NationStates Jolt Archive

(OOC: Thread Closed.)

System Check Complete… Initialize Reanimation

It was approximately ten months ago that the NyxConsortium Ship Hybris departed from the rusting docks at New Delphii on a journey of colonization, exploration, and scientific discovery. Ten months that an awe-inspiring fortune from investors and the Consortium’s own coffers spent gliding gently through a phantasmal realm of warped dimensions, convoluted physics, and unknown properties to its eventual destination some ten million lightyears away in the Ghost galaxy, a lenticular phantom studied vigorously for some centuries by a myriad of probes from the Conglomerate Cosmic Exploration Monopoly.

Anatomical Data Compiled…

The stern of the ship was a squat cube, housing the massive sublight engines as well as the FTL generators. Its midsection was much more of a thin rectangle with rounded edges, dominated by portions of dilated hull rolling across its surface like a vast valley of hills. Within each contained instruments varying from shield generators, to the extended HysRADAR network, and simple generic sensor installations. As one neared the bow, it began to taper off into a relatively smooth pyramidal shape blunted at the nose where the command stations were housed. The ships designers obviously never heard of aesthetics.

Blood Decontaminants Injected…

The origins of the Hybris project dated back fifty years, found in the speeches and notes of Niles Smith, acting CEO of what was then Nyx Incorporated. The plan was to construct a heavily armed and armored ship capable of intergalactic travel, filled with an amazing aggregation of expensive hardware and specialized personnel dedicated to the discovery of new resources, technology, and most important of all: new markets ready for exploitation. The problem was manifesting this wild dream into economic reality.

Flushing Cryoplasma…

Using already available methods of superluminal travel would not only have made the journey exceptionally long, but maintaining those speeds for so long a period was dangerous, especially in the aetherless regions between the galaxies. The expense was also beyond the means of Nyx Inc. and any potential investors at the time. It was only through a vast series of mergers and acquisitions, as well as questionable business methods was Niles able to procure the needed resources to develop his project before his own untimely death only months before actual, full-scale development began.

Powering Implants…

After two decades of press coverage varying between miniscule and inadequate, with a focus being primarily on the bug-prone Solispace engines instead of the more salient aspects of the vessel’s design and purpose, the Hybris was ready for an assortment of unspectacular, and in a majority of the cases, embarrassing error-plagued test-flights through an uneasy cosmos. It was at this point the necessary crew was acquired.

Neuromapping Complete…

The finest doctors, physicists, biologists, astronomers, and engineers would be accompanied by swarms of technicians, doctors, economists, diplomats, lawyers, farmers, historians, and specially screened civilians were recruited onto the epic voyage into the cosmic frontier; stored in cryostasis while tech-bots cared for the assortment of systems that comprised the ship’s anatomy. They were run by Charon, an overclocked SI that was used in lieu of more advanced variants to cut down on costs, though the amount of brain-patterned hackers and personal SI units made Charon an irrelevant and nigh-redundant detail once everyone was fully awake and functioning in their new galactic home. However, as history has often shown, with such large groups of people comes an unwanted side effect of individualism to complicated social and political systems: disorder.

E-med Alert Status: Red…

While loath to admit at the risk of tarnishing the project’s immaculate image, NyxConsortium required a very detailed security regiment to minimize any chance of disaster through sentient means. The investors especially demanded a degree of assurance against criminal disaster. They were hired from various security and mercenary firm, as well as alien sources to ensure that everyone’s concerns evaporated.

Neurochemical Boost Complete…

An eight-man unit was assigned to each section of each floor of the vast ship, always located in a high traffic junction and near sensitive ship infrastructure. Each was made to work in perfect unison with the Overwatch Security Protocol, or independently if the need arose. In far fewer a number and also distant from anyone without high levels of security clearance, were the Combat and Riot Rooms in the unlikely event that enemy boarding action were to occur, or if a riot were to somehow break out amongst the ship’s denizens.

Higher Brain Functions Detected… Suppressors Disengaged…

Unit 412-B5:C10 was situated between a secondary sensor reactor and a minor technical repair station far away from the general population and anything of real importance. The only reasoning behind the unit was network uniformity and demand from the employees working in those areas; otherwise that section of the ship was an irrelevant security concern providing the guards with plenty of down time and a way for corporate dollars to be used ineffectually.

