan come up with?"

"Oh, nothing we can't handle," Gabriella responded confidently, taking the necessary tools out of her medi-pack - some Spray-Gauze and Sling-Wrap, "A broken arm, dislocated shoulder. I'm going to need you to prop him up for me."

While she waited for Andrea to do this, Gabriella noticed the other casualty standing in the room - the girl with the bluntly dyed pink hair. She was one of the ones responsible for saving the scientist. True bravery was difficult to come by these days - most people only looked to save their own hides.

Michael zoomed in on the girl's hand, alerting Gabby of a serious bullet wound. She quickly turned back to her medi-pack and extracted one of the vials slotted in around the sides. Cragclaw venom. If ever there was a medical breakthrough, it was the discovery of the effect of Cragclaw venom on human muscle and tissue cell regeneration. Of course, it did little to help bone, but that's where the regular treatments came in.

Gabriella held the vial out to the girl. "Here, pour this over it." The only problem was that she had little left of the stuff.

[yellowm&M]

"Oh, nothing we can't handle," Gabriella responded confidently, taking the necessary tools out of her medi-pack - some Spray-Gauze and Sling-Wrap, "A broken arm, dislocated shoulder. I'm going to need you to prop him up for me."

As Gabriella rummaged around in her bag for the necessary materials Andrea carefully slung the man's uninjured arm around her shoulder and moved him into a sitting position leaning heavily on her. It was then that she noticed the other woman standing quietly in the corner, blood dripping down her hand. Gabriella noticed her too and gave her a small bottle of what appeared to be Cragclaw venom. That stuff was amazingly useful, but expensive because of it. Mentally Andrea ran through the items in her own bag. She was pretty sure she had a small vial of the venom as well, but it didn't contain very much venom in it and she had a feeling they would need it on this trip. She'd have to find a way to stock up on some.

[losthawken]

“All passengers please prepare for gravitational escape,” the AI voice chimed throughout the ship. Those on board felt the craft tremor slightly as it left the gravitational pull of the small outpost planet.

On the helm Artemus Antair watched intently as the pale blue atmosphere gave way to pinholes of light in a great black void. He had nearly forgotten about the others on board so intent on escaping the specters was he. Leonardo was doing his job well, they were behind the moon and moving quickly away from the planet with no sign of specters.

But as they continued past the moon and the far side of the besieged planet came into view the scene took the breath away from even the cold hearted Antair.

Hundreds of specters swarmed just above the planet amidst the debris of countless many ships. The few space craft that were still exiting the planets atmosphere were being picked off one by one by the alien horde.

“My God,” Antair gasped, “I’ve never seen so many… Its not a raid, its an assault… LEO, are you recording this?”

“Yes Doctor. I’m recording on all spectrums. You should be aware that there is one class 5 specter amidst the group, the largest encountered so far.”

The ship turned away from the horrific scene and the doctor breathed a sigh of relief. Still he didn’t move. His thoughts were captivated by the carnage he had witnessed, and the warning that that old spacer had given him when he purchased that amazing shard.

His dark introspection was broken moments later by the voice of Leo once again.

“Doctor, the largest of the specters has broken off of the main group. It appears to be moving in an intercept path with the Albatross.”

“Full power to the sails Leo, give them everything we’ve got,” the scientist frantically jumped into the piloting chair, “put the tachyon currents on the screen, I’m taking over.”

Artemus grabbed the steering assembly with both hands as the beautiful display of flowing purple ribbons representing the movements of the tachyon currents filled the screen.

“Everyone hold on!”


Gerty was still somewhat in shock over the narrow escape from the planet, and from the pain that still throbbed in her hand. She had just applied the curative venom tincture and was struggling against the added prickling sensation it gave to her palm. She heard the Doctor’s yell only distantly as the ship began to lurch and sway.

Almost imperceptibly a piercing ringing began in her ears. It grew and grew to an overwhelming current in her mind. As the tone climaxed she felt every thought and every memory flash through her minds eye. It felt as though her very mind was being violated. Dropping the vial of precious medicine she gripped her head with both hands pulling her fluorescent locks over her face.

Then, as suddenly as the feeling came it stopped, or rather it changed. She could still feel the presence of something different that lingered, but it no longer tormented her mind and senses. Visibly shaken she managed a sigh of relief before the deep grating whisper came.

“Surrender the shard!”

[Forgotten_Memories]

The short pink-haired girl took the vial with pleasure and applied it carefully to her wound, which healed itself in a matter of seconds, only a scar and some broken bones underneath left. But first, the scientist would have to be taken care of.

"Oh, I almost forgot," Gabriella began, extracting a small syringe from the medi-pack, filled with a pain-killing solution, "we'll need this!"

As she carried the equipment over to the front of the table, where Andrea sat the injured man into the necessary position, a voice came through the ship's intercom."All passengers please prepare for gravitational escape.”

A moment later the ship lurched forward, causing Gabriella to stumble right into the man's arm, which was followed by a loud crunch. She managed not to drop the equipment, but reeled instantly to scan the patient. Luckily, Michael revealed that she had actually fixed the man's dislocated shoulder. Well, that was one thing taken care of - now for the arm!

Just as she was about to inject the man with a dosage of the pain-killer, there came a smash from the corner. The pink-haired girl had dropped the precious vial of Cragclaw venom and was having some sort of seizure it appeared. "What the - Michael! Scan, stat!" Gabriella commanded. Was she having an allergic reaction to the venom?

The AI identified and ran a vitals check on the girl. "Vitals are 100%."

A moment later, she stopped, and was as calm as a lake. Then she spoke, in an eery, inhuman voice, "Surrender the shard."

Gabriella put her medical equipment down and stepped in front of Andrea and her patient, her hand slowly moving toward her tach rod. This didn't seem like normal behaviour, not even for a shard seeker. "What shard?" Gabriella asked sharply.

[Question]

The ship lurched up into space. He could see countless glowing specters just outside the atmosphere. Hundreds of them waiting to demolish any fleeing ships. This hadn’t been a raid but a massacre. Jax could feel a cold anger rising inside himself. All these specters grouping together in an organised attack, didn’t make any sense. He wondered what the hell these demons could want. Sure Jax had killed men, but never like this. Slaughtering women and children, with nothing to be gained. No… this was genocide.

“Doctor, the largest of the specters has broken off of the main group. It appears to be moving in an intercept path with the Albatross.” Artemus jumped into the piloting chair as he activated the manual controls.

“Everyone hold on!”

The ship rumbled as artemus increased the speed. Jax held onto the wall to steady himself. He knew that a specter that big would be almost impossible to destroy but they had to do something, if they were going to get out of this alive.

Jax looked at artimus, “You got any outer weapons on this ship?”

[losthawken]

“You got any outer weapons on this ship?”

“Yes of course, there are two shard blasters on the port and starboard sides at the rear. Get someone else to man the second!” Artemus didn’t look up from the front console as he spoke. He was focusing hard on keeping the shuttle in the strongest tach currents to maximize their speed.

“Doctor, the specter is gaining on us, and will intercept in less than five minutes.”

“Damn it!” Artemus shouted, “Put him on the side panel I want to see him before he blasts us into eternity.”

A view panel adjacent to the front window of the craft flickered to life. It displayed the amorphous shape of the massive entity that pursued them. Billowing violet energy burned in the void as it streamed toward the Albatross. Dark crystals were speckled throughout the luminous glow, the largest of which were concentrated toward the center where the creature’s burning orange core could be seen. No one had encountered a specter of this size; at least none had and lived to report it.

“Doctor, as your hypotheses would predict it is definitely of the Phageon subspecies,” Leo commented.

“Of course it is!” shouted a frustrated and desperate Artemus, “Pirate! Link with Leo, the specter will protect its main core, but this type has multiple smaller cores. Leo can help you target them! It might buy us a little more time!”

They might have one hope of surviving, but Artemus still hesitated to reveal the shard. After all, if the old spacer was right that same shard was the very reason for there current predicament.

[Mr Mr]

Through a view port in cargo bay Rael could see specters grouping around the ships trying to escape. They were tearing them to shreds he had never though he'd see such a sight in his lifetime, it must be the largest gathering in history. But how, how were they so organised? Specters were meant to be beast like creatures with no real ability to think.

“Doctor, the largest of the specters has broken off of the main group. It appears to be moving in an intercept path with the Albatross.”

Rael snapped out of thought. How they were going to defend against something so big he didn't know. He headed towards the cockpit to see what could be done to delay the specter only to see someone had beat him too it.

“You got any outer weapons on this ship?” Asked a brown haired man.

“Yes of course, there are two shard blasters on the port and starboard sides at the rear. Get someone else to man the second!” Antair replied. Rael stepped in tapping the brown haired man on the back.

"I'll man the other gun." He said hurrying off, their chances didn't look good though.

[Earphone]

Gerty placed her palms over her face. Her head felt like it was going to explode.

"What shard?" One of the medics asked, her voice ringing over and over in Gerty's ears. Lurching forward, Gerty vomited across the floor.

"Shard, what're you talking about?" She wheezed, wiping her mouth with her sleeve, "Where's my backpack?" She scanned the floor, until she caught sight of it, then retrieved it from the floor. "Be right back."

Head still thumping, she left the infirmary, and entered a small room to her right, closing the door as she did. The ship was shaking, being pursued, and they were all going to die, Gerty guessed. At least they fixed her palm. Hands trembling, she opened the backpack, and began rifling through it. It was wet, and full of glass shards. Surely one had survived! With growing desperation, Gerty turned out the backpack across the floor, shaking it wildly. Clink! Gerty gave a moan of relief, and picked up the syringe from the floor. One Deeper shot had survived. She couldn't use it now, not with all the rocking about, but just the knowledge that she had it made all the difference. Her head twitched, and she felt her headache worsen. Stuffing the syringe into her pocket, she left the room, completely forgetting to clean up her mess, and entered back into the infirmary.

"Back." She said with a crooked smile.

[Question]

Jax felt a tap on his shoulder, "I'll man the other gun."

It was the giant Rael. Well at least he looked like he could handle a blaster. Jax turned, and hurried down the hallway towards the ships starboard side. He climbed up a ladder, entering the small cockpit that operated the large blaster. The cockpit itself was circular and able to rotate in any direction. As he sat down and strapped himself in, The video feed of the outside filled the curved wall opposite of Jax. He slowly reached down, grabbing on to the joystick that controled the gun, pausing slightly at its familiarity. Jax turned the cockpit to the right, searching for the specter. There it was, it was huge even larger then the ship, It radiated off purple energy as it soard behind them. Its body pulsed with millions of shards. An almost imperceptible face seemed to resonate in its center.

“Well, aren’t you ugly. All right, Leo link me up to your targeting system.”

The screen lit up with squares circleling along its body indicating points of impact. A large square marked the center of creature. Simple enough, shoot all those squares then go for the big one in the middle.
Jax activated his headset to communicate with Rael. “Rael you just keep firing to the right side I’ll stay to the left. Then will meet in the middle.”

Jax rotated slightly, and took aim at an impact point. Bam!Bam!Bam! The large gun rocketed blasts of green energy towards the creature. Jax slightly adjusted the joystick, moving upwards, and carefully aiming for the points of impact. He could already see small chunks of the behemoth flying off the creature where the blaster hit. Bam!Bam!Bam! Maybe there was a slight chance to beat this thing. He continued fireing, his finger constantly pulling at the trigger. He could feel cold sweat on the back of his neck. The specter still seemed to be gaining on them. Suddenly a shrill noise resonated from the specter, as its body began to glow brighter.

[losthawken]

In the infirmary, Gerty heard the terrifying voice in her mind again.

“You're weak,” it grumbled.

A broad pulse of energy burst out from the core of the creature, creating massive interference across all the ships systems including the intercom which reacted with a shrill screeching noise. Simultaneously the voice only she could hear screamed in her head, “SURRENDER THE SHARD!”

The scientist watched as his fears were realized and the blasted bits of the specter reorganized themselves and quickly rejoined their origin. Artemus flipped a switch.

“You’ll have to shoot faster than that!” he called out across the ships intercom.

He glanced at the approaching specter once more. If ever there were a time for desperate measures it was this. He’d been in bad scrapes with specters before, but none like this. But, he wouldn’t see his life’s work and all the secrets aboard the Albatross demolished. He knew that one day he would die at the hands of a specter, but this would not be that day; not if he could help it. Making his mind up, he flipped the intercom switch again.

“I can’t leave the helm, but there is a shard hidden in a titanium-fiber case inside the second bulkhead of the main hallway,” the urgency of the situation belied the doctor’s voice as he did his best to instruct them slowly and clearly. “Someone MUST retrieve the shard and exchange it with the one used by the tach-sail generator. It’s our only chance!”

Artemus sighed as he returned to steering the ship. The creature was still approaching, rapidly.

“Doctor, I would advise against using that particular shard as its size and properties are beyond record and have not yet been fully investigated,” the ever calm and vigilant computer warned across the intercom.

Staring coolly into the river of transparent tachyon currents the Doctor ignored his AI. They were going to die one way or the other, they might as well die trying.

[Forgotten_Memories]

The pink haired girl vomited all over the floor and Gabriella dropped her defences. Something wasn't right, and this girl clearly needed help. The girl fumbled for her backpack and then excused herself quickly, as if nothing had happened.

"Wait-" Gabriella called, but the girl took no notice. Her hand hadn't healed up yet. Very strange behaviour, it's almost as if she was on deeper or something.

While the girl was out of the room, Gabriella moved to fix up the scientist's arm with Andrea. She sprayed on the gauze, which thickened in a matter of second and they began making a sling. That's when the girl returned, all flustered.

"Alright, I think we're practically done here. Andrea, can you see to her hand? The bones won't heal without a proper hold."

Then suddenly the ship shook, and their patient fell forward, only to be stopped by the medics' hold - they had been hit by something. A quick, sharp-pitched noise echoed from the intercom, which was followed by Antair's voice, “You’ll have to shoot faster than that!”

What was going on out there? Gabby quickly glanced around the room, noticing a small window looking out at the ship's starboard side. She walked over, and her eyes opened wide as she removed the goggles from her face. Behind them was a Specter, and although her first encounter with the creatures was only about an hour ago, Gabby could tell that this one meant business.

She turned to Andrea. "We have to get him off the table!"

As she moved back across the room, Antair's voice came through the intercom again, “I can’t leave the helm, but there is a shard hidden in a titanium-fiber case inside the second bulkhead of the main hallway. Someone MUST retrieve the shard and exchange it with the one used by the tach-sail generator. It’s our only chance!”

Shit. That was all Gabriella could think.

[Mr Mr]

Rael strapped himself into the blasters cockpit ficking switches on as he did. The screen appeared showing the specter outside. It was collosal, dwarfing the ship. He took a hold of the joystick smiling as he took aim, it was just like playing a game, the computer marking the vunerable areas of the specters body. Rael smiled slightly, his childhood seemed so long ago.

“Rael you just keep firing to the right side I’ll stay to the left. Then will meet in the middle.” Jax said over the intercom.

"Will do." Rael radioed back. He started firing aiming for the smallest chunks befor attacking the larger ones. Boom!Boom!Boom! Chunks of the specter flew off as Rael laughed. Despite the threat of immintent death he couldn't help enjoying this. Boom! Another chunk flew off. He could see more pieces floating past from Jax's side. Then it started glowing.

The glowing pulse increased then surged towards them. Rael's screen shut down as the pulse hit.

“I can’t leave the helm, but there is a shard hidden in a titanium-fiber case inside the second bulkhead of the main hallway. Someone MUST retrieve the shard and exchange it with the one used by the tach-sail generator. It’s our only chance!” Antair said over the intercome. Rael unstrapped hoping Jax hadn't decided to go for the shard aswell.

He exited the cockpit sliding down the ladder and heading back towards the cockpit before turning towards the back of the ship. The second bulkhead seemed alot further away than he had realised but he pushed on. Rael started searching looking for some form of door or opening to no avail.

"He's not going to be happy about this." Rael muttered before slamming his drill into the floor. It was a good thing he hadn't surrendered it earlier. Sparks flew as he tore up the floor, pipes and cables being ripped and thrown out the way. After a few seconds drilling he found what looked like a ladder. Wasting no time he jumped down past it. There was a case sitting on a plynth. He grabbed it climbing back up the ladder and running towards Antair.

He hopped he could make fast enough.

[Question]

The specter pulse nocked out Jax’s video feed. Crap, how the heck was he sposed to shoot the thing now.

“I can’t leave the helm, but there is a shard hidden in a titanium-fiber case inside the second bulkhead of the main hallway. Someone MUST retrieve the shard and exchange it with the one used by the tach-sail generator. It’s our only chance!”

Jax figured somebody else would have to deal with that. He continued to flip switches in an attempt to get the video back on but nothing worked. The last he had seen, the specter had been right on their heels. He had to buy them more time or they were all done for. Jax remembered that their was an outer maintenance hatch he had passed earlier. If he could get on the outside of the ship, then he could manualy fire the blaster and that might just give them some time. Though at these speeds it would be crazy to attempt such a thing.

Jax exited the cockpit and retraced his steps back to the maintenance hatch. An old space suit hung in a storage block next to it. The suit clipped onto a shard harness, which would power it. In theory, it would allow him to breath, while also protecting him from the elements. Though this one looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. He put on the older suit, hopeing that it held up. He went through the hatch.

He hung on the outer edge of the ship. The ship itself seemed to be moving alarmingly fast. He began to think that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. The great beyond flew around him, he knew that all it would take was one slip, and he would fall into that endless void. The boots and gloves of the suit Jax was wearing were magnatised against the ship. But still the thought unnerved him. It took all of his will to start climbing up the side of the ship, but eventually he got his hand up to the next rung and the rest began to follow. The hatch itself wasn’t to far from the blaster and he could see the gun ahead of him. The gun was pretty big, and normally moved with the cockpit, but could easily be disingaged for manual fire.

As he reached it he stood up braceing himself against the ship. He stood in awe at the site before him. The giant specter had definitely been gaining on them. Jax could almost feel the energy radiating off of it. He flipped the switch on the blaster, changing it to manual controls. He grabbed onto the two handles with both hands. This definatlly wasn’t a Joystick. The gun pivoted towards the creature as Jax took carefull aim at the creatures center. This time there was no targeting system. Jax roared, as he fired, hurling strings of energy at the specter. The gun buckled against Jax but he held his ground as rage fuelled an insistent need to destroy this entity.

[losthawken]

Artemus shouted over his shoulder when he heard the destructive sounds of Rael punching a whole in his ship.

“What the hell is going on back there?”

The heavy footsteps of the young miner approached him. Artemus turned abruptly and punched in the access code to unlock the case and then quickly turned back to steering the ship. The boy was clearly as bright as a toothpick if he didn’t know how to open a simple door. He only hoped he could install the shard properly. He paused for a moment to glance at the man’s face when he opened the case.

The shard was massive, longer than a man’s arm and a beautiful amber orange in color. Rael stood still and silent, taking in the shard like none he’d ever seen before.

“Get it to the sail generator. Leo will cut the power when you tell him so you can safely pull out the old shard and place this one inside. Take the ladder down just past the infirmary down the hall on the left. GO!” Artemus didn’t believe in God, but all the same he prayed that this would work.

“Doctor, one of the passengers has exited the ship and is attempting to manually operate the starboard side turret,” Leo commented.

“That damn crazy Pirate! His view port must have gone down when the pulse hit. Well help him Leo, he’s shooting blind out there!” exclaimed the scientist.

----

A moment later the voice of the ship’s AI chimed in Jax Robert’s helmet, “I’ve been instructed to aid you in targeting the phageon specter. Please let me know if I can be of any other assistance.”

A similar display to that in the turret appeared in Jax’s protective goggles indicating the most vulnerable sub-cores of the creature.

----

Rael ran down the hall past the infirmary, Gabriella and Andrea had just placed the injured Eric carefully on the floor. Andrea saw the large miner run by carrying what looked like a very large shard. The man hardly took his eyes off of it as he hurried.

Moving to the door she watched as he turned the corner and listened to his footsteps as he moved down a ladder. Then something else caught her eye.

Further down the hall a hole had been ripped in the wall. That must have been the crashing sound she had heard. But now something was coming out of the hole. It was not very large, less than a meter, and it floated and moved in the air indifferent to the artificial gravity of the ship.

Was there a specter on board? The thing was made up of transparent shards much like a specter, but it was far more simple in shape and had no energy field about it. The shards were aligned into a spine like row of small round crystals along the sides of which extended separate long slender crystals. The largest of these were arranged at the front and the smaller towards the back. It gave the thing the appearance of a cobra’s head, but the shards all undulated in a series of waves down its body much like a sea-ray.

It moved gracefully and slowly out of the opened bulkhead then quickly sped off following Rael.

[Question]

He had been firing constantly at the specters center but the blasts seemed to be pretty inaffective

“I’ve been instructed to aid you in targeting the phageon specter. Please let me know if I can be of any other assistance.”

Jax’s goggle’s lit up with the targeting system. The familiar display of squares surrounded the creature. He continued to fire as he angled the gun towards one of the squares. The gun buckled and fought against him but he held on, desperatly fighting to keep his aim. The specter was still moving closer. Suddenly, one of Jax’s blasts hit directly at the square. It exploded on impact sending a shower of shards flinging behind it. The blast caused the specter to rear back a couple feet. A small grin stretched across Jax’s face. This could work, the specter was so close the blast seemed to be causeing more damage. Jax readjusted his aim, going for a square to his left. He fired rapidly, untill he could see a satisfying explosion of shards fly off the specter. The specter moved a few feet back.

“Leo, direct more power to this Blaster, Im gonna need all that you can spare.”

“Authorization required from Doctor Antair.”

“I don’t give a crap what you have to do. Just get me more power, now!”

[Mr Mr]

Rael ran through the ship. Behind him he could hear an odd noise, almost like a ghostly slithering. Looking behind him he could see a transparent snake like spectre following him. Rael almost tripped in shock. He had never seen a spectre, if it was a spectre, like this before. It didn't even seem to have an energy field. Rael ignored it. He'd have to fight it later, right now he had a job to do.

He reached the center of the ship. Pushing open the door to the generator room he could see the old shard floating in between to nodes. Rael paused taking a moment to think about the best way to swap them before giving up. He placed his drill next to the current shard holding the other next to it before counting down.

"Ok 3, 2, 1."

He pushed the other shard out of the way placing the new one in. Stepping back he smiled to himself. He'd done it, and without the ship blowing up either.

"Sssss" Came a noise from behind him.

[losthawken]

“I don’t give a crap what you have to do. Just get me more power, now!”

“Impetuous pirate,” Artemus scoffed after hearing the recording played back by Leo. They had to out run the specter, it was their only chance. That blaster would not stop it, not even if all of the ships energy was redirected to it, and of course they couldn’t afford to turn the power off from the sail generator…

“I have an idea,” Artemus spoke to Leo. “Tell the ‘captain’ that he can have his power, but that he will only get a moments power. Prepare to redirect all the power to the starboard blaster the moment the sail generator is turned off. That crazy pirate can get his shot off then. But as soon as the shard is installed return maximum power to the sails.”

They would need the diversion while their sails were down. He just hoped it would slow the creature enough for them to escape.

Outside the ship, Leo relayed the plan to Jax.

“I will alert you five seconds before the energy is redistributed. My sensors indicate that Mr. Searwin is in the engineering room and will begin the protocol to power down the sail generator before removing the current…” the computer broke off, for a moment before returning, “Commence firing immediately.”

The field inside the shard blaster suddenly radiated with luminous energy as Leo quickly diverted the power from the sail generator, allowing Jax a single high energy shot at the fast approaching specter.

Inside the ship, Leo chided Rael.

“Mr. Searwin, in the future please follow protocol to properly disengage the power from the sail generator before..” the computerized voice continued but Rael was disinterested.

The serpentine shard creature had followed him into the generator room and now hung weightlessly in the air at eye level as though it were sizing the large man up. The super shard in the field generator began to glow with a warm orange light that colored everything in the room, and reflected off the iridescent crystals of the creature. The ship lurched as it picked up speed.

“Good show gentlemen!” came Artemus’s voice over the intercom.

The creature in front of Rael tipped its front toward the speaker as though to look at it. Then, before he could react is slipped past Rael. Circling behind the generator it stooped low near the dislodged shard on the floor before beginning a slow orbit around the massive orange shard in the field generator.

[yellowm&M]

Andrea was helping Gabriella lower the injured man to the floor when the sound of rushing footsteps reached her. Turning around she glanced out the door to see one of the men from the group rushing past towards the ladder at the end of the hall. Then she saw the creature. It was made of shards and moved with a graceful, floating motion. Andrea's first thought was that it was a specter, but it didn't fit any description of a specter she had ever heard. Carefully letting go of the man, Andrea stood up and quietly walked over to the door, watching the creature as it sped down the hall after the other man.

Eyebrows raised she turned back to Gabriella.

"Do you know what that was? Should we follow it?"

[Forgotten_Memories]

Andrea turned to Gabriella with eyes wide in surprise. She had seen it too, and it definitely wasn't good news.

"Do you know what that was? Should we follow it?"

Gabriella took a look at their patient - the scientist was intoxicated with anesthesia, and couldn't really do or say much at the moment. He could barely move. They couldn't just leave him.

"You stay with the patient, I'm going to go find out what the hell's going on here!" And with that she was off, quickly drawing her handgun and tach rod.

Gabby went down the same corridor as Rael and the creature, and soon she was in the room with the power generator, the orange light of the recently installed shard illuminated everything dazzlingly. She still had no knowledge of the operation to replace the shard, but that wasn't the issue at the moment. Rael stood watching the creature, almost perplexed with its activities. It was circling the giant orange shard. She walked closer to the giant man, pointing her weapon at the beast. It was a wonder it hadn't attacked anyone yet.

"What is that?" She asked as Michael scanned his index in her goggles for anything resembling the snake-like entity.

[losthawken]

In the viewscreen beside him Artemus saw the terrible specter grow smaller and smaller as the distance between them grew. He smiled to himself in victory.

“Leo, how is that shard behaving; what is our current speed?”

“We are currently travelling at 450 milli-c. The shard appears to be responding normally, however, I have detected some unusual frequencies within it since it was installed.”

“450 milli-c! What a shard! Plot a course to the Cerelin system, but keep an eye on things, the Albatross wasn’t designed to travel at these speeds for extended periods,” the scientist allowed the AI to do its work and left the pilots seat to check on his guests and see what kind of damage they had created.

Reaching the medical bay he found Andrea and the shifty pink haired girl tending to the injured young man. Gerty suddenly paused in what she was doing and gripped her head as the voice that only she could hear spoke once again. Her whole body began to tremor as a look of terror and panic overtook her.

“Its not over,” she bagan to sob “they will never stop chasing us..” the girls panicked eyes pierced right through Artemus. His mind reeled, how could she have known the warning of the old spacer?

A deck below in the engineering room, Gabriella and Rael gazed at the peculiar creature circling the magnificent glowing shard.

"What is that?"

Rael didn’t answer, he was too busy watching the thing was beginning to change. The broad flat array of slender shards reorganized as did the thing’s spine. The pieces moved and flowed independently to form two rings around the shard that flowed circled in opposing directions. Bathed in the orange glow of the shard the new configuration of reflective crystals was breathtaking.

A tiny white spark leapt out from the circling shards, it was reciprocated by an orange spark that was returned by the larger shard in the generator. An interchange of energy followed, passing back and forth between the shard and the creature. For a moment the flowing ring of crystals glowed a brilliant white, they then moved away from the shard and reformed into the flat undulating teardrop they had been before.

The creature gently and quickly glided out of the room. The two shard seekers looked at each other briefly before the shard in the generator began to hum. It pulsed with light as its orange aura gradually changed to a brilliant blue that shone brighter than before.

“Doctor,” Gabreilla and Rael heard Leo call over the intercoms, “there seems to be a problem with the sail generator. The tachyon fields are no longer responding, we are accelerating rapidly and being pulled off course.”

Still outside the ship Capt. Jax watched as the gently glowing tachyon sails of the ship were replaced by powerful blue fields.

[Question]

“Authorization granted.” The power display started flashing as the energy was redirected. He waited, taking carefull aim at the creature. Beads of sweat rolled off the top of his forhead, fogging up his visor.

“Come on just a little bit more…” The power display reached critacal mass.

Suddenly the ship lurched forward, causing Jax to lose his footing. Dispair filled his contenounce as he struggled to gain purchase. Everything seemed to have slowed down as Jax floated waitlessly away from the speeding ship.

“Snap!” His whip latched around one of the ships rungs. The whip was taught as the ship dragged him in it wake. He looked at the ship and he could see that the sails had turned a deep blue.

He tried to retract his whip but he was moving to fast. He was getting a little light headed as held on. His oxygen was running out and it would need refilling soon. A memory danced before his eyes. Jax stood as a boy looking out at the shard dealers, his stomach rumbled as he eyed the largest one, it was deep scarlet speckled with white. His nimble fingers reached for it as the large mustachioed dealer talked boisterously to his colleuge. Cautiously he walked away, an egglike shape bulgeing beneath his shirt. But the dealer saw him.

Jax gasped. He could almost feel the cool metal as it sliced, so effortlessly through bone and tendon. Jax looked at the red shard locked inside of his robotic prostethis. He was fifteen when he tracked that man down and killed him. Jax never backed down from what he set out to do and he would be damned if the dreaded captain, Jax Roberts died dragged along like a fish on a line. He had set out to get the biggest shard known to man and he intended to do just that. He pulled at the whip with his other hand. He strained against the whip and slowly he moved a little bit more forward. Jax smiled, he wasn’t dead yet. Inch by inch he began to pull himself closer to the ship.

[yellowm&M]

"You stay with the patient, I'm going to go find out what the hell's going on here!"

Before Andrea could respond Gabriella had rushed out of the room after the strange creature, drawing her weapons. Andrea watched the door for a moment longer then instantly turned her attention back to the unconcious engineer. A million specter creatures could go by and it wouldn't change the fact that he still needed care. Moving away from the door she walked over the man's side and knelt down. Quickly she ran a scan of his vitals. Besides being unresponsive and unconcious everything looked fine. Looking up she beckoned to the pink haired woman who had just thrown up.

"I need you to lift him carefully into a sitting position so I can give put something under his shoulders to elevate his chest and arm."

As Andrea started to shift the engineer Artemus suddenly appeared in the door. As if in reaction to Artemus' presence the pink haired woman grabbed her head and began to shake violently.

“Its not over,” she bagan to sob “they will never stop chasing us..”

Andrea looked up at Aretmus with huge eyes. He looked slightly stunned, as if he had just been punched. Something was going on here, something not right. Lowering the engineer to the floor she slid to the woman's side and gently directed her face so that their eyes met.

"I want to help you, but I need you to help me. Can you tell me who you're talking to and about?" Andrea adopted the soothing but directive voice she used when talking to a distressed patient. It was only in these type of situations that she seemed to break out of her shy, quiet shell that melted so easily into the background. As she spoke she pressed a button on her AI to run a discreet scan of the woman's vitals. Just then a voice spoke to Artemus over the intercom.

“Doctor, there seems to be a problem with the sail generator. The tachyon fields are no longer responding, we are accelerating rapidly and being pulled off course.”

Still concentrating on the woman in front of her Andrea shot a half glance at Artemus. How has she ever thought being on this trip wouldn't put her in over her head?

[DustinTheWind]

Name: Chalice Enchon

Gender: Female

Occupation: Shardsmith

Personality: Chalice has a power of deep concentration and short, intense bursts of activity. She has a tendancy to shut out all other thoughts when she is working on an idea and will sometimes go for days without food or sleep. However, she also has a short attention span, and once distracted from a project, it's extremely hard for her to return to it. As a result, she tends to leave projects unfinished and abandoned. She's friendly, but is more interested in technology than people. Often, she will be more focused on a gadget than the one wearing it.

Age: 24

Background: Chalice doesn't have any great inner demons or a past that she's running from. She's just a young shardsmith trying to make her way in the universe. She works mostly freelance, getting by mostly on royalties earned from past inventions. However, these royalties are rather slim so she's always strapped for cash, and thus always looking for a new job.

[DustinTheWind]

Chalice slammed her fist into the cold metal of the lavatory door once again. "Hey! Anyone out there!"

No response. Whatever commotion was happening on the other side of that door was drowning out her cries.

Once again, she cursed her shortsightedness at leaving her headset on the engine room counter. It's just a quick bathroom break, she had told herself. I won't need it.

How wrong she had been. Someone or something had cut the wiring to the lavatory's systems. Now the door was sealed, the locks were jammed, the intercom was dead, and the lights were running dimly off the emergency power grid. Fortunately breathing was not a problem; the ship featured redundant life-support systems.

"Thanks be to the heavens for small favors, I suppose", she groused to herself.

Forcefully she pressed down the intercom switch, knowing full well it was a futile gesture. "Artemus? Leo? Arphaxhad? Can you read me?" No reply of course.

Hang on... She leaned close to the intercom panel, squinting in the dim light. Those screws seemed loose. Perhaps...

Digging into the pocket of her jumpsuit, she pulled out a paperclip and jammed the curved end into the screw's slotted head. It was a loose fit but it seemed to work; the screw followed the paperclip, albeit with much reluctance, as she turned it.

After several minutes and a degree of difficulty, Chalice managed to remove three of the screws from the panel, allowing it to swing loose upon the fourth. She gazed upon the tangle of wires below, studying them, tracing their origins and destinations with a finger, learning their purposes. Choosing one, she deftly ripped out an end and held it at a distance, careful to keep the end from her skin. She studied the wires again and pulled out another, this one leading to the emergency power grid. Cursing the sudden darkness, she touched the two wires together.

As sparks flew from the connection, the intercom crackled to life.

She jabbed her finger into the intercom switch. "Artemus? Artemus, do you read me?"

[Forgotten_Memories]

The creature disappeared almost as quickly as it had appeared. Gabby wasn't sure exactly what it had done to the shard, but the glow was now a dark blue, and much larger than before. She stepped back, as if in fear of the new pulsating light. Then the ship's AI sounded through the intercom.

“Doctor, there seems to be a problem with the sail generator. The tachyon fields are no longer responding, we are accelerating rapidly and being pulled off course.”

The ship lurched forcibly, and Gabriella stumbled to keep her ground. Holstering her weapons, she spoke to her AI, "Michael, show me the ship's new course."

A detailed map of the current star system displayed in her view with a point near the border indicating the ship's current location. "The Albatross is heading towards uncharted territory. Systems don't indicate a specific location." They were heading for the outer rim. Gabby reached into the pouch at her waist, brushing her fingers against Bear's AI. She almost smiled. Soon Hawkins, soon.

She turned to Rael. "Let's go see if there's anything we can do, big guy."

[losthawken]

"Artemus? Artemus, do you read me?"

The voice over the intercom interrupted the awkward moment in the med bay.

"Dear god, Chalice!" How could he have forgotten her! The scientist turned toward the hallway and spoke toward the ceiling as though he expected to find the girl there.

"Chalice where have you been! We were nearly destroyed and now the sail generator has gone haywire! Get out here this instant!"

As he spoke the crystalline creature drifted by. It slipped past the doctor and quickly looped around each of the girls seated on the med bay floor.

Artemus turned and raised a stern finger at it, "Not you again! You get back in the cargo bay, I mean it this time! I'll have none of your nonsense."

The creature shook and each of its crystals vibrated in disapproval, but it followed the doctor's orders and slipped back down the hall and back into the damaged bulk head.

"Doctor, we are still accelerating, we have reached 650 milli-c," came Leo's calm voice. "Chalice is in the lavatory. The door controls seem to have been damaged when the bulkhead wall was damaged."

"Damned meat head," Artemus muttered to himself.

"Also, I must remind you that Mr. Roberts is still outside of the Albatross."

"DAMNED PIRATE!" Artemus shouted out loud.

[Mr Mr]

She turned to Rael. "Let's go see if there's anything we can do, big guy." Gabriella said. Rael nodded started heading back to the cockpit. He was just heading past the medical bay when he heard the intercom speaking.

"Also I must remind you that Mr. Roberts is still outside of the ablatross." It was Leo the ships AI. Rael had to stifle a laugh at the thought of someone hanging on to the outside of the ship, before realising the seriousness of the situation. He stuck his head into the bay.

"I'll get Jax." He said before heading off to find where he had left the ship. Checking the cockpit there was no sign he had left by it. He started to head back down the hall when he noticed the maintanence hatch and missing suit. No time to find a suit he grabbed the helmet and started climbing the ladder.

He marvelled at the giant spectre as his head left the hatch. It was truely a beauty, a killer beauty but a beauty non the less. Looking a round he couldn't see any sign of Jax. He pushed his head back inside to take a breath before he climbed higher up the ladder leaving the safety of the hatch, Jax comming into sight a little way from the ladder crossing the side of the ship. He was hanging on by his whip and attempting to pull him self in.

Rael climbed onto the side of the ship, gribbing the rungs of the ladder as he moved towards Jax, his lungs complaining for air. In reach of the whip he punched his drill into the hull, anchoring himself as he grabbed the whip. Straining he pulled it using all his might to swing Jax up and over towards the hatch. He mentally sighed with relief as Jax dropped into the hatch. His lungs were burning now as he headed back, vision starting to fade. His breath left him as he reached the entrance falling forwards and into darkness.

[Question]

Jax looked up at the cold metal ceiling of the ship. Dizziness enveloped him as he tried to get up.

“What the…” He managed to say before he fell backwards on his butt. He waited for the dizziness to stop. He took off the facemask. That was a ballsy move; swinging him in like that he would have to thank the big guy later. Who knows maybe after they got off this ship he could find him a giant lady friend or something.

Jax got up; the dizziness wasn’t to bad as he stumbled forward. He tried his intercom but the thing just gargled static. As he walked down the hall, he could hear a faint knocking sound. He followed the sound until he reached one of the ships bathrooms. The sound had stopped. He pressed his ear against the door.

“Nock. Nock. Nock.”

“Hello? Is somebody in their?” he tried the lock but it wouldn’t budge. Well I guess there's only one way to find out.

“If you can hear me, you might want to stand back.” Jax’s left arm punched into the metal steel door, creating a small whole. He then reached through the whole and easily peeled the door from its frame. A young woman stood before Jax.

“Now where the heck did you come from?”

[Forgotten_Memories]

Gabby rushed over to the maintenance hatch to find Rael passed out on the floor. Jax had already fled the scene - how pirate-like of him. Michael began to scan the big man's vitals as she knelt down beside him, placing her hand on his wrist. The man had ventured outside of the craft with only a helmet - a helmet that wouldn't have helped him breathe anyway. She knew some of the people on this mission were bound to have a few screws loose, but this was beyond anything she'd experienced before. She pulled Rael's helmet off and tapped his cheek in an attempt to bring him back to consciousness.

"Vitals 80%," Michael spoke into her ear, "Oxygen levels and respiration normalising." So he would survive. Gabriella sat back and waited for the man to regain consciousness. It might have been a good idea to bring him to the infirmary, but there was no way she could carry this guy by herself. She wondered how Andrea was getting on with the other patients.

[losthawken]

Antair hear another loud bang and the sound of a metal door being pulled off its hinges.

“STOP TEARING UP MY SHIP!!”

“Doctor, I must inform you that we have reached 750 milli-c, and our course has settled into a predictable path.” Leo interrupted the doctor’s rage.

“That’s beyond the space flight record. Where is the shard taking us?”

“We are on course to DL5179.”

“Is that a planet?”

“No Doctor Antair, it is a star.”

Antair’s face turned ghastly white. They were speeding beyond the known limits straight into a star.

“Cut the power, cut the shard, cut everything!” bellowed Artemus.

“Impact with DL5179 in 15 seconds.”

They were traveling too fast. There was no time to do anything. Artemus rushed to the helm to see the inferno that would be their death. Upon arriving the giant yellow dwarf was already filling most of the viewscreen. It grew larger and larger as the ship began to rattle and vibrate. The heat of the star could be felt through the ships protective shielding.

Something moved beside Antair. Glancing sideward he noticed that the Nano-specter, as he called it, had again snuck out of the bulkhead and was hovering silently beside him. The viewscreen was now a glaring panel of boiling orange and yellow. In the center of the screen there appeared a tiny black speck. It was almost imperceptible at first but grew and grew rapidly until it out competed the glaring sun.

“Sensors responding erratically, re-booting system,” Leo commented before the lights on the ship went out.

A moment after the lights went out the vibrations suddenly stopped. Black silence filled the Albatross. No one knew what to do.

Then pinpoints of lights appeared. They streamed past the crewmembers through the ship walls and even through their bodies. Faster and faster the lights fled past, and as they sped they grew in size. The crew watched in amazement. The orbs continued to grow and became less dense until they were larger than the ship itself. Suddenly, the silence burst open and the ship again was rattling and vibrating uncontrollably.

The lights returned, and the vibrating of the ship slowed and stopped.

“Leonardo Deep Space Navigation Aid version 3.1.0 online. Welcome to the Albatross.”

The viewscreen in front of Artemus came back online. In its center the glaring sun had been replaced by a small asymmetric planetoid.

“Leo, where are we?”

“Our current position is Unorganized Space D879,” came the computer’s reply.

D879 was deep inside the Outer Rim, and deep in specter territory.

“That trip should have taken more than a week…”

[DustinTheWind]

"Chalice where have you been! We were nearly destroyed and now the sail generator has gone haywire! Get out here this instant!"

Artemus' voice drifted through the river of static pouring through the intercom's speaker as it struggled to run on the low-powered emergency grid. Simultaneously relieved to have communication and frustrated that he was yelling at her, Chalice pressed down the intercom switch once more.

"It's not my fault! Something killed the power in the toilet, and now I can't get out! This stupid door won't budge!" She slammed her fist into the door a few times for emphasis, hoping the intercom would pick up the sound. "I've hotwired the intercom into the emergency grid. If Leo can redirect some extra power through that, I think I could..."

“Hello? Is somebody in there?” A muffled voice. Someone was on the other side of the door! At last! Chalice could hear whoever it was fumbling at the latch.

"Hang on a second, boss." Chalice let go of the intercom switch and addressed her would-be rescuer. "Yeah, I'm stuck; the power's been cut."

“If you can hear me, you might want to stand back.”

"Um..." Worriedly, she glanced around. The lavatory was tiny; just large enough to contain a water-less toilet and a retractable sink. There was no 'back' in which to stand. "Whatever you're about to do, I don't think it's a good..."

A metal fist slammed through the door, inches from her face. Screaming obscenities, she pressed herself against the far wall, shielding her head with her arms. She watched in confusion and horror as the door was torn from its frame and tossed casually aside by a muscular figure.

“Now where the heck did you come from?”

Startled and livid, Chalice reared to her full height (a full head shorter than his) and yelled at him. "What the hell do you think you're doing, jackass? Punching holes in a ship in deep space? You're going to get us all killed!"

[Question]

"What the hell do you think you're doing, jackass? Punching holes in a ship in deep space? You're going to get us all killed!"

“Sorry your highness, If it makes you feel better I could probably seal you back in there.”
Jax picked up the disregarded door and stepped forward as if to put it back. He smiled as the color drained from the girls face.

“No? Well then lets skip the greetings, and get back to the control room. I’ve already got a headache from all of your whining.” Jax turned down the hall not looking back to see if she followed. His head was really throbbing, but is was probably more from the oxygen deprivation. He wondered how far out they were, and more importantly if they were near any civilized planets. Jax thought that he could use a drink right about now. Hell, after what he’d just been through he could use about ten.

Suddenly the ships power cut out. Odd pulsing lights were shining all around Jax.

“What the heck is going on?” The lights continued to dance and the ship began to vibrate. The odd lights flashed out and the vibrating stopped. Jax stood dumbfounded as the ships power came back on.

“Well, that was weird.” said Jax, as he continued on towards the control room.

[losthawken]

Chapter 2

“Damned Seekers,” Artemus mumbled under his breath as the guided the ship carefully to the surface of the planetoid. After the space warp, which Artemus was still puzzling over, one of the medics in the group of refugees claimed that the tiny planet they had arrived at matched the coordinates that the late Bear Billows was directing them too.

With no small amount of deliberation, the refugees had convinced him to land and permit them to carry out their search for the missing seeker Hawkens. Part of the deal was that any booty retrieved from the planet, the real reason Artemus believed they were so eager to land, would be split 40/60 as a transport fee.

Now, as Artemus lowered the landing gear, his thoughts turned to the shard that had brought them here. It may well have been true that the specter horde had been following him since he purchased the shard, despite his previous denial. So far, his studies of it had been inconclusive. But seeing how it had warped the ship across the galaxy of its own accord, he was more convinced than ever that his hypothesis was correct.

But what did the micro-specter have to do with it? If he was to believe the report of the refugees, the micro-specter had somehow 'awoken' the shard and perhaps instigated the space warp. It was probably just happenstance he decided, but the creature was peculiar and he could not for the life of him figure out why it insisted on abiding in HIS ship. It was unlikely that it had anything to do with the shard, as it had appeared just before he had purchased it, but then nothing could be declared for certain, not with the mysterious happenings of late.

The Albatross touched down gently on the rocky barren planetoid.

“Atmospheric composition and pressure are acceptable for short term exposure,” chimed the ships unflappable AI Leo. Artemus opened the cargo bay door and activated the intercom.

“Everybody out that's going out. The ship will be talking off in 36 hours with, or without you. Good luck, your gunna need it.”

[W.H. Clay]

Eric sat wrapped in a few bandages, he stared blankly at his broken shard harness.
"What the hell..." Eric's still had a lingering headache but other then a few joints he was better. The medics onboard were actually quite talented. "Einstein what happened to my gear?"
"I had initiated a tach-sail at your request, the sail had caught the explosion of a specter... And threw you into a building..." Eric shook his head looking at the ground, "Why didn't you disable the sail?"
"The sail had malfunctioned you had already lost control before the explosion caught you. It was, however, my idea to reposition the sail to shoot us into the Albatross. Speaking of which we are at Mr. Hawken's last known location..."
Eric's head shot up, "Hawken!?"

Eric owed a lot to this man. If it wasn't for Him Eric would not be on the outer rim at all. If Hawken didn't take him on board Eric would still be stuck back home in a lab, but now he is out here, on the fringe of known space experiencing things most people never will. He is on the forefront of research and science. He is where he has always wanted to be. Of course Eric never wanted the money, He wasn't the pawn of some corporation, he admired the shards and the Specters. David admired him for that, most people like Eric would run scared when they saw these things. Not Eric...

"Is it still operational?" Eric stood up hoisting his awkward shard harness for inspection.
"No."
"What's broken?" Eric looked down at the scratched wrist display.
".........Analyzing.........
....Server malfunctioning
//Ds. Closed
Armor malfunctioning/
c/input: Lost
c/output: lost
t/rod: lost
s/module: Malfunctioning
....
Overall Condition: CRITICAL

...End"

"Well that won't do..."
Eric sat the harness on the table he was previously occupying. The ship had a new patient now. He started rummaging through the research equipment occasionally throwing a misc part or tool into a box next to the table...
Eric worked ferociously tearing parts off his harness and welding new parts on. People came and went but He was far to absorbed into his project to notice.
"Just a bit of programming and we are done Einstein..." Eric mumbled as his fingers flew across the view screen on his wrist mounted AI.


***

“Everybody out that's going out. The ship will be talking off in 36 hours with, or without you. Good luck, your gunna need it.”

Eric threw the new harness over his head, and locked a clasp on his shoulder. The new Harness was sleek, if nothing else. It no longer had the large attachment on his upper back that gave him a humped back stance. He stood straight now with a single tach rod extending up between his shoulder blades. He had a small back pack installed and a few gadgets adorning the front. But the armor plating and large attachments were gone.

Eric left his impromptu workshop and headed to the back of the aircraft, He was going to be one of the first off this ship...

[CheddarCheese]

“Alert. Current location is not within secured space.”

Teresa looked up at her ship’s display panel and frowned. Even without an AI in the system, the ship’s computer insisted on vocalising everything it did.

“Danger. Power use is not recommended outside of secured space.”

Teresa didn’t know why the recent distress signal would take a trajectory leading into specter controlled territory. It must have taken a high level of irrationality for someone to head in that direction.
Of course, there was always the chance that the signal was a trap of some sort. But extrapolation from previous data suggested otherwise.

“Unknown star system has been entered. Alert. Current location is not within secured space.” The ship’s synthesised voice continued blaring monotone information.

Judging from the signal behaviour, it most likely came from a planetary body of some sort. The planet couldn’t have been very large, since the signal appeared to travel in a wide elliptical orbit around its host star.

Teresa changed the trajectory of her ship slightly, to match the signal location. If her calculations were correct, the planetary body would come into view in a minute or two.

“Notice. Now approaching unknown astronomical object. Alert. Recommend –”

Teresa reached over and grabbed a long metal rod from her tool port. Then she nonchalantly jammed the rod into the ship’s intercom, causing the vocal machinery to go up in a flash of sparks.
“An inefficient design. Irritating as well,” she announced to no one in particular.

Suddenly, her display panel started flashing a warning screen. Teresa automatically knew why: a faint but large energy signature was in the immediate vicinity, and appeared to be approaching the same planetoid that Teresa was targeting. She immediately reached over and shut off her engine systems and power grids. Then she started running a low-power analysis on the energy signature. If it came from a specter, she would be in grave danger.

After a few seconds, she realised that the energy signature matched that of a normal, human ship. What were they doing here? The ship appeared to have landed on the planetoid. Perhaps it was responding to the same distress signal that she had intercepted earlier.


There was only one good way to find out. Keeping her systems in low-energy, Teresa altered her trajectory to land near ship.

[Forgotten_Memories]

“Everybody out that's going out. The ship will be talking off in 36 hours with, or without you. Good luck, your gunna need it.”

Gabby was getting her stuff ready in the hangar. She exchanged the shards on her handgun for new ones that she kept in a pouch around her waist. She was short on both shards and bullets, and with her ship having been abandoned and possibly demolished back at the trading outpost, she would have to be careful. From what she could see however, the rock they were currently on was a barren wasteland - they probably weren't even going to find any shards on it. Oh well, it was better this than being attacked and chased by spectres. She still couldn't get her head around how they escaped earlier, but felt it was better not to question it at this moment.

There were others in the hangar, barely speaking, getting ready for the mission. She had transferred the co-ordinates to everyone's AI, so they knew where they should be going. Soon they would find Hawkins. Hopefully they weren't too late.

A man bustled into the hangar as the Albatross landed, a large apparatus strapped to his arm. It was Eric from the infirmary. The scientist had woken up several hours ago, and had instantly begun repairs on the contraption that was his demise back at the outpost. It looked lighter now, and less armored - maybe it would be of better use like this. He looked to be in a hurry.

"Eric," Gabriella acknowledged, smiling, "did you receive the co-ordinates?"

[Mr Mr]

Rael lumbered into the hangar rubbing his head. The last thing he remembered was throwing Jax back onto the ship then collapsing. He wondered where the big spectre had gotten to, anywhere far from him was good. Gabriella and the scientist were already inside as he arrived.

"Eric," Gabriella said smiling, "did you receive the co-ordinates?"

Coordinates? Rael wondered before realising the cargo bay door was open. The lanscape outside looked like a rocky desert, void of any life and not somewhere you usualy found shards. On the up side that meant no spectres. Rael's AI blipped as something finished transfering; it was the set of coordinates Gabriella had been talking about.

“Everybody out that's going out. The ship will be talking off in 36 hours with, or without you. Good luck, your gunna need it.” Artemus shouted over the intercom.

What a great start to my day Rael thought as he looked for something to eat.

[W.H. Clay]

"Eric," Gabriella acknowledged, smiling, "did you receive the co-ordinates?"

Eric was studying his viewscreen when Gabriella spoke to him, he almost didnt even notice. After a delay the words sunk into his head and Eric turned to see who it was,

"Oh! Gabriella! Sorry I.. Uh.... It's nice to see you!" Eric stumbled over his words, nearly forgetting the reason they were speaking.

"Yes! Yes. I got the coordinates, thanks to you!" Eric was speaking belligerently, he didn't know how to repay her kindness. But he better say something before she walks away from the fool of a man.

"Um Gabriella.... I just wanted to say thank you. I was bloody and broken when I came into this ship, now I am whole and new upon leaving." Eric raised his hands gesturing not only to his healed limbs but also his new harness.

'That was rather clever, sir...' Einstein's voice echoed from Eric's wrist breaking the moment. Eric looked down and shook his head, when he raised his eyes again they were focused on the barren landscape before him. He left the group and stepped onto the crusty dirt of the planetoid. It was hot, hot and dry, dryer than any outer rim planet he had been on...

[CheddarCheese]

Teresa zoomed in on the input display feed. The ship was very large compared to her own, although that wasn’t surprising since her own ship was meant to be a one-pilot shuttle. Judging by the looks, it wasn’t any sort of civilian transport or military grade cruiser either. In fact, it looked more akin to a research vessel. It was either an independent seeker ship, or a rogue ship. The latter, if true, could prove dangerous.

Teresa noticed that a figure had stepped out the back of the ship. He appeared to have no visible weapons on him. Another figure emerged from behind him, this time a woman. On second glance, the man was wearing a shard harness.

“They must be shard seekers,” confirmed Teresa. Again, she wondered what their intentions were in such a place. It was rare that seekers would stray this far into the outer rim.

Regardless, if they were shard seekers, they were the next best thing to finding the signal source itself. They wouldn’t have come all the way out here without a good reason, and a seeker ship on the same lonesome planet that the distress signal came from couldn’t have been coincidence.

Teresa manually re-activated the power protocols, and her ship quickly started booting up again. She kept it hovering a few miles in the air, ready for evasive manoeuvres in case they ended up being hostile. Then she keyed a vocal transmission in their direction.


“This is Ares IX to shore party. Do you read, shore party?”

[Love to Write]

Terrance Bigalow

Terrance angerly kicked a rock as far as he could. Two days. Two days he had been on the god-forsaken planet looking for some sign of civilization or a clue to David Hawkin's where abouts. Just his luck he wouldn't find anything. He had heard rumors from spacers of there being a small trading post here...but so far he hadn't seen any sign of it. He had learned from reliable sources that the planet he was on, was the last place David had been, before disappering. David had said he was going to the outer rim but Terrance didn't think he meant this far. Though it made sense. There were bound to be more shards out here than anywhere else because their were less people.

Terrance turned and started heading back to his ship. Maybe he would fly over the planets surface for a bit looking for the trading post. He sighed deeply. Amazing how a person could go from being so rich he didn't know what to do with the money to so broke that he was being chased by loan sharks. Gambling was a bad habit on this part and the gamble he had made with David had been the worst one he'd ever made.

David had said that he had discovered a world so rich with shards they would never have to work another day in their lives. On this promise, Terrance had given David the amount of shards he would need to make the trip. The promise of a pay day bigger than all his other paydays put together, was to good to resist. However that had been 6 months ago.

Now Terrance was broke and 15,000 credits in debt to the Carnisian Pirates. He'd sold all but 2 of his shards and without more shards to sell he had quickly gone into debt. In an attempt to pay it off he had made a bet with the Carnisian Pirates and failed. Now he was running for his life. And he was determined to make David pay. One way or another.

Terrance heard a ship go over his head. He looked up and panicked for a moment. Was it the Pirates? Had they found him? No...it was a seeker ship of sorts and beautiful one at that. Probably shard seekers. But all the way out here? Maybe they were the rescue team for David he had heard rumors about. If that was true they would probably be alot of help. Picking up his pace and changing directions, Terrance walked in the direction of the ship that had just landed.

[losthawken]

“This is Ares IX to shore party. Do you read, shore party?”

"Doctor, there is an incoming vessel."

Aretemus, who was running a scanner on the shard still installed in the field generator, looked up toward the intercom from which the AI voice spoke. "How big is it?"

"It appears to be a single occupant craft, likely a shard seeker."

Artemus returned his attention to the scanner. "Its no threat, to us. I've got more important things to worry about. Let the rest of them deal with it."

Outside the Albatross Terrance was making his way toward the group. As he approached the ground suddenly began to shake and six large decapods erupted from beneath the dirt blocking Terrance's path. A series of explosions followed as the creatures fired their rock shattering blasters at the man. The spray of rubble and energy flares of could be seen from the Albatross as Terrance did his best to dodge and evade the onslaught of decapods.

[Question]

“Everybody out that’s going out. The ship will be takeing off in 36 hours with, or without you. Good luck, your gonna need it.”

Jax walked into the hangar with a slight swagger, a smirk forming at his lips. He looked around at the barren planet in front of him. The coordinates from Hawkins last known location popped up on his AI. Finally he had made it; he was finally going to get that weasel Hawkins.

The rest of the crew were preparing for the departure. They had been through a lot and it was a miracle they were all still alive. Sure, Jax attributed most of it to his skill and debonair, but a few of them had saved his arse more then once. It was a shame he’d have to betray them.

Rael was walking around looking like a giant puppy scrounging for scraps. The egghead was back on his feet and looking capable, he was living proof that it pays to bring along good medics. Gabriel was over talking to him, loading her gun. He actually liked these people. Maybe he could reason with them, cut them in on the take. But deep down he knew eventually what he would have to do.

Eric walked away from the group and stepped on the planet. Jax followed him and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Its good to see you’re not dead.”

Suddenly a series of explosions rung out in the air. He looked around for the source. A little ways away were six decapods firing at what appeared to be a person. Jax couldn’t fathom how they kept getting in these situations. But it left him with a choice to intervene and draw the decapods attention or let the man die. He then realized that the figure could be Hawkins and that settled the matter. He started running towards the decapods.

“Snap!” He slashed his whip across the closest ones back leaving a large sear mark. The decapods then turned towards their knew prey. He realized that this might not have been the smartest move.

[CheddarCheese]

Teresa broke off from the transmission once she saw the decapods rise from the ground. They had started firing relentlessly at a human figure that was approaching the ship. She still didn’t know if these people were hostile or not, but they hadn’t fired on her position yet.

The lone blaster on the bottom of her ship wouldn’t do squat against the decapods; their shields were too powerful to pierce with most long-ranged weaponry. But it might distract some of them long enough to give the humans an advantage.

Another figure emerged from the research vessel, and started lashing out on the decapods. Seeing the new threat, the creatures turned to face him. It was unlikely that the man would be able to handle all six of them on his own, especially if the others didn’t aid him.

Teresa quickly lowered her craft’s altitude to put her blaster in better range. She took an evasive manoeuvre, circling around the decapods, and opened fire on the nearest creature with her blaster.Two of the six attackers averted their attention to Teresa, trying to hit the moving ship with their blasters. She continued to circle them, swiftly dodging the bursts of energy that were flung her way.


She hoped the diversion would buy the shore party a little more time.

[Love to Write]

Terrance Bigalow

One moment Terrance had been walking calmly to the recently arrived ship and the next moment he was being attacked by Decapods. I hate these things. At least they aren't specters. Terrance quickly rolled out of the way as a series of energy bullets were fired at him. He came to his feet face to face with one of the creatures. It was taller than him by a full foot. Since when did they get so large? Must be the good feeding out here or something. Terrance kicked the creature in the chest and did a backwards summersalt out of the way as it aimed it's blaster at him. The shot grazed his left shoulder and he let out of a grunt of pain as he fell to his knees. The creature took aim for a death blow only to have a whip lash across it's back. The Decapod let out an angry squeal and turned with it's comrades to the newest arrival.

The man who had saved his life looked like a pirate. Instead of having a right arm he had a robotic prothesis. Out of this robotic replacement was an impressive whip. Terrance struggled to his feet and pulled out his shard gun with his right hand being careful not to move his left arm. A whip and a gun against six decapods! They didn't stand a chance. Suddenly out of nowhere a series of energy bullets began to ran down on the decapods. A second ship that he didn't notice before began circling them doing what it could to draw the creature's attention. Thank goodness they were stupid.

Terrance ran up to a decapod who was aiming at the ship and put his blaster right up to where it's head attached to it's neck and let off a series of shots. The creature fell to the ground dead, it's head smoking. One down 5 too go. The ship got in a couple of lucky shots on the leader's shield generator. With it's generator destroyed the sheild was down the creature was vunerable. The pirate and him made eye contact and worked together as if they could read one another's mind. The pirate distracted the creatures with his whip while Terrance got up close to the leader and attempted to do the same to him as he did with the last decapod. He barely got off two shots before the leader decapod swung around and used one of it's legs to send Terrance flying into the dust. He managed to push himself up to a half sitting position and looked around for his gun. It was nearly 5 feet away from him, and the leader was about to charge. Terrance thought for sure he was dead but the ship above them rained heavy artillery down on the creature as it began to charge and within in moments it was a barely recognizable corpse. With their leader dead the other creatures squealed in alarm and disappeared into the dirt as if they had never been there.

[CheddarCheese]

Teresa kept her ship hovering in the air for a little while longer, watching to see if the decapods would return. After a minute or two, she turned her attention back to the shore party. She reckoned that if they had been hostile, they would have fired at her craft by now. At most however, her presence only seemed to confuse them.

Before she could change her mind, Teresa reduced her vertical throttle, and slowly set her ship down on flat land, a couple of meters away from the shore party. As the engines powered down, the ship’s landing gear automatically locked into the ground. Once she was certain that her ship was secure, Teresa got up and out of the cockpit, exiting the ship from the side doors.


“I didn’t expect any company,” said Teresa, approaching the group. “Is everyone alright?”

[losthawken]

“Leo,” Artemus muttered without looking up from the glowing orange shard still installed in the sail generator. “Is this scanner malfunctioning? I can't get a reading”

Artemus tapped the hand held device against the metal frame of the sail generator. A moment later, Leo reported from the intercom.

“The device appears to be functioning properly, however, all of the shard scanners on board are failing to report appropriately.”

“Is there some interference?”

“There appears to be a planet-wide complex frequency pattern that is dampening shard signatures,” Leo responded.

“That would include Specters. If Hawkins had been here he could have been jumped by a specter without ever knowing it...”

Artemus stood abruptly and made his way back to the helm.

“Patch me through to the search party,” he commanded the ship's AI as he marched. A tone from the intercom told him that the channel was open. “Search crew, return to ship. Something is interfering with our shard scanners. There could be specter's right on top of you and you wouldn't even know it. This planet is a death trap. We are leaving.”

[W.H. Clay]

“Search crew, return to ship. Something is interfering with our shard scanners. There could be specter's right on top of you and you wouldn't even know it. This planet is a death trap. We are leaving.”

Eric broke free from his stupor when he heard Artemus' voice. He was frozen in shock as he saw the decapods attack the stranger, then he watched Jax and the airship attack them. He wasn't sure what to say or do, but perhaps he could avoid choking like a amateur next time...

"Umm... Hello." Eric let out an awkward greeting to the newcomers, still unsure of what just happened. He paused for a moment longer allowing for his wit to catch him up to his current predicament.

"Ok, so Artemus tells us we are stuck in the dark. But we also know David could be stranded on this planet. What do you guys want to do? Find David or flee to safety?"

Eric paused waiting for the others reply, he knew the dangers when he agreed to come on this expedition...

[Mr Mr]

"Ok, so Artemus tells us we are stuck in the dark. But we also know David could be stranded on this planet. What do you guys want to do? Find David or flee to safety?" Eric said as Rael walked over to the newcomers. They all new the risk hunting for david could bring. What were the chances he was on this barren rock?

There could be spectres on top of us and we wouldn't know eh. We did beat the spectres last time though. Mind you we had a warning.

Rael watched as the newcomers came aboard. This meant more people to defend against spectres.

"It depends, how well equipped are we to take another spectre attack?"

[yellowm&M]

It had taken Andrea a little longer to get herself off the ship than everyone else following Artemus' announcment. When she steppe out of the cargo hold it was into a scene of utter chaos. Giant creatures that could only be deacapods were attacking a newcomer while a small one-man ship circled the scene from above and Jax ran straight into the situation. Andrea watched the fighting torn between wanting to run and wanting to help. However, unarmed and unskilled as she was there was little she could do and the fight itself finished fairly quickly between the combined forces of the two men and the craft.

Soon a blonde woman was stepping from the craft, the threat of the decapods seemingly eradicated.

“I didn’t expect any company,” said Teresa, approaching the group. “Is everyone alright?”

“Search crew, return to ship. Something is interfering with our shard scanners. There could be specter's right on top of you and you wouldn't even know it. This planet is a death trap. We are leaving.”

Andrea glanced back at the ship. They couldn't leave. Not now. Not when they were potentially so close to Hawkins. Silently she walked over to the group to hear what they thought of Artemus' new directions.

"Ok, so Artemus tells us we are stuck in the dark. But we also know David could be stranded on this planet. What do you guys want to do? Find David or flee to safety?"

"It depends, how well equipped are we to take another spectre attack?"

Andrea glanced around the group as Rael and Eric (now wearing a smaller version of his harness) dicussed the group's next move. That's when she noticed the other newcomer; he was much taller than her and dark haired. Though he was very handsome the medic in her immediately disregarded that, focusing instead on what appeared to be an injury sustained in the attack to his left shoulder. Slipping around the edge of the group, she walked up behind him, trying to be quiet enough as to not take attention away from the discussion at hand.

"Would you like me to look at that shoulder?"

[Love to Write]

Terrance Bigalow

After the decapod attack Terrance walked over to a group of a large varity of people. He stood off too the side as they seemed to be in a heated discussion about the announcment that came from the larger of the two ships. His intrest was peeked when he heard David's name. Perhaps this was the rescue crew. Maybe they would allow him to join them and together they could find that lying scumbag. Though of course he wouldn't tell them that he was on a mission to collect his debt from David either by his shards or by his life. Ah, sweet ignorance. These scavengers were on a mission to rescue this man and he bet that only one or two actually knew who he was.

Then from beside him he heard a soft voice, "Would you like me to look at that shoulder?" He looked down to see a blonde woman, probably in her early 20s, with a cute face and the most gorgeous green eyes he had ever seen. Did an angel just ask to treat me? Terrance then looked at his shoulder. His once blue sleeve was now brown with blood and for the first time he noticed the extreme pain he was in. "Yeah..." He grunted, his eyebrows clenching together. "A little pain medicine, some bandages and I'll be right as rain." He gave a charming smile then added, "I'm assuming you don't want to clean this shoulder out here in the dust, Doctor. Where do you want me?"

[CheddarCheese]

They were also after Hawkins? Teresa had miscalculated the amount of influence the man had on seekers. She had expected that she would be the only one to be looking, but it appeared that many more people were interesting in locating him.

"How well equipped are we to take another specter attack?" Teresa heard one of the crew speak up.

“Ill equipped,” replied Teresa, and she knew it was true. “Even the galaxy’s best military forces are ill equipped against specters. If we encounter some here, we are in deep trouble.”

Then she turned to face the blonde haired man, who sported a set of spectacles. He appeared to be an odd character amongst the set of warrior-like seekers around him.
“Your ship’s captain mentioned that something was interfering with your scanners. This may mean that, although we are unable to detect specters, they might also be unable to detect us,” said Teresa.

She didn’t have the time or resources to study the strange interference frequencies, so she wasn’t entirely sure if that was true. But she knew that even if the seeker team left the planet, she would remain.


“Unless, of course, we make visual contact,” she added.

[W.H. Clay]

“Your ship’s captain mentioned that something was interfering with your scanners. This may mean that, although we are unable to detect specters, they might also be unable to detect us, unless, of course, we make visual contact."

Eric stared blankly at the newcomer, studying her assessment, then he smiled.

"Precisely! We are just as vulnerable as the Specters! But more importantly what could be making that interference. I have studied massive shards that have that same effect..."

Eric jerked up his wrist and slammed his fingers against the viewscreen...

"According to my calculations it would take a 1.33 gigaton Shard with a decelerated Tach field..." Eric smiled gleefully at his crew mates,

"Maybe this is what David was searching for!"

Eric knew there were a hundred more likely causes of the interference, but he wanted to give David a fighting chance if he was on this planet. Deciding on his path Eric glanced back down at his AI, pretending to study figures before stating,

"According to the directional tendencies of the local Tachyon fields the source of this interference is that way."

Eric raised his arm gesturing beyond the corpses of the recently slain decapods...

[yellowm&M]

"Yeah...A little pain medicine, some bandages and I'll be right as rain." He gave a charming smile then added, "I'm assuming you don't want to clean this shoulder out here in the dust, Doctor. Where do you want me?"

A badly supressed note of pain was evident in his voice and as the newcomer spoke and he seemed to notice for the first time how serious his injury was. Over the course of her medical training and career Andrea had become very well adept at staying calm and passive regardless of the situation; it was often necessary for the patient. But even she couldn't quite stop her heart from fluttering as he gave her an incredibly charming smile. Turning away she scanned the nearby area for a better place to examine the injury and partially to hide the slight blush that had crept into her face. Deciding on the ramp into the cargo bay of Artemus's ship (given that it was fairly clean and near enough to the group that they could still hear what was going on), she gently led the newcomer over.

"Here will be fine. I just need you to sit down." Quickly she unpacked her medical supplies then set her AI to scanning the injury and his vitals for good measure, although he seemed just fine besides his shoulder. The screen lit up with words confirming her suspicion that the wound was deep but nothing vital had been hit and the blast had just grazed over his shoulder. "Luckily for you, you're shoulder was only grazed. You've got some fairly serious burns and it's a deep wound but it should heal pretty quickly if you look after it and nothing is permanately damaged."

She set to work cleaning and bandaging his shoulder, pushing the hair that was falling out of her bun away from her eyes. She was concentrated solely on the task at hand and it was only when she was handing him a small pill to help relieve the pain that she really noticed his features. She had noticed his heighth and dark, shaggy hair, before when she had spoke to him, but now it was his eyes, which were warm and brown that drew her in.

"Maybe this is what David was searching for!"

Eric's excited voice snapped her out of her few seconds of staring. Shaking her head she pulled out her water bottle, handing that and the pill to the newcomer.

"Here's something for the pain. You can use this water to wash it down if you want. What't your name by the way?"

[Love to Write]

Terrance Bigalow

"According to my calculations it would take a 1.33 gigaton Shard with a decelerated Tach field..." A blond man with a shard harness said. A 1.33 gigaton shard!? Was it possible!? A shard that size would give him a big enough payday to pay off the pirates he owed, buy a new ship, and retire comfortably. Of course...that could only happen if none of earnings were dissperssed among these other people. Which meant he would have to betray them. The thought didn't sit well with him but his life was on the line. These shard seekers would be fine. They weren't even expecting a payday this big. But he was...and his life depended on it!

"Luckily for you, you're shoulder was only grazed. You've got some fairly serious burns and it's a deep wound but it should heal pretty quickly if you look after it and nothing is permanately damaged." The lovley doctor said. Eric winsed as she cleaned the dirt out of his shoulder. That's good. Hopefully it will heal before I found David. Wouldn't want anything to come in the way of David getting what he deserves.

Terrance glanced at his shoulder then at the woman's face. Their eyes met and she blushed a little. She continued to stare at him with a cute smile until the blond man spoke again, "Maybe this is what David was searching for!" Of course it's what David was coming out here for! You think he'd come to the outer edge for a pile of .9 gigaton shards?

The doctors soft voice spoke again drawing him out of his thoughts."Here's something for the pain. You can use this water to wash it down if you want. What's your name by the way?" She handed him a water bottle and a pill. Terrance took the pill and washed it down with a swig of water. "My name is Terrance. Terrance Bigalow. I'm a shard trader. And what is yours? I'd bet 3 shards it's Angel." He said with a half serious, half joking expression.

[yellowm&M]

"My name is Terrance. Terrance Bigalow. I'm a shard trader. And what is yours? I'd bet 3 shards it's Angel."

Her cheeks reddened again, she couldn't help it. Between her shy nature and propensity to be overlooked, Andrea was simply not that used to compliments or even being noticed. That had never bothered her as she prefered to keep to herself and was not comfortable putting herself out there. In fact the only time she ever felt truly confident and able to control a situtation was when she was caring for a patient or filling her roles as a medic. It was in those moments that people who knew her father said she reminded them of him; otherwise she was the shy opposite of his outgoing nature. Still, she had to admit that this little bit of attention was really nice, even as she heard the joking edge in Terrance's voice.

"Close, but not quite. My name is actually Andrea Dawson and I'm not a shard seeker, but apparently I'm about to start building a collection since you now owe me three shards for getting my name wrong." She smiled sweetly at him, shocked at her own daring. It almost sounded like she was a witty, outgoing person. Like the kind of person she somtimes secretly wished she was.

[losthawken]

"According to the directional tendencies of the local Tachyon fields the source of this interference is that way."

“Good, then I say half of us follow the boy and the rest take the south side of the ridge,” Aretmus abruptly appeared on the ramp of the Albetross. His shard harness with its large shoulder yoke fit his slim frame awkwardly, exacerbated his scarecrow-like appearance and added to the shock. He had never had a knack for social interactions, and had no real interest in finding the missing seeker, but there was something bizarre about this planet. He couldn’t sit idly by in the presence of novel shard energies such as this, and besides with the shard scanners on the ship not functional there wasn’t much else to do.

“Dispersing into two groups will better our odds, and as long as we don’t stray too far from one another we will still be able to provide support in case of danger,” the scientist looked specifically at Eric as he spoke. He was doubtful that the young man had broken through the field interference. Leo was one of the most sophisticated AI’s available and had been unsuccessful in decoding the interfering signal.

Walking beyond the group in the direction just south of that which Eric had indicated, Artemus activated his harness, a pair of tachyon rods attached at his heels lowered, and two more extended from his wrists. His worn duster flapped in the planets winds as the gentle blue glow of the four small sails appeared near each rod. Artemus gently lifted into the air in a clumsy upright floating position.

“We should distribute those with personal flight abilities evenly. You there,” Artemus gestured toward the man receiving medical attention near the cargo-bay ramp. “We will escort you back to your craft as far as our paths are in alignment. After that, you are on your own.”

Artemus turned and soared slowly in the direction he had chosen expecting half of the others to follow him.

[W.H. Clay]

“Good, then I say half of us follow the boy and the rest take the south side of the ridge,”

Eric jumped at Artemis' arrival, but was even more surprise when he took Eric's side in the matter.

“Good, then I say half of us follow the boy and the rest take the south side of the ridge,”

Artemis' next words bugged Eric, they were cutting their strength in half. Sure they were supposed to stay close but..
Eric's eyes drifted to the corpses of the decapods, it wouldn't take one of those long to kill one of them if caught off guard...
The time for deliberation was clearly over when Artemis took flight, his travel system was rather sophisticated, not overly so, but more than he expected.
Eric took to the skies shortly after, igniting the single tack rod on his back that erupted in a jet of orange that shot strait up. The orange bolt climbed for about 12 feet before snapping into a large sail, as if being suddenly caught in the wind. Eric was pulled steadily off his feet, he was rising when the most peculiar thing happened. He raised his arms and in a matter of seconds to bolts of what seemed to be lightning shot from the base of the sail to his hands. It became apparent that his travel system was modeled after a parachute, but the method he used to control the parachute was never seen before. Before anyone could get a closer look the sail shifted forward and pulled Eric into the desert wasteland...

[Love to Write]

Terrance Bigalow

You there,” Artemus gestured toward the man receiving medical attention near the cargo-bay ramp. “We will escort you back to your craft as far as our paths are in alignment. After that, you are on your own.”

Terrance stood, glad that his injured shoulder wasn't hurting nearly as much. Two men took off before he could respond, so he decided to address the rest of the group instead. "We should stick together. Who knows what other creatures lie in wait around here. We have saftey in numbers."
He offered a hand to Andrea and pulled her to her feet.
"We are all looking for David. Including me. So if you don't mind, I'll stick with you and help you until we can be sure David has reached home...alive." Terrance hesitated ever so slightly at the last word. Sure, he wouldn't mind letting David live if he got his money plus intrest. Lots of intrest. But it was likely that David wouldn't be able to afford give Terrance the money he needed to pay off the pirates and too live comfortably for many years to come. In that case, he would be sure to have his revenge before he himself was killed. The thought was small consulation. He'd rather not kill anyone or be killed.

Releasing Andrea's hand he began following the two men in flight gear, not bothering to turn and look to see if the rescue team was following. Because he knew they would be.