Galactic Dawn: Running Story of the Starcraft&Metroid Campaign, 2005.

Log 2: Flight of the Unnamed Ship
Three minutes until warp-exit, and Tam still could not shake the sinking feeling he had about his path in life as of moments ago, it seemed. Though he trusted his own capacities as pilot of the dropship vessel, and as team medic, and even as impromptu leader, his capacities as two-legged creature worried him. Most bipods, as it were, he thought, have a greater sense of survival than this. Right then, Tam was on his way back into the jaws of a mighty beast, as the group had recently discovered thanks in part to the Kellar, their employer was.
For the sake of their remaining soldiers and team members in Moltar (the lost child of Jeno) and Jargenduv (the Pathomorph prankster), Tam, Andressyan, and Mericor had agreed to return to the country-sized orbital platform home of Biologic Space Ltd. with a plan. Tam was to report to command, Raynor, with the truth of their story in whatever confidence he could quickly obtain. Timing would be important. He would then rush back to the ship, and help the engineers Guay and Maddocks finish loading as much of the important contents of their cargo locker into the bay, and prepare the ship for lightning departure once their friends were aboard. Andressyan was to deliver the DACs and decoder rod to BSL bureau as per mission instructions, to maintain the illusion that their mvsf was still comprised of company men, and then transfer their funds out of BSL private accounts. Tam would then join Mericor in collecting Moltar and Jargenduv, and hurry back to the ship. With their cargo and crew all aboard, Tam would then escape the station, hopefully before the company noticed their flight. With good timing and a little luck, the team could be well away to Moria or Chau Sara by supper, and be well away from the clutches of BSL, maybe forever. How much fuss would they bother to kick up over one measly mvsf, anyway?
So went the plan again and again in Tam's mind.
So went the plan again and again, much the same, in Andressyan's mind.
So went the plan, with minor and private revisions, in Mericor's mind.
Guay and Maddocks were still very busy repairing the ship, and keeping the engines running well while appearing to run badly. Some of the damage was real, besides, and it would only take a small mistake to shatter the balance of the ship's health. Guay and Maddocks shared a private plight, as the rest were singularly unaware of the veil, thin as a warp-film, that shielded them from disaster. Maddocks started up at a sound, and quickly reverified his last few steps. It had not been the ship. What was it then, that had made the noise? No time to bother. A figment only. Maddocks got back to work.

-BSL station, this is Mike-Victor-Sierra-Foxtrot Eighty-Eighty-six shuttle requesting berth.
-Shuttle, this is BSL station. Berths are clear, you are cleared to dock in bay Eighty-Eighty-six. Verify callsign, Eighty-six: instrumentation is showing irregular waveform.
-BSL station, previous pilot is down. Acting ensign Tam is pilot.
-Shuttle Eighty-Eighty-six, report to command once docked. But I suppose, everybody's gotta die sometime, Redd. Welcome home, pilot Tam.

Tam pitied the controller out of human sympathy. The man's skills were of use to the company now, but how long would it take before bureau decided that he could serve them better as a corpse in a freezer, or perhaps an anatomically correct diagram of his former self? Tam's stomach churned as he remembered the scientific wonder he once had felt at seeing the amazingly life-like reconstructions of human body parts in three-dimensional models that BSL presented him. Models.
The ship growled as it made final berth in the mvsf bay. The team waited for the bay seal to reactivate, and then made their drop with the greatest alacrity they could collectively muster. Each man knew his mission.
Mericor headed to the detention level, hoping he would be able to negotiate the release of his crew on sociable terms, but secretly also hoping that other methods would be necessary. His armor was light enough to not draw too much attention, and Mericor's skill and training allowed him to slip by unnoticed. Andressyan rushed after him, thinking he would be needed to negotiate the release of interned, and generally worried about Mericor's skills of a negotiator. Tam made a hurried walk to command, with the DACs and the decoder rod in tow. They had decided to deliver them to Raynor himself instead of bureau. Bureau's sight was wide, they thought, but their inertia great. The team would be long gone before bureau would notice that they had simply decided to take the mission prize to a different department. It would look like a minor violation of protocol. Minor violation of protocol. The words sounded monotonously in Tam's head, each time becoming more ominous. Finally he approached Raynor's office door. Just explain it to him.
Mericor and Andressyan found the detention level and I-tech Roberts behind his tall desk in good time and high spirits. The I-tech was whistling a tune Andressyan knew.

-Ah, good afternoon, gentlemen. I am I-tech Roberts, how may I...
-(with a small cough) Right, I am private Andressyan, here to negotiate the release of some other of my mvsf crew. I believe they were interned for the duration of the mission that we just completed, and now that we're back, I've come to get them.
-One moment while I verify the records, private.

The I-tech typed dexterously at his terminal, and squinted briefly and slightly at his findings. Andressyan recognized the sign, and waited two more counts before choosing to act accordingly. It hadn't been the end of his count before the I-tech spoke of his findings.

-I'm afraid I'll have to wait to receive word from bureau about the release of your friends. You are correct in that their internment is to end at the completion of your mission, but bureau must first close the mission themselves on their records. Since this is perhaps a new process to you, I'll let you in on how it works: bureau is slow-moving, and sometimes leaves missions open for months after completion. People like your friends are overlooked. It's not that they want to torture people, but it does serve to dissuade mvsf soldiers and others from misbehaving if they know that these cells are oubliettes (Roberts here shows his knowledge of ancient torture methods. Castle dungeons would sometimes have special cells carved as plainly as possible out of the ground, deep within the Earth. Those imprisoned there were simply ignored, and the rooms themselves came to be known as "oubliettes," literally, "places to be forgotten").
-I see. Well since I'm here anyway, how are the wife and kids? Still planning that vacation to New Trinidad?

The I-tech seemed overjoyed to have an un-official conversation with another person, and obliged Andressyan's queries without notice of his signal to Mericor. Mericor did notice, however, and walked around the corner, then cloaked, then waited three counts and moved stealthily past the I-tech's notice. Of course that level of the station would have plenty of anti-cloaking, but Roberts would have to be paying close attention to see an unfitting motion, sound, or shadow. At that, Mericor trusted his ability to sneak by a guard on full alert, detectors or no.
Mericor moved down the corridor and discovered that his comrades were in the same cell, guarded by two station men. He had been hoping to avoid bloodshed, but that door was coming down and they were in the way. Mericor paused for a second to pray after he had planted the door-destroying explosive charge. For God had made all the universe as an explosion, so there is no holier way for these men to have died. Mericor stepped back to a safe distance. Amen.

The explosion rocked the detention level, and Andressyan, well prepared, feigned the same shock that Roberts played out for real. Seeing his quarry's subsequent reaction, Andressyan acted quickly and subdued Roberts with a stiff blow to the head. The gesture would buy them a minute or two more, Andressyan thought. Plenty of time. Mericor rushed over the guard corpses and into the smoking opening of the cell. Decloaking, he announced to Moltar and Jargenduv that they must hurry. The pair wasted no time in confusion about why they should have to hurry, or moreover why their friend had blown an opening in their cell rather than visiting. The three joined Andressyan, and left the detention level without any further trouble. The alarm sounded a whole ten minutes later, by which time Andressyan had split up, back to his room, and Moltar, Jargenduv, and Mericor were all back in the bay, helping load supply crates.
Tam heard the alarm, and decided to break into a run. He had told Raynor the story as quickly and truthfully as he could, and had taken his commander's allowance as sign of sympathy. Had Raynor chosen to have him held, for example, that would have been a bad sign. Tam did not want to press his luck, and ran back to the bay to find his team, minus Andressyan prepared for departure. Five minutes and he could cycle the ship for exit. For escape. Three more minutes.
Mericor decided to leave a going-away present for their employer; a safety-net in case other mvsfs became too quickly mobilized and began filtering in through the door. Two remote mines at the entrance should do the trick, he thought. Then having planted the prizes, Mericor lifted onto the ship and watched the door through a portal. The drone of the now fully-operable ships engines filled the team with hope as they waited anxiously for their missing member.
Andressyan had found his room easily enough, and took little time in establishing an account with the Bank of Switzerland on Brontes. Seven minutes. Then transferring the funds. Nine minutes. There were noises in the hallway of armored men approaching. Thirteen minutes. Finished. Andressyan called out over the comm to his team, taking on a solemn tone:

-You men will have to leave. They've found us out too fast. If you wait for me then no one will make it out. Go. Go!

Tam and the rest received the transmission with grim faces. They all knew that Andressyan had been correct, and none spoke a word as Tam signaled for the bay seal to open and idled the ship away from berth. Andressyan positioned himself across the barracks bunk opposite the door, and kicked it over, using it as cover. By God, they would not take him easily, he thought. With his eyes through his scope, he awaited the door to crash open. Three mvsf marines appeared in the threshold.

Mericor activated his device as the ship approached what he judged to be maximum signal range. A fire erupted from the threshold, the station's air then pouring out through the fire. As the ship shuttled away, the bay looked light a tea-candle, with a column of flame the size of a human being burning brightly on the off-planet side of the station through their bay opening. Tam scheduled a flight back to Moria as quickly as he could, and as the coordinates were still fresh from the previous mission, he found no trouble in doing so. With an exit like that, it is likely that BSL would send someone to hunt them down and kill them, and also likely that it would take them months to do so. With that in mind, the team relaxed slightly, the tea-light becoming invisible in compare to the planet Tarsonis itself, now shrinking in the distance. Then at once gone, the team breathed a sigh of relief, and spared a moment of silence for their fallen comrade, Andressyan.
Once orbiting Moria, Tam idled the ship and announced over the comm that they should have a meeting to decide what to do. Mericor had explained their position to Moltar and Jargenduv on the way in, about the Ing on Tyrador station, Septoth and the Kellar, the DACs, the stealth attack, the revelation, and their decision to leave BSL employ in the manner chosen. They all agreed to have council with Tam over the comm (he would have to keep the ship in stable orbit, and the cockpit was too tight for all four of them), and prepared to do so when the lights suddenly went out. Tam reported immediately that he didn't understand it, or do it. Guay and Maddocks also indicated that they were baffled. Moltar heard a noise from the cargo section.

Moltar: I heard something. Everyone quiet. Mericor, I'm going stealth.
Mericor: Good idea, me too. What is it?
Moltar: I don't know. Maybe nothing. I'll check it out.
Tam: Guys, what's going on back there? Comm is nearly out, too, I can't make much out.
Jargenduv: We've got a problem back here, chief, just try to get the lights back on.

A low hissing noise sounded, and there was a scream in the darkness: the utterance of the sudden and severe pain of one's cells suddenly stepping back up to timeliness with the rest of the universe. A figure rose in the darkness, alone and frightened, but prepared.

Yuri Elric awoke in pain and in the darkness. She could hardly remember where she had been before, much less how she had gotten to be born into pain and darkness. Yuri felt the cold steel grating against her feet, and knew somehow, instinctively perhaps, where her suit was and how to put it on. She heard a threatening voice:

-Stand down or be fired upon. Comply!

Yuri couldn't see where it had come from, and took a guess that she was at least as hard to see. She put her armor on silently, a Chozo battle suit fitted to her form by splendid design. In only a minute the suit was online, and her blaster aimed at the nearest target, now thinly outlined by her battle visor. Strange, it was about half the size she had expected. Yuri decided to sound diplomatic while preparing to blast the threatener to oblivion.

-Who are you? Identify yourself.
-Stand down. You are on an mvsf shuttle formerly owned by BSL. You have appeared in our cargo bay.
The words felt uneasy as Moltar spoke them. He knew that Mericor would have plenty enough respose to kill whomsoever this stowaway was, but perhaps not before violating the ship's seal and dooming them all. Diplomacy seemed preferable.
-I'm...my name is Yuri Elric.
The words felt uneasy as Yuri spoke them. She had elected honesty this time, though she rarely liked, she suddenly remembered, giving out her name, especially to those who had greeted her with threats and pain and darkness.

Elric? Tam, Mericor, Moltar, and Jargenduv remembered the name. It had been the same surname of their former executive officer who had gone missing right before that mysterious crate had appeared. Had he a daughter?
The lights came back on, and Yuri and the team held the tableau, now seeing that they had been prepared to shoot at each other. They slowly lowered their weapons with a small feeling of embarrassment. Helmets off, the team greeted their stowaway then with civility, and explained about their journey up to that point. Yuri explained that she had been living with a colony of Chozo on Tep, and could remember little else. They bonded over stories of Commander Elric for a few hours.
Tam felt a little left out. Here he had spent so much time watching over the stasis cell, only for it to open while he had to be elsewhere, of course, keeping them all from dying. Tam regretted, a little, not telling the others about the cell, but when had he the chance to do so? The last four days had moved at lightning speed, and the only downtime Tam could remember were the hours that he had been infirmed in Kellar care. At the least they had kept internal comm open so that he could also share stories about Commander Elric in his day. In the end, Yuri agreed to lend her arm to the team, vouching for her own skills in battle, and asserting that she would be able to assist the ship's engineers should their course lead them to not need another gun as much as another crewman.
The team sat then in council, Tam still cloistered in the former Redd's hold, discussing their near future.
Ultimately, they decided to find work on Moria. It had been the location of their last meeting with Septoth and the Kellar, and Tam in particular wished to learn more about Septoth's quest. Finding a group of eco-terrorists in macro-society is more difficult than the team had imagined at first. In fact none of the people they met on first journey to the Morian surface were helpful in finding the Kellar, or even leading them in the right direction. Finding this, the team then decided to establish themselves as workers, perhaps thereupon to develop enough renown to attract the kinds of people they wanted to find, if not the Kellar themselves.
Finding an essentially mercenary position on Moria was much easier, and in only a few days, the team found a fitting-sounding job opportunity at Legoland, Moria.
Lego is one of the few large companies that managed to survive the culling of companies as galactic society emerged. Thanks to their experience with mers and polymers, Lego had adapted their function to include the creation of plastics for spaceship components. Almost every Terran vessel of the day has some kind of window or fitting or component crafted with mastery by the same Lego company that brought joy to the children of the planet Earth in the days before galactic society. The company still makes toys, and has established a theme park on Moria, where towers of their small bricks scrape the skies, and notable figures of social history stand in plastic tableau: Sarah Kerrigan, Arcturus Mengsk, Adun, Tassadar, Zeratul, Samus Aran, Adam Malcovich.
As fate would have it, the Lego theme park on Moria had a sudden and great need for some extra security guards within the park. The team, without Tam and the engineers, who were working on the ship and making sure their parking remained valid, approached Lego with their talent, and found themselves soon second in line for an interview.
They were to meet with a stern Protoss Marshal named Berritor. In front of them was another Protoss warrior, who was apparently also signing on for hire. The team watched as Berritor spoke to the warrior:

-You would call yourself the son of Aiur? I would be pleased to see one of my brethren as a guard of this plastic paradise, however, you must first prove your mettle in combat, B'arun.
-You have stated my name as I pronounced it, B'arun T'Aiur. I have trained long, and am glad to see this day. I await your challenge.

The room shifted outward until Berritor's large office began to resemble a large octagonal arena, and sure enough, tigers appeared in the form of three Protoss warriors, each with a pair of psi blades at the ready. Berritor gave the signal, and B'arun steadied his aim at the oncoming zealots. With a flash of passion and gout of flame, B'arun singed and burned his attackers all at once. Mericor was impressed with the warrior's ingenuity, he had never seen a psi blade emitter with a flamethrower attached, and B'arun had, and was using, two at once. Elric thrilled at the whole display, reminded for some reason, of vague triumphs of her own past. She cheered for the lone fighter. Jargenduv couldn't help but think about how he may turn that fire effect into some kind of mobile robotic minion that would follow him around in battle. Moltar was impatient, and wished for the sake of macro-society that sentience could have evolved beyond barbarism by now. Besides, when would it be their turn to fight.
The battle raged on. With two of his attackers down, B'arun decided to engage the third and last fighter, now well burned, with psiblades of his own. In a final melee, B'arun vanquished the last fighter, and raised his fist in the air to celebrate his successful demonstration. The onlooking team, even Moltar, applauded. Berritor returned and spoke while robotic helpers carted the subdued warriors off and out of the octagon.

Berritor: B'arun, the son of Aiur, I am impressed with your prowess, however, the position I have available requires a team of warriors to sweep part of the facility. Go, and find warriors who are your peer and return to me. I shall give you the duty then.
B'arun: Have I not proven my worth, on my own, in battle before your eyes? Let me challenge this sweep on my own.
Berritor: Your spirit is strong, young warrior, but this mission requires at team.
Elric: Excuse me. I think we could help out. You were talking about peers and well...here we are!
Mericor: Certainly. We could be your team.
B'arun: There, Berritor. I have found a team.
Berritor: (chuckling) You impress me for a second time. Let us discuss the terms.

And so the team had found another member. Berritor's council allowed them to introduce themselves, and discover their common goals and interests. By the end of the hour, B'arun felt like this band of strangers who had stepped into his interview were the grace of Adun handed down to him from on high. B'arun found Elric and her Chozo armor particularly impressive, as he too was young for his race. At the close of the meeting, Berritor was confident in his new security team's ability to complete the sweep, and passed out their company decals to identify them as an official lego employ.
Berritor had explained the mission to the party as a sweep: in one of the closed and cordoned-off rides of the park there sat a vast subterranean den of robots whose control had been wrested from the park authorities by a mysterious consciousness. The ten-thousand renegades and their leader plotted under the park, and Berritor meant to stop them while they were still contained. Berritor pictured a scene where former park-happy thrill seekers flee in terror from the very bots that were meant to entertain them. The thought of the loss of Terranling life chilled Berritor, who confessed he had always been fond of the younglings of the Terran race particularly.
Without delay, the team set off to pass the cordoned area and delve into the den of maleficent machinations.
Moltar noticed a small cluster of the drones down the hallway before the others. He alerted the team to their presence, and he and Mericor snuck toward the pair in cloak. With a successful surprise, the team struck the drones: Mericor lobbed a fragmentation grenade. Moltar sat and sniped, as did Jargenduv. Elric charged and fired his plasma beam. B'arun closed the distance and flamed the enemy. Their presence known, the team quickly salvaged what good robot components they could, storing them in Jargenduv's ample closet space in his SCV suit. Their job proceeded in much the same way for many minutes: slowly creeping into the next room or hallway, sweeping it clean of malfunctioning bots, taking what good parts they could (Berritor made it clear that this was acceptable, noting that Mericor and Jargenduv both had taken an interest in the salvage part of the operation), and moving on. Mericor or Jargenduv would open the doors when the situation called for an explosive blast or computer finesse. Having found no traps so far, B'arun did not anticipate the next part.
Some miniature robots had skittered away through a duct, and Elric remembered that she could assume a more compact form and follow them. Elric folded her suit into its morphing ball form, and rolled into the duct after the skittering robots. Turning right, she discovered a fan that blocked her path: they must have gone the other way, she thought. Indeed, she then heard noises from the other end of the pipeline, and suddenly felt the presence of a fan rather felicitous. Elric planted a bomb in the form of a compact energy orb reaction (a common Chozo suit feature) and watched as it floated toward the robots, powered along by the fan. Three bombs saw the dismantling of four of the tiny skittering robots, and for the last one of the five, Elric decided to instead charge and crush it, remembering that she maintained mass when morphing.
Elric emerged in a pitch black room, and heard the sudden hush of synthesized language indicative of three or four more hidden attackers. Separated, the team rushed to find another way into the room Elric had found. B'arun was the first to rush down the hall, and, finding a door that should have been placed correctly to take him to the fight, B'arun plunged forward, through a mysterious looking sheet, and found himself trapped in a dark elsewhere. Meanwhile, Elric managed to finish off the four attackers on her own, taking some hits and getting winded in the process. The team's focus turned to B'arun, who could hear the team over the comm, and speak, but knew not his location. Elric saw the mysterious film B'arun described in the corner of the room. It stood a six by three foot rectangle, full of black film with swirling hazy bits of white. Elric was perplexed, but found bits of salvage or junk to toss into the threshold as a test. Jargenduv looked at the portal from the other side, and tried the same thing with bits of junk or pieces of fallen rock from the walls that he had found. B'arun was furious, being accosted in the darkness by bits of junk flying in and hitting him all over. He called to the team to stop, and did a test of his own, lighting the flames of his perdition flamethrower. B'arun found that his cell was round and tight, and he could not understand how the bits of junk could fly in, but his fire would not escape. Elric finally decided to try and join her comrade, and charged the door. She bowled into Jargenduv, passing through the mysterious film as though it were an illusion only. Jargenduv's temper flared at once, and then subsided as an idea occurred to him. About the black film was a metallic rim. This was some kind of device, and reverse-engineering systems was his specialty. He would simply turn it off. Working diligently with his tools, his head clear, for a few minutes, Jargenduv asked the team to stand back as he activated a switch in his suit. The portal flickered and faded, and lights came on in the room before them. Through the door, the team could see a huge wall of screens and input devices, and in the corner was a column of imprisoning plastic with their comrade inside. Once they entered, an unseen portcullis closed behind, and a figure in a chair cackled, spindly mechanical arms showing from the corners. One two, three four...the chair turned slowly as the cackling continued. The figure greeted them as a hovering central mass with dangling wires and hundreds of embedded lenses and unfamiliar looking robotic components. The four arms flailed mildly as the figure cackled, and then it identified itself as their destroyer, and rose high overhead, pulling on levers on the ceiling, resulting in robotic minions like the ones the team had seen before appearing in tall puffs of green smoke.
Elric and Jargenduv charged across the room to B'arun's side, still trapped. Elric laid cover fire while Jargenduv hastily attempted to disable the trap. Moltar and Mericor fired or lobbed grenades from a distance, subduing some of the minions while the master summoned ever more. Jargenduv grunted in approval as the trap disappeared into the floor. B'arun charged the center, slaying summoned minions. Elric joined. Jargenduv attempted to rewire the panel to drop a trap on the master robot. With a shock, Jargenduv found himself trapped in a column similar to the one B'arun had been in, only this one was quickly filling with a toxic gas. Jargenduv activated his armor's seal.
Battle with the master robot continued for a solid minute, ultimately the monster fell, laser weapons and all, defeated.
Jargenduv indicated to Elric how he thought to get himself out of the trap, and Elric followed instructions. First the gas evacuated, then, with a better view, Jargenduv talked Elric through the rest, and freed himself. He and Mericor salvaged the minions and master, obtaining among others a single lego-stamped superior component.
The team exited the dungeon, noticing as they passed other deactivated robots, now pacified by the defeat of the renegade controller. Mericor and Jargenduv divvied the components. Berritor applauded their efforts, and told them that representatives of another company had come looking for them...
The team stood in the center of the octagon.
Without warning, five mvsf soldiers of the BSL company stormed into the room and let loose gouts of flame from matching pairs of Perdition Flamethrowers. Berritor had unwittingly allowed the team's former employer-turned disgruntled malefactor to make an attempt on their lives. The team would short prove that attempt vain, as each sprung into action. B'arun with his psiblades and flames of his own. Moltar and Mericor with shots and explosions from hidden quarters. Elric with rapid shots from her power beam, and Jargenduv with his laser cannon and similarly mounted new robot minion crafted from spare lego robot parts.
The fight lasted only half a minute, and left the team scorched and injured, but unlike their attackers: alive.
Berritor stormed back into the room and apologized profusely. He claimed he had not known that the liaison was in fact an assassin squad; that somehow they had known how to sneak in past security. Then Berritor offered them a bonus and severance package, intoning that regrettably, he could not have anything like this happening again in Legoland security, and that the team's enemies could not be allowed to jeopardize the park again. With a heavy heart he turned the team away, but not before giving B'arun a small crystal, which he claimed to be of consequence and importance.
The team left the park mystified and somewhat perplexed. How had BSL found them out so quickly? Without sparing too much thought on the past, the team took to the many markets of Moria in search of proper swag for their coming adventures. Over a few weeks, Elric found some spare missile ammunition. Jargenduv found toys, as did Mericor. Tam found better parking places. Moltar found a unique man who had a job opportunity for the group. With a little effort of collection, the team could earn a powerful device from this private chemist. The chemist gave Moltar simply a list of ingredients that he would need in order to craft another project of his, and in exchange he would grant Moltar some of the formula to turn his bubble-gun into a powerful nerve agent. At first Moltar balked at the idea, claiming that the chemist was clearly demanding an unreasonable exchange. The chemist apologized, his bluff called, and gave Moltar a shorter list.
Moltar returned to the group and explained what he was after. The team agreed to go collect, mostly out of ennui. It had by now been almost a month since the attack of the maladroit droid army, and many of them had devoted their lives to soldiering of some kind. Elric in particular longed for more bounty to hunt.
The first ingredient on the list was riboplastic gel. Moltar discovered through inquiry that this chemical could be found in medical supply companies across the stars, most closely on the planet Tarsonis and Tarsonis Medical Supply. The team debated for a few hours about whether they should consider another supplier: BSL station was in orbit of Tarsonis after all, and they wanted to stay as far away from their enemies as possible while they could still choose to. Moltar convinced them that the threat was mild, as BSL only orbited the planet, and the team had but one small ship, easy to hide, and anyway they would be traveling to the surface. The team agreed. Tam took the ship out and journeyed to Tarsonis, landing the ship by proper protocol in a public hold. Moltar went alone to TMS, and after a harsh greeting from the secretary in response to his inquiry, was directed to a private room. Moltar then figured out that this riboplastic gel was in fact a controlled substance, not to be garnered without difficulty and discretion. A man appeared and offered him the gel in exchange for guard duty over one of their shipments. Moltar agreed, and then heard Tam over the comm.

-Moltar, meet me around the corner in a few minutes, I'm headed your way.
-Is there a problem?
-I don't think so, but I'm not sure. It seems we have a parking ticket to take care of. The precinct is close to your location, so I thought we should meet up.
-Understood. I have another mission plan to run by you when we meet.
-The others will be glad to hear it. I worry about people with as much firepower as that getting too bored.

Moltar met with Tam, and they took record of their getting a ticket to the local Tarsonan Civil Security center. Tam explained that after Moltar left, a small squad of police arrived and notified them that he had a parking ticket (Parking tickets carry weighty consequences across the Koprulu sector. With a single ticket, a ship can be tracked by secure channels reliably by any security force, and also broadcasts their status as minor criminals. Having one is equivalent to wearing a clown nose to a court hearing: everyone will know, and those with authority will not be amused). Tam also explained that the rest of the team was discussing matters with the security force of some seven armed soldiers. When they arrived at the Civil Security Center, Moltar and Tam discovered that there had been no record of any parking ticket on their craft, that they had passed customs and tower protocol cleanly. The two beat feet back to the ship...
Meanwhile, Mericor had opted to drop out of the ship and talk face to face with the security force. The others sat impatiently, hoping the situation would not explode. These were police after all, and none was happy with the idea of the team as a rogue group of cop-killers. Elric operated the drop controls (the only means in and out of the ship), and waited for a signal from Mericor to leave. The team heard Tam and Moltar sounding frantic over the comm. They explained that whomsoever these men were, they were not the police.

Mericor discussed: Guys, I think we should lift them onto the ship.
Jargenduv: No, we shouldn't lift them on the ship because then they'll be on the ship.
Elric: What should I do?
T'aiur: Simple, drop me and I'll flay them all.
Mericor: Bad idea, they have the upper hand. If anything we should get the hell out. I should warn you that they have anti-ship artillery.
Elric: Oh, is that all?

With a sudden rush and fire in her eyes, Elric swimmingly lifted Mericor and thrusted the ship out of dock and down the Tarsonan highways toward Tam and Moltar. Their assailants launched missiles, which Elric dodged with grace. Before she had been uneasy at the controls of this vessel, but right then felt fully lucid, dodging bullets and seekers with relative ease. There were other parts of piloting, though, that do not come naturally and arose to attempt another kind of stymie to the team's flight.

-Unidentified craft, please reverse course and return to parking deck: you have entered controlled space without a plan.
-Sure, just a second.

Elric was uncertain how to respond to the controller, but knew that she had to pick up Tam and Moltar, or else the squad (who must have also been BSL men) would hunt them down. The pleas and commands to desist came more frequently over the radios, and then Elric found her friends, lifted them, and shuttled upward and away from the planet. Once away, Elric ceded control of the craft to Tam once more. Moltar explained the new mission: the team was to escort a group of cargo freighters from the Morian slam gate to the planet of New Trinidad. The delay back on Tarsonis had made them almost an hour late for the job already, so they could waste no more time. Once safely back, Moltar would collect the gel and a substantial fee. The team agreed, and swept away to the Morian slam gate.
Moltar found the freighters, and identified the team. One of the pilots, a Davis, to whom Moltar had earlier explained about the team's tardiness, responded with a pleased-but-uneasy tone.

The next few hours passed calmly. The team reported no bogies, and Davis plodded along wistfully.

From hidden quarters, a missile rocked one of Davis' freighters: the team was under attack by a squadron of Wraiths. Tam alerted the team, and instructed them to seal up. Tam modified the drop protocols to establish the Kreptarg maneuver (The Kreptarg maneuver was invented by a Pathomorph helmsman during one of their many wars with the Galactic Federation. Kreptarg himself had been working on a project to mimic Chozo morphing technology, and had taken to using modified warp space to attempt the compression. While he never successfully transfigured another pathomorph to compact form without killing him, he had learned how to invert a warp field of a drop mechanism to flip the exit of the soldier. The maneuver has limited use, but is ideal for mounting marines on the hull of a ship with rapidity). With a drop, the team stood on the ship's hull and attempted to wage combat with the hidden assailants. Mericor and Moltar and T'auir cloaked. Mericor handed T'auir some grenades so that he could pitch them at the enemy (he had no ranged weapons of his own). Elric screened Jargenduv at his request, who fired his and his robot's lasers. Hitting the cloaked ships was difficult, but between all of them, and Tam's maneuvering, one of the three attackers crumbled into a fiery heap. Davis then alerted the team that he had something that would help, and with a thump and flare, a mighty explosion shown in the distance, leaving a green radiation that illuminated both the cloaked ships, and the half of the team who had been cloaked themselves. Realizing he could be seen, Mericor focused his psionic presence to attempt to guide his next throw with foresight. He knew that success would mean certain death for his opponent: a spider mine would not leave much of the craft intact, and without the foresight he had no hope of hitting dead-on, as spider mines could walk and burrow, but not fly. It would have to be perfect, it would have to be the best shot of a lifetime.
The wraith pilot seemed to have a similar sense of destiny, as his next burst from his ship's lasers caught Mericor center-mass, piercing his armor and rupturing his seal. Tam lifted Mericor back onto the ship as quickly as he could, but Elric had seen enough to know that no doctor could help him now. His body had been exposed to space for almost two seconds, and had up until that time been burnt and disintegrated by the lasers of a ship that was meant to harry other ships and tanks. The team reacted with prejudice, and destroyed the last two ships. Before the final pilot had gone up in flames, he delivered a somewhat disturbing message over public frequencies:

-Villains! I shall avenge my brothers who were slain by this band of brigands. No group of hired guns is safe from my wrath. I am Thevenin Douglass: righteous hand of vengeance.

His words echoed in their heads as they witnessed his ship burn out and float away as a cluster of debris. Who exactly were they working for who could be assaulted by someone claiming to be the "hand of vengeance." This mad quest for some simple weapon seemed to raise more mysteries than it allayed, and now had claimed the life of one of their own.

The team completed their mission with a heavy heart. Jargenduv discovered something in Mericor's personal effects that changed his feelings somewhat, and he revealed it to the group. Mericor had not actually betrayed BSL with the rest of them, but stayed under their command as a spy, relaying transmissions in Morse code of their whereabouts. He had been the reason BSL always seemed to be a step ahead. Jargenduv also discovered a recorded message with a heartbeat monitor link encryption:

-I, Joseph Mericor, former operative of the eighty-eighty-sixth mobile versatile security force of Biologic Space Limited state and declare my intent. When I discovered, with the rest of my team that BSL kept massive and secret weapons operations and research, I wished to go as far away as I could. I would willingly have turned my back on our employer, but for the fact that the team medic seemed to have the idea that he was in charge, and wished for us to not only betray BSL, but make war on them. I decided to play along, and instead spy on them for BSL. I wished to show Tam the vanity and vulgarity of making needless war on a giant. I have tied the encryption of this message to a heartbeat sensor, such that it may only transmit after I have died. I did not like BSL any more than the others, but what I hated even more was being brow-beaten into following along with a fool's crusade. Freedom from enormous and distant villains is important, but more dangerous still are tyrannical overlords who pose as friends. Odi Omnitus.

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