Physical Connections Severed…

Except for the number designation, the security station was the same as any other. Three multipurpose rooms connected via a series of narrow hallways, and the cellblock arranged like the points of a square separated from the other rooms by a restrained elevator. Two locker rooms that also doubled as training facilities contained four personal equipment lockers filled with standard equipment and whatever the owner wanted to bring along under the condition that it passed a basic security check. These rooms were also adjacent to the massive door that led out into the rest of the ship. The cryoroom housed the eight cryostations as well as the medical facilities necessary for the unit to function; four massive walls comprise of light surgical equipment and a score of drugs with a slight majority dedicated to treating sicknesses and catastrophes resulting from awakening, the rest ranging from basic painkillers to neuro-stimulators. The cellblock was the only room with one function; to house the unruly in a series of rooms sealed by malmetal bars and independently powered forcefields.

Restraints Disengaged…

Every inch of the ivory cryoroom was awash in the radflares dim jade aura, increasing in luminescence each second. Lined up against the wall like steadfast sentries, the eight cryostations hummed a light mechanical tune in unison as the plasmas were drained from their bodies. Only the locks on one disengaged to let the lethargic traveler’s eyes stare beyond the thick darkness of the cell he had been confined to for almost a year, revealing a world of green haze highlighted by the now active overhead phosphorescent strip lights casting an azure gaze upon the world below.

Monitoring Programs Active…

The world was cold and the air fresh. His skin would feel like leather from the months of cryoplasma washing over it. Hair was soft and carried a light reflective sheen. Muscles would be oddly relaxed as the neurostims worked to alleviate the rigors that inactivity that placed upon them. Swarms of input/output sockets varying in size from great to small overlayed his body, acting to connect the stations monitoring and medical systems to every part of his physiology: from the base of his skull down to his ankles. They burned like funeral pyres even with the painkillers coursing through his veins like rushing floodwater. Only a tight pair of black boxers kept him from being completely naked.

Medbots Initiating Reanimation Protocols…

His connection to the unit’s internal node and datasphere revealed everything to be completely normal. Reports from Charon also revealed the same to be the case outside. Tall medbots went through standard reanimation routines, attempting to assist him if the need arose while also maintaining a detailed analysis of his vital functions. Psionic modules wouldn’t detect any waves of psi energy that wasn’t supposed to be there. The sector warden’s absence was the only thing out of the ordinary; they were supposed to come by to welcome and brief the personnel as they awoke, but on a ship populated by so many, his nonappearance was not so surprising. Several of the other cryostations were also vacant, but he could only tell if he gave a discerning look to the display on the outside door. The sound of heavy thumping passing by the unit door could also be heard, but barely over the natural mechanical sounds of the cryoroom and through ears that had been long dormant. His only concern now, however, was awakening the others.

Reanimation Complete…

Eyes...opened.

Awaken the others...awaken the others...conditioning was a marvelous thing. This truth was something that Christian Lloyd Falkner, 'Chris' to his equals and superiors, understood all too well, being what he was. Well, had been. He had been a Service Psion, one of humanity's gifted few, given the chance to pay back the rest of the species for being born...different.

He knew that he was merely carrying out a conditioned response designed specifically to ground him in his own personality -- he was running through his background. It wasn't as good a program as the one he'd designed for the Service -- that one was pre-coded to pick out personality-defining events in a person's past and replay them, but that program also presumed that a psion was doing the conditioning...which wouldn't have worked in his own case, being a psion himself.

Rule One - A Psion never attempts to enter the mind of another Psion.

Walker's First Law, that was, named for Jerry Walker, the first 'awakened' Psion, who'd left a legacy of survival tips for the Psions who would follow him, known collectively as Walker's Laws. Chris kept a copy of them in his pocket...when he had a pocket. At the moment, he had nothing but a pair of NyxConsortium-issue shorts and his Service dogtags...

Falkner, Christian Lloyd. Generalist Psion, Grade VX. Blood Type: O-. Religion: Prefer Not To Specify.

Chris slowly found his feet, the floor cold against his bare skin, heightened by his present hypersensitivity. Unpleasant, but his brain had been without sensation for so very long, though he had not physically aged a day...still, sensation of any sort was glorious, right now.

He looked about him, then shivered a little...and became very aware of his present nakedness. The conditioning told him to ignore it, it was only momentary, but the conditioning wasn't nearly good enough to beat out Service Conditioning, much of which was specifically geared towards making him unconditionable. That the NyxConsortium people had tried at all had been...bothersome. And another person would be rather bothered with the two conflicting voices in his head, one telling him to do one thing, and the other taking the contrary position simply because it was supposed to be the -only- voice in his head...ever.

But Chris Falkner knew conditioning, and he ran through the mental exercises that were necessary to clear his mind of the foreign influences...though he kept it filed away for reference. The conditioning was there for a reason, after all...

He set on the edge of his cryostation and relaxed for a moment, then gestured for one of the medbots to come over. He opened his mouth to speak, then coughed a bit...then words came, as easily as they used to. His voice hadn't suffered for lack of use, which was a huge load off his shoulders. He'd worried about that -- really had. He'd always taken great pride in his voice...

"You...fetch my clothing. They should be in my locker in a packet marked 'First.' Also, bring my gauntlet. You know what that is, yes? Good..."

Giving orders came easily to the man who had once been First Lieutenant Christian Falkner, darling of the Service...but that was no longer who he was. Not anymore. And the expression that washed over his face was not at all pleasant. Chris held his head in his hands and let the emotions related with that...darkness...in his past recede. They weren't gone, but they wouldn't bother him. Not while he had a job to do.

He rose to his feet and walked the short distance to the head, wherein he relieved himself of certain excess fluids...and meditated. His psi talent wasn't fully recovered from his cryonap, as of yet, and that bothered him. It was important that he be operating at full capacity, if he was going to be able to discharge his duties to his own satisfaction, which required a much higher level of perfection than his employers did.

By the time he was finished with the facilities, the medbot had returned with the packet and gauntlet, which he accepted with some small amount of grace and acknowledgment. The packet went to rest on his vacated cryostation, while he fitted the gauntlet into place.

It fit snugly around his forearm and left hand, the fingers covered by a sort of sleek black material that hugged the skin tightly and seemed very thin, indeed. The gauntlet itself was sleek, not at all bulky like the civilian models that had been just becoming popular around the time of his departure. But, then, the Service had started more than one trend by glamorous example.

The only thing odd about his gauntlet was the service emblem was missing. The raised plate where it should have been was there, but instead of the instantly identifiably Service badge, there were the letters 'FL.' FL. Freelance. The hottest commodity on the market, those letters indicated -- a Service Psion who'd left on good terms and had a license to make use of his powers publicly. NyxConsortium had taken one look at his record and that'd been that -- one didn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

His gauntlet securely in place, he ran the start-up diagnostics and felt the usual odd chill as his implants meshed with the gauntlet and exchanged a complex series of handshakes. The return of the gauntlet's resources went a long way towards making him feel comfortable. He disliked being without his information library, organized and archived to aid him in all that he did.

Then he unsealed the packet and took out his slightly modified variant of the standard uniform. Well, perhaps a bit more than slightly...but that was only to be expected -- it was a well known fact that all psions were eccentric, and Freelancers, such as, for example, one Christian Falkner, were known to have sets of quirks all their own. Custom uniforms were a relatively minor issue...

His particular uniform was jet black, pants and shirt, with gleaming black leather boots and everything perfectly tailored. His sidearm -- a NyxConsortium-issued laser pistol, the shabbiest looking part of his ensemble -- was holstered in a cut-away holster at his right hip. It looked entirely all too much like a quick-draw rig, when you came down to it, but the restraining strap dispelled that concern...for the moment.

Over that went a sort of jacket, very expensive. The rest of his kit waited in his locker, but he could do without it for the moment. He finger-combed his hair and smiled a gleaming smile, then took a mint from his shirt pocket -- planning was life -- and popped it into his mouth. Alles in ordnung.

So, he made his way -- precisely -- to the next cryostation and examined the vitals panel. Of course, he was only generally aware of what the various indicators meant, but appearances were important. Wouldn't want to look sloppy, right? Right. Right.

Then he motioned over the med-bots and did what he needed to do to get this show on the road...which was a good thing, as a his psi-talent was beginning to stretch a bit, and the headache would hit shortly. That'd be fun...

System Check Complete… Initialize Reanimation
Anatomical Data Compiled…
Blood Decontaminants Injected…
Flushing Cryoplasma…
Powering Implants…
Neuromapping Complete…
E-med Alert Status: Red…
Neurochemical Boost Complete…
Higher Brain Functions Detected… Suppressors Disengaged…

Whoa. Am I awake?

Physical Connections Severed…

Ow. Yep, I'm awake. Thank God.

Restraints Disengaged…

Jacob Bridger opened his eyes.

Monitoring Programs Active…

Long-disused joints crackled as he sat up. For the first time in months, he took a breath, staggered out of the cryostation and leaned against a wall for support.

He looked down at himself. As far as he could tell, he was still all there. He lacked the constellation of neural ports that most others in suspension had, having convinced the technicians to use the much higher-bandwidth (and expensive in proportion) neurojack that he'd had implanted by a private firm. It had cost half his savings, but it was worth it - he'd heard about how painful the generic NyxConsortium implants could be.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noted that Christian had taken the time to get dressed and neatened up before waking him up. Typical. He gave the psion a half-hearted smile before staggering off towards the head.

He emerged a few minutes later, looking significantly more refreshed Christian had started to thaw another cryostation - Jacob decided that he might as well leave him to it, and went to find some clothes.

His uniform was similar to Christian's, but with a much more generic cut and a dull-gray color that was only a few shades darker than the metal walls. The only differences from standard issue, in fact, were the technician's badge on his left shoulder and the heavily-pocketed vest that went over his shirt.

Jacob took a moment to fill certain pockets with computer-related trinkets and spare batteries, then grimaced as he strapped on his standard-issue laspistol. He'd tried to bring his favorite gun with him, but the NyxConsortium cryotechs had confiscated it at the last moment. Something about the vintage .357 revolver posing a decompression risk. He was fairly certain that they just wanted him to match the rest of the security guards, even if it meant wearing a gun that was about as dangerous as a blunt stick.

Oh well.

He practiced his draw a few times, until he was confident that the cryochemicals weren't going to slow him down too much. Then he walked back to the cryoroom.

"Any sign of the Warden?" he asked, glancing over the cryostations' status displays as he did so. He wasn't very familiar with medical equipment, but all of the lights seemed to be green.

Chris shrugged, "Haven't seen hide nor hair of her, Mr. Bridger. Good to see you up and about -- straighten your tunic. First impressions are everything...if the crew thinks we're sloppy, they might try something stupid, and then we're left looking like incompetents, and I wouldn't like that very much, at all."

He turned his head to look at Jacob -- the first time he'd done so thus far, and flashed him a grin to show that he didn't attribute any sting to his statement -- Chris wasn't -really- a chickenshit officer, he just put on the act because studies showed that it eased emergence from a cryonap. Which, if Jacob had bothered to listen, had been included in the briefing.

Chris was a big proponent of telling you that he was going to screw with your head for your own good, then doing just what he said. It appealed to his ego, probably.

Then his head swiveled back to the panel he was working on. Exactly how he'd noticed that Jacob's tunic was ever-so-slightly crumpled without actually looking...was pretty obvious. Chris Falkner was an honest-to-god Psion.

"I've only been awake myself for a few minutes now, call it ten or so. Had the medbot bring my uniform. Bit cold in here, y'know? Still, I'd have thought we'd have some kind of signal from above by now, but who knows for sure. Haven't really pursued it, but feel free to look into it -- that's your area, isn't it? Information retrieval?"

Jacob frowned a little and smoothed his uniform shirt. He'd listened to the briefing before going into suspension, of course, but he was fairly sure that the studies had been done on career soldiers. Which didn't bode quite so well for their accuracy when applied to civilians like himself. Not that he was a civilian by choice...

He shook his head. Time enough for resentment later.

"Yeah... that's what it says on my badge, anyway. I'll go see if there's anything in the local logs." With a hint of irritation, he realized that he wasn't wearing his chrono. "And find out what day it is in the meantime."

He turned to the terminal in the center of the cryoroom and ran his fingers over the input pad. The terminal's holographic display lit up, and Jacob quickly flicked through menus until he came upon the logfiles for the guard post and its surrounding sector. If the ship was on schedule, they would be full of notes about cryochambers being opened, secure doors being unlocked, and other security posts being activated. He called up the terminal's clock/calendar feature too, for good measure.

Then he frowned again.

"This isn't right..."

The terminal beeped insistently. The clock/calendar displayed only as a red error message, and only one of his log requests went through.

"...Well, the logs for our post say that everything's fine and that we got woken up on schedule. But whenever I try to get logs for anything outside our door, it says..."

He zooms the error message until it's large enough to read from across the room.

access denied

Due to problems with your local network, you have been disconnected until further notice. Engineers are working on the problem and access will be restored once they are finished. In the meantime, the Warden is en route to your post.

Chris glanced over his shoulder and read the text, then blinked a few times.

"Well, I should certainly hope so. I don't like being out of the loop. We're the ones who are supposed to keep people out of the loop and say things like "We are currently allocating every available resource towards the solution of the problem, and we will provide updates whenever progress is made, in the meantime stay calm and go about your regular activities." I rather dislike being on the other end of the stick, so to speak..."

Still, he didn't seem overly bothered...but that was Chris for you. He rarely seemed overly bothered. He'd never quite shaken the poise and demeanor of a Service Psion...which endeared him to prospective employers...usually. Right up until they realized that he cared not a lick for anybody's rules but his own...which meant 'the Service's.' More or less.

He was being a good boy, for now. Just another little innocent Psion, hired to control people. Which was, after all, his specialty. He was very, very good at it...but, of course, that wasn't his job at the moment, as his actual 'rank' was fairly nebulous -- he -probably- 'outranked' the others in the compartment, but the point could be argued, and that wasn't anything he wanted to do, so he just let his 'officer's demeanor' run wild.

Of course, the FL on his gauntlet gave him a lot more authority than anything that the NyxConsortium could assign him. As far as he knew, he was the only Freelancer onboard the Hybris, which meant he was the -only- psion authorized to use his talents on other sentients. Which was a pretty big but, as in "Yeah, he's just a security officer, But..."

OOC: blah, this happens before Rev's last post.

System Check Complete… Initialize Reanimation
Anatomical Data Compiled…
Blood Decontaminants Injected…
Flushing Cryoplasma…
Powering Implants…
Neuromapping Complete…
E-med Alert Status: Red…
Neurochemical Boost Complete…
Higher Brain Functions Detected… Suppressors Disengaged…
Physical Connections Severed…
Restraints Disengaged…
Monitoring Programs Active…

Light slips under the eyelids of Richard Bolitho. His eyes now open he attempts to take in his surroundings. He hears voices in the room, but can't understand what they are saying. Slowly, sound turns to words...a few, hear and there, and finally, sporadic words become a language. Once surreal, his surroundings were finally comprehendible. It was clear the he was in his cryostation.

Unlike Jacob, Richard had awakened to the pain of standard neural ports. Sitting up rather slowly he stretched out his limbs and moved his head slowly left and then slowly right. Everything seemed to be in working order, or at least nearing working order.

Glancing around the room he saw he was the third to be thawed. The other two had taken the time to get dressed and neaten themselves up. Richard decided to do the same before saying anything. Cryochemicals had a nasty tendency to stiffen the muscles making speaking clearly a burden, at not one he wished to take on at this very moment.

Making his way towards his locker he got dressed and found all the necessary items: a pistol (of sorts), as well as a few other trinkets that might come in handy sooner or later, just what to call them was one of the bits of information his brain was still laboring to unlock following his awakening.

He straightened himself out he returned to see both Chris and Jacob…

…”That’s your area isn’t it? Information Retreival?”

Richard acknowledged both Chris and Jacob. A few moments later Jacob was off to do something, he hadn’t caught the specifics. He took a moment to shine his silver badge, which informed everyone he was an engineer and straighten out his fairly standard uniform, then turned his attention to Chris.

“I take it no word form above.”

Just as he said this the red message flashed on Jacob’s terminal. Taking a moment to read it he flashed a quick smile to Jacob who had turned back to show them the message. “Damn, engineers, they never get anything done fast enough.”

Chris hrrrumed as he successfully brought a third sleeper back to life -- it wasn't as hard as he'd feared it would be, and the automated systems were very good. He was mostly around to handle the (unlikely but not unknown) potential of a sudden personality collapse, in which case having a Psion on hand was pretty much the best thing you could hope for, next to a fully crewed major medical facility...

Which kinda bothered him a little bit -- he wasn't immune to that sort of thing just because he was a psion, and though he understood that some corners had to be cut, playing dice with a Freelancer and risking a personality collapse showed a really, really frightening level of carelessness. It was REGULATION that any time a Psion of any sort was brought out of cryo, there had to be, at the absolute minimum, someone there, just in case. SOP was to have a full crash team, but that was a 'just to be safe' measure that NyxConsortium wouldn't necessarily follow...

Still. It bugged him, and it was something he would have to deal with, possibly rather harshly. That thought made his steadily increasing headache somewhat worse...and it would only get worse from here. But it had to happen, and it meant his Psi would shortly be returned to his control. Which would be a very, very great relief, indeed.

Next tube.

(OOC: POSTING FOR RAEM)

System Check Complete… Initialize Reanimation

First comes a dull thump, then another. They are weak at first, but grow stronger and louder. The thudding bass of life drives a higher buzzing, the soft song of blood in her ears. The blood spreads slowly, seeping into the furthest corners of the meat popsicle she'd become; with it comes warmth welcome after an eternity of cold and dark.

Anatomical Data Compiled…
Blood Decontaminants Injected…
Flushing Cryoplasma…

The first stirrings of her conscious mind note the sudden return of weight. She felt vaguely wet, and the brief clothes she'd been given for cryosleep lie plastered against her skin. Of course, she still isn't quite sure what “wet” or “clothes” are. Her thoughts are a fog, a dream. The memory of a dream.

Powering Implants…

That got her attention fast. Her body twists in the cryocell as a surge of electricity courses through her, however briefly. Her lacquered nails dig furrows in the soft padding of the cell, and she fights for consciousness. The dreams resolve into murky wisps of memory: a man without a face, blood covering his arm to his elbow. Pain worse than she'd ever imagined, and the glimpse of a hand (hers?) rent nearly in half. Black smoke seemed to drift out of the wound with the blood, and a cold dread gripped her. She can't remember why that was important.

Neuromapping Complete…
E-med Alert Status: Red…
Neurochemical Boost Complete…
Higher Brain Functions Detected… Suppressors Disengaged…

She is fully alert now. Dark lines trace through a red haze, the shadows of tiny veins in her eyelids. The gentle song of blood in her ears has been replaced mostly by the whir and click of electronics and machinery.

At last she recalls the scene that haunted her dreamless sleep: the Faceless Lord, her parents, the foreigners. The blood, the screams, the dying and wounded. Her wounds, her death. The cryocell grows suffocating, and she claws at the padding and the restraints. Panic drives her heart to beat madly. The combat drug system implanted beneath her skin pumps synthetic adrenaline in response to the frenzied and incoherent commands of her brain.

Physical Connections Severed…
Restraints Disengaged…
Monitoring Programs Active…

She tears out of the bed as soon as the restraints release her, shrieking like a feral beast. She claws at the dark form bent over her cryogenic bed, her mind reduced to threat-attack-kill-flee animal urges.

WRONG!

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

Chris knew what was happening before it actually happened, but he didn't realize this at the time. His hands rose up to catch the female's outstretched arms by the wrists and hold those wicked fingers away from him...but, Lord, she was strong...and he didn't have his Enhancer Gauntlet. Damn...

No help for it.

His headache spiked to almost unbearable levels, but he gritted his teeth and drove through it -- willing the girl to be calm. He can't hold her still for longer than a few more seconds -- she's stronger than he is, and it's only because he knew what she was going to do before she did herself that he was able to stop her at all....

His psi-boost systems are almost empty, but there is a little bit left...just enough maybe, and he dumps it all into his bloodstream, and he shivers as it races through his body, setting his nerves on fire...he'll feel it later, but he doesn't have a choice. The girl he is somehow holding down will kill him in less than ten seconds, unless...

And then he lunges forward, both physically and mentally, pushing the girl back down against the cryostation, and slamming a lance of psi-energy into her mind, and then surging inside afterwords like some sort of angry storm. This is why Chris was doing this -- this is a personality collapse. A reversion to base instincts. Usually it isn't instantly hostile, but in this case...not unknown, and he from the inside, he sees why.

The sheer alien-ness of her mind repulses him, but he doesn't let that stop him. The content is worse -- he can feel that...but...he doesn't have time to fix her yet. First, he has to stop her. He finds what he is looking for, and his psi-form lashes out with a perfectly aimed rapier-thrust, and the girl goes limp in his grasp, not unlike a marionet with its strings cut.

Chris is, after all, a master.

He finds her mind-self, a frightening thing in and of itself, but he has dealt with worse (just keep telling yourself that, Chris...) and takes her hand, and walks with her through her past...and makes changes. Because he's Chris Falkner, and he never settled for 'good enough.'

The exact program was a prototype he'd designed when he was still with the Service. The aim was to create the perfect bodyguard, loyal, protective, and utterly alien -- and thus uncorruptible. It was the only thing he could think of, and he implemented it with the skill that had made him the best that had ever been. Unfortunately, the program required a focus, and the only focus on hand was himself...which, thinking about it, was as good as anything.

He worked with a surgeon's precision, leaving as much of the original personality construct intact (mostly because he couldn't stand to review it...) but adding selected elements here and there. He detected some amateur meddling in certain areas and washed that away with a sweep of his hand -- he had no time for the work of others when he was busy crafting a masterpiece.

The last step was the hardest -- morally, anyways. Associating levels of pleasure with the focus -- his -- approval. It was required by the program, and most of the prior work built on that, and he didn't have time to improvise a work-around, he could already feel himself weakening, but...it felt wrong. Nonetheless, he had no choice, and made the final changes, then sealed it all off with a gentle mental kiss and pulled out, so to speak.

Chris smiled down at the girl, patted her on the head, turned on his heel, walked two steps, grabbed...something...then vomitted into it. Twice. Then he was okay.

He wiped off his chin with a scrap of rag from somewhere, then looked up -- in the course of less than thirty seconds he'd gone from immaculate zealot to looking like he hadn't slept in a month. He still needed to bring the girl out of the working-trance, but he couldn't do that right now...

He stumbled to the door and tapped himself out, then crossed to the locker room and found his locker, tapped in the code, and found his Enhancer Gauntlet -- not unlike the computer gauntlet on his left hand, but much sleeker and without any viewscreens or other flashery. He pulled it into place and convulsed suddenly as the connections lit...and then he felt very much better.

He stalked back into the cryo room looking as if he'd just taken a long, cold shower, and finger-combed his hair with his left hand. He looked down at the poor girl he'd just encoded and placed his right hand on her forehead, then pushed, and her eyes would open...again.

"Gently, sweetling. Gently. You're alright...you're alright..."

My head fucking hurts....god damnit why does my head fucking hurt so much... Joseph Stetson was the next one awakened from the slumber of the long sleep. When he originally signed on for the expedition it had been to get away from the Sol Sector, from the wars, from the plagues, from the famine and the near genocidal tendencies of his own species. As clamps disengaged and the medbots worked life into muscles not used in...How long have I been out?[ He wasnt fully sure himself at that moment as the fog of slumber continued to burn away. Eyes openned painfully slow so that his pupils could adjust to the light which could have been dim but even then was painfully bright. "Someone turn off the light..." He tried to say it louder but the vocal cords were still in the process of coming back to life.

It did feel good to be awake once more. Dreams in suspended animation tended to be the worst. If they became nightmares there was no way of waking up from it. Thankfully though Joe didnt really remember much of his dreams. It was really a rather uneventful sleep for the former hired gun...former, in some ways he was now a corporate mercenary tasked with more of a peacekeeping role than capturing objectives policy. Which was fine with him because he was tired of the killing and tired of the endless nomadic life that being a hired gun had to offer. This job which was offered to him from a contact he had obtained several years ago after a brutal mission on Mars to retrieve stolen information. This was like going into retirement for Joe. Boy was he going to be sorely disappointed as events unfolded around him and the others who began to awaken.

Stumbling alittle forward as muscles continued to regenerate slowly it was only his good health before the sleep that made sure he was able to recover faster. For a man in his mid-thirties with an overly dangerous occupation he had managed to avoid the problems of his peers like alcoholism and failed marriages. Psychologically speaking he was a normal human being with a bit of a mean streak but that was to be expected from a hired gun. Standing upright and tall he held onto the nearest locker to keep himself upright fully. This feels worse than the time the dropship I was in crashed.... Running his left hand through his short dark hair a few times he tried to think. Aside from the words he just spoke he kept silent and listened to the things going on around him. He wasnt particularly interested for the moment in the others waking up figuring they would be just as bad as he was he didnt expect a helping hand. Then again he was surprised no one was around to help them out in the first place. To a hardened soldier that should have sent up a red flag but then again he wasnt on a military ship, he expected things to be lax with a bunch of paper pushers in command.

"Will someone turn down the lights damnit..." His eyes still hurt and he decided it was time to find his locker and correct the problem all together. Stumbling around slightly from side to side like a drunk he read the last names on the lockers until coming to his own. Popping it open he fumbled around inside for at least a minute before he retireved one of his personal affects, a pair of reflective sunglasses. Suddenly the room became much dimmer and his head a lot happier as the headache finally began to subside. Better...much better.

Your ears are the first extremities to 'wake up'. A slight ringing, caused by the sudden re-introduction of stimuli into nerves that have been comatose for a few months, was the first thing that greeted Siegfried. It was followed by a tingling in his fingers and toes as other newly-active nerve-clusters picked up the pulse of blood through his system again. The euphoric sensations caused by the blood de-contaminants gave him a pleasant half-second before the ache of atrophied muscles kicked in.

He knew it was coming, it was a textbook side-effect of cryostasis. Siegfried had studied cryostasis back in medschool, but this was the first time he'd gotten to experience prolonged containment first-hand. Working down the mental checklist of symptoms and side-effects helped warm up his thought processes. He achingly lifted a hand to shade his eyes as he opened them, wary of light sensitivity, and tried to talk, forcing his vocal cords to start working again.

“Uuuuuugh.”

It didn't work that well. He took a tentative step out of his cryotube and peered around at his surroundings, attempting speech again.

“What's this, no welcoming party?”

The tentative step turned into a lurching stagger towards the next room in search of his locker. After calling back the mental snapshot of the map he'd seen of the workstation pre-stasis, Siegfried stumbles to his locker. An eidetic memory is handy, even if it is only because of cyberware. The tall Dane slips into his standard issue uniform, pausing to scratch at a speck of grime that got onto the red cross on the back of his jacket. He pauses to take the necessities out of his bog-standard med-kit and distribute them throughout his jacket pockets and a few containers on his belt before leaving the rest in his locker. The standard issue pistol is belted on in its holster, but is slid back to make room for a retractable baton. A pistol is nice, but a baton is more useful in cramped quarters and an encyclopedic knowledge of anatomy made it considerably more deadly. A quick look in the locker mirror to fix his hair and adjust the name-tag on the chest of his jacket and MORTENSEN, SIEGFRIED L. MEDICAL SPECIALIST returns to the cryoroom.

He's not exactly what you'd expect of a 'medic'. Standing somewhere past 6'3” and built like a bear, Siegfried doesn't quite match the doctor archetype. A square jawline framed by a short beard leads up to a head of close-cut blonde hair with some faded scars that give away the amount of machinery in his head. A personal databank crammed full of medical knowledge and top of the line cybernetic eyes made all the more useful by the hands cybernetically enhanced to the level of precision needed by a modern doctor using laser-scalpels and dealing with the injuries of today.

“Do you need something or are you done with vomiting all over the sterile environment required for proper rehabilitation following cryostasis?”

Chris turned slowly around, his eyes more than a little manic. Externally, he looked fine...but inside, he was strung out...on his last leg. He was running on fumes and stubborn-ness, now...

"Sterility? Are you an idiot, or just ignorant? Aside from fatigue, there are no proven physiological side-effects to cryostasis. The psychological danger is immense -- I'm the only Freelancer on this damned ship, so I'll vomit where I want, when I want, thankyouverymuch. Now, if you don't mind...I'm WORKING here..."

Then Chris slumped back against a cryostation...occupied or empty, he didn't much care...and let his head loll to one side, his eyes vacant...

System Check Complete… Initialize Reanimation
Anatomical Data Compiled…
Blood Decontaminