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[Redbelle]

 

As he and naleena neared the others, essul looked to jess, eyes and voice laced with concern, "Are you certain you are alright?" He asked, as a concerned parent might ask a child they'd seen fall out of a tree and brush it off as nothing.

 

Jess blinked as she wobbled on her feet. "I'm fine thank you Susan". She said  as she caught the concerned look Morgan was giving her. "And you? you are a silly thing..... Your getting hysterical. Here".

 

Jess swung her torso around as her raised her hand and swung it so hard she nearly fell over after her leading palm slapped Morgan across his helmet. Jess just about managed to stay up and pulled back. "There. Now let's go pop a few thermal clips into that woman. To the Stone mobile! Away"!

 

Jess turned and ran in an arcing curve, that was probably not intentional, towards where Iyana had disappeared leaving the befuddled group in her wake.

[Kel Riever]

Right past the tech armor, Morgan said to himself.  One thing a recon hood didn't do very well is stop a well-aimed, low speed slap from an armored gauntlet.  He felt stinging blossom across his cheek.  That's going to leave a mark.

Morgan shook his head slightly in disbelief and followed with the others.

[Terca]

Eteon's eyes shifted from the pair sitting on the floor to Frank. Her voice was groggy, and being tired made her fall into her old dialect which might be considered the equivalent of bumpkin. Refined bumpkin, ordered and clear but still something with a particular lilt. Fortunately, the Omni-tool was able to translate it to manageable speak.

 

"I've been like this for the past five or so minutes." Eteon grumbled as she bent her arm and straightened hit again to try and stretch some of the tightness in her shoulder. "The rat poisoned me and it is like I have contracted an old plague of the species." She paused and yawned. "I was barely cognizant after I passed out the first time."

[Kel Riever]

Jess, Naleena, Essul, Morgan and Dahlia pursued Iyana into the darkness.  There was no lighting even present in the corridor, and the dim illumination from the bridge wasn’t providing as much for the image enhancers as Morgan’s tech armor.  Self-conscious of being lit up like a Christmas tree, Morgan deactivated the tech armor.  On they went, and past them in the blackness, there was a split second flaring of a biotic silhouette, Iyana likely teleporting again, then nothing. 

The captain of the Medusa knew her ship, and Jess was aware that though the hallway had been sealed off completely to form one path, that path was heading back towards the aft most starboard cargo module.  Having not been that way, what she wasn’t aware of was that the team that had headed for engineering had missed something.  The brick colored monotone paint scheme hid the fact to those unfamiliar with the ship, that the module was smaller than the rest, cut off to create a secret section of the pod.  That section was where the group was headed now. 

Ahead the corridor came to its end, an airtight hatch propped open into the module.
 

[Cknarf]

Frank wasn't exactly sure what cognizant meant. His vocabulary was mostly comprised of profanity, terrible pick-up lines, and various forms of audible exhalations.

He sighed. 

"Yeah, tell me about it."

Done screwed up my back, draggin' yo heavy ass.

"You were a total zombie when we found you."

Frank stepped closer, and drew his flashlight.  Standing on his toes, he shined it in her eyes again.  She grunted, and turned her head away.

"Sorry. I have no idea what I'm doing." He shrugged.  The side of her face glistened with moisture.

Ew. Why is she all drippy?

"Are you sweating?" He looked behind him. "Hey Vayne, do turians sweat?  Wait, do krogan sweat?"

((Frank opened a thread on BSN to ask about aliens and their sweating habits))

[Redbelle]

Jess's run finally saw her reach the hatch where she sagged for a moment looking in. Her head was swimming. Sinbad was nestled in her hand that she didn't remember putting there.....

 

And was there someone on the team called Susan?

 

She was probably concussed. Probably weren't meant to fall asleep but it was so tempting. She was chasing the woman who had murdered her crew through her ship. She should probably concentrate. Leaning forward she pushed away from the hatch and looked inside as she stood in the centre of the doorway.

[Kel Riever]

The darkness within the room was complete, and where the image intensification could eek out enhancing the paltry ambient light from the bridge far behind, the mist was so thick that a person could see at most two or three meters ahead of them.  From what could be discerned, the curved shadow of a table and a couple of chairs peaked out from the fog, as well as the silhouette of another table to the right that had been thrown haphazardly into the module to lay with its side on the floor.  Suddenly, a computer on the curved table powered up all by itself, its screen coming to life.  Though the screen faced away from the doorway, images flickered as if what was displayed was cycling through in a pattern.

With the activated computer, it was apparent that the table the computer sat on was one of Jess’ elegant furnishings from her cargo, as were the chairs.  Behind the desk was the throne she used in her Captain Silver schemes, and next to the throne was a velvet fainting couch.  The flickering light from the computer ran up against the wall of fog beyond the scene of furnishings, creating, if anything, a haunting image.

The surface of the table on its side became apparent as well.  It was solid, crossed with a myriad of straps and ties, and stained with dried blood.

From deeper within, Iyana uncontrollably giggled, yet her location was a mystery.

[Terca]

"Turians rarely sweat." Eteon sighed as she pushed away from the wall and stood without support. "On Palaven with high radiation it was common for algae to contaminate water supplies since they developed some UV photosynthesis, it meant that water had to be ingested through animal and plant material until methods of..." She fell back to the wall and caught herself with an arm. "It's like if you were to begin shedding potassium."

[Cknarf]

OH MY GOD. 

Frank's jaw dropped.

Eteon's focused stare finally made sense.

He leaned in and whispered. "No, you can't eat them! Are you crazy?" He glanced behind him "Besides, they're levo-protein. They would totally give you the runs."

[Terca]

Eteon struggled with herself for a moment before taking deep breaths.

 

"Frank." She paused for a moment before shaking her head. "Distilled water exists now." Eteon saw how the logic leap was occurring but there was an obvious alternative to her wanting to eat them. "I was staring so I could keep my balance."

 

I'm going to die here. Frank is the doctor. I'm so dead.

[Terca]

Hermes Ridge, Noveria.

 

Deidrus and his two soldiers sat in the back of a light Armored Personnel Carrier as it bumped along the makeshift roadway that led from the outpost. It was a less-than comfortable ride, one that required the entire crew in the back to either mag-lock their armor to a stabilization panel on the back of the seats, or harness themselves. The errant bumping and bouncing was somewhat alleviated by the impressive force-dissipation of the eezo on-board though, and the Turians remained complaint-less. The Sentinel scrolled through notifications on her omni-tool, Callum checked his handgun while Deidrus stared straight ahead at their 'guard'. Two humans, heavily armored. Hm.

 

Androkan glanced over to the Sentinel on board when a silent shift in her posture changed her to a more relaxed state. It was subtle, but with the job she was given it meant a lot.

 

A pause, Deidrus and Callum relaxed as well, quietly increasing the mag-grab of the back of their armor. And then-

 

An explosion, one loud enough to deafen those who hadn't been wearing helmets. There was a crashing noise, heavy with metal straining like train tacks being bent over the top of a car. The carrier rolled once, twice, there was a moment where the friction from before ended and there was a dead drop.

 

One... Two... Three... Four... Deidrus silently counted in his head. He had a mask of uncaring on his face, and his confidence helped to calm the nerves of the two Turians beside him. Seven... Eight...

 

Then there was a harsh stop, like coming to the bottom of the dip of a roller coaster, but instead of lifting up to dissipate the force all the people on board experienced several G's of force.

 

Then a pause.

 

Stop.

 

The sound of snow piling and distant wind. They were at the bottom of an embankment, vehicle on its side with wheels spinning aimlessly and lazily. The pause was long but as the Turians disconnected their magnetic locks the sound of a shuttle of some kind was audible not far away, slowly closing in.

 

Quickly the Turians exited the vehicle, Callum audible thanking bracing technology for preventing him from breaking his neck even if his chest and back were sore. Climbing out the side-long vehicle and moving towards the cliff they could see the dim lights of the shuttle as it slowly approached.

 

"Cover, now. Away from the vehicle." Deidrus said, his voice playing inside the helmets of all present. Quickly they complied and the three Turians were out of sight by the time the Shuttle was within clear eyesight. It was a Shuttle of Turian make, a Halidan. Made for stormy skies and driving snow it was the perfect all-conditions aircraft and a favorite for transporting goods during emergencies on many snowglobe worlds.

 

It hovered not far from the wreck and from descending lines two shadowy figures rappelled.

 

"Broker forces." Callum said as he pulled back from looking out around the crack he had found refuge in. "How long were they following us Sabina?"

 

"Since scanning from the Audron came through." The Sentinel replied as she checked over her omni-tool readings again. "We're along the Hermes' Ridge, a fairly common place for avalanches. It is likely that they have waited until now to act so they could trigger a cover through a snow pile."

 

"Cerberus leaked to the Broker?" Deidrus asked himself, quietly enough that the microphone in his headset picked it up. He lifted his omni-tool and connected to the Audron. "Fire on the Shuttle, Thanix round from secondary munitions on my mark. Have an evac shuttle ready to move us out of here in case of avalanche."

 

"Affirmative."

 

Deidrus watched as the figured approached the destroyed carrier and looked up to the space behind the shuttle again before speaking.

 

"Declination of 30 degrees if approaching from the stern..." The ghostly sight of the Audron was barely visible aside from the massive half-shadow which was beginning to encroach on the much smaller aircraft. "Fire."

 

A white light shimmered for a moment before the shuttle was reduced to hot metal flying through the air. The secondary of the Audron were anti-material, designed so that it could deal with multiple heavily armored targets on the ground. The relatively lightly-armored shuttle was no match for the strike and upon contact it flew through the air and landed right on top of its former target. A crashing noise and the hiss of hot metal on snow was a sharp tone before it was absorbed in the din of the Noverian weather.

 

"Direct hit."

 

"We're continuing. Send the shuttle, this is considered aggression. Activate defense suite on approaching EK composites facility."

 

"Yes sir."

[Cknarf]

Yeah, sure. 'I was just keeping my balance'. Whatever you say.

Frank stared at her skeptically.

"Right then! Water! You need water. Water, water, water..." He looked around, as if some would just appear if he said 'water' enough times.

Water.

"Will this work?" He picked up Irina's canteen.  There wasn't much left.

[Redbelle]

Looking around Jess swayed where she stood and called out. "IYANA"?

[Cainhurst Crow]

Essul looked to jess curiously as he took a step towards her right, looking to shove her down or out of the way of any attack that got fired at her. He doubted she was in the right mind to do so on her own.

 

He held his cazador at the ready, looking around the room as held his position nearby captain stone, trying to see any sort of movement within the room.

[Kel Riever]

There was no immediate reply.

Morgan looked to the others and said quietly, “Cover me. I’ll go on point.” He slipped past Jess, gun first, and entered the room.

Crouching, so that people behind could shoot over him, Morgan crept towards the center after checking his flanks. He nodded at Essul as he moved past. The light of the screen flickering made him visible, and he went to normal vision mode. Nothing moved and as he reached the chairs and table, Morgan reached across to spin the computer so the screen was visible.

The flickering was from a slideshow of dossiers that cycled past, one for each member of the team, and a few others from the Janiri who hadn’t come along. Not all seemed complete, but information had been filled in, as if somebody were in progress of compiling what they could.

Iyana’s spoke, her voice amplified, coming from above and all around, said melodiously, “Could we not trade our data cubes, Jess? Or are you the type that would drink seawater and madden yourself to die quickly? Touch that which is not yours, bring it to ruin, and yet you come accusing me.”

[Redbelle]

Jess took a step inside. "Trade? Ruin? Look around you. You brought ruin to my ship and crew and you've got the nerve to talk to accuse me of ruin"?

 

Jess walked to the table and ran her eye over the dossier's. "What's this? You decided one ship wasn't enough your going for a second to sink your claws into? You took something from me..... Luv...... Something I can't get back..... So when I find you I'm going to take a piece of you.... and believe me. You'll miss it".

 

Jess breathed and closed her eye's for a moment to endure the throbbing in her skull. "What was so important you had to do this anyway? I killed your Varren? Is that it? Why is Morgan so important to you"? Jess planted her hands on the table, looking for Morgan's. "And how the hell did you find that datacube? That's not for you! That's for emergencies only"!

[Cainhurst Crow]

"Show yourself, you Profane Hellion of Wanton Profligation..." Essul said as he looked about the room, an edge to his voice as he caught sight of the dossiers being displayed upon the terminal. He remember jess stone's and morgans warnings about this woman and her unrepentent and indiscriminal retaliation tactics. The sight made it all too clear to him what was planned.

 

"Face justice for your crimes with dignity, and you will be depatched from this world swiftly and with some mercy." He said as he turned around breifly to look behind him, signaling naleena to watch their back in case she tried anything.

[Kel Riever]

From the table, Jess and Morgan could see a bit farther, and spotted the edge of a set of large stacked crates, rising into the fog.  With Jess at the table, and Essul guarding to the right, Morgan swept towards the left, keeping his teammates in his peripheral.  He tried his best to pierce the mist without becoming lost from sight, and soon he caught what he thought was the edge of another wall.

There was a popping sound from high above, like an ancient incandescent bulb breaking.  Searching eyes couldn’t find anything through the mist, until a fine, black substance descended like snow or ash, everywhere that could be seen.  Essul and Morgan recognized the substance, a sythetic used during the Skyllian Blitz by the Hegemony.  It was designed to foul cloaking and camouflage by sticking to armor and creating a detectable surface.  Morgan and Essul also remembered that it was retired from use as exposure over an extended period of time had proved to be a health hazard unacceptable even to the Hegemony.

 

As abruptly as the computer had turned on, it blinked off. Darkness reigned once again, making vision with enhancers almost impossible.  Then came an unbearable noise.  From unseen amplifiers, a drowning, cacophony of discordant sound screeched into the throne room, forcing the use of ear protection.  Between the com jamming and the noise, communication was futile.  The result being everyone was nearly blind and deaf.  

[Cainhurst Crow]

Essul had turned to warn jess not to breath as the black ash, as he called it, began pouring from the ceiling. How had she even gotten her hands on the substance? It wasn't even used anymore, and from reports most if not all of it had been disposed of in arathot.

 

Then the world seemed to explode all at once as essul's helmet tried to process the noise from all about, his armor shaking from the vibrations as what sounded like the worst digital feedback in the world filled his audio systems. The loss of light was also disconcerting, but essul had at least done his best to go in a straight line forward. He tried to talk but couldn't even hear his own voice, and so he did the first thing that came to mind.

 

He turned to jess, grabbed her by the shoulders, and shoved her as hard as he could towards the entrance of the room, hoping she'd be able to escape as he turned around to try and see morgan. He couldn't, and he couldn't hear, and so essul advanced towards the darkness, bumping into something hard as he worked to locate the other comrade.

[Redbelle]

As bad as her head was, it was worse now that sonics were being pumped into the room. She fell to the floor with her hands over the part's of her helmet where her ear's were. As bad as it was though, she was not completely out of it.

 

Her silver eye gleamed from the broken visor and she sweapt the room. The room was a trap. Trap's had mechanisms. Mechanisms could be broken.

 

First things first.

 

Jess reached into her pack and pulled out a snaplight as she retreated back to the door. If this was a trap then she need to know what kind. She wasn't going to play Iyana's game if she could help it. The light had trouble piercing the mist but it helped as she stumbled forwards.

[Kel Riever]

The snaplight was lit just in time for the group to see the huge, bulky form of a welding rig crashing through the left wall and barreling towards them.  A robot, one arm ending in a torch and the other meant for lifting and maneuvering outer hull plates, charged, leaving only enough time to dodge out of the way.
 

[Cainhurst Crow]

Essul didn't hear the robot coming at all, instead he felt it in the ground as he turned to see the robot. Essul sidestepped like a matador dodging a charging bull, and he flicked out his gauntlets and channeled his biotic energy along the whips, two glowing strings in the dark that barely illuminated anything as he flicked one at the bot, and the other at the ceiling, hoping that maybe a normal heavy strike might do some good.

[Redbelle]

Bernard was up and firing the moment Jess saw what it was. The lighting wasn't great but the running light's on the rig and the arcing welder on it provided enough to her to guess where it's brain was.

 

The round tore open a large gash in it's thin outer shell and it crashed and skidded across the ground till it disappeared into the mist. Even though it was downed Jess could still hear a thruster assembly working indicating that she'd not totally killed it.

 

"CAREFUL! There's more of them! The motherboards in the front centre near the camera mount! Keep moving! They can't turn worth a damn in gravity"!

[Kel Riever]

Essul’s biotic whip cracked into another rig as it came through the wall on the right tearing into its hulk where Jess had indicated, causing it to veer away from a path towards Naleena. Then there was a much thinner whip that descended on Essul.

If he hadn’t been the veteran he was, Essul might have been missing his head.

With nothing more than the automatic reaction of his experience and training, Essul let himself fall backwards away from what was simply a flash of blue light. He felt the burn of biotic energy as a biotic whip passed so close it singed and his eyes caught the strap covered table as it was sliced in half. In the time it took him to spot whoever wielded the biotic whip that almost ended his life, the figure was gone. He could only guess at a shadow against the darkness being something worth attacking back.

Jess felt a presence near, forward and to her right, but before she could bring anything to bear it had gone.

Morgan fell away from the group, hunting for Iyana and avoiding the light. He wanted to use her own darkness against her. Somehow, he felt her laughing, though he knew he couldn't hear a thing.

[Kel Riever]

Dahlia sensed a figure moving past her, but before she could whirl, she felt something physically shove her through her biotics and she nearly fell on her face. Naleena, split from the group by the careening rig, knew if she had a shot, it might be only a split second where she had to fire.

Another unbelievably fast blue whip lashed out and Naleena barely swung sideways to avoid the blow, but again, the target could not be seen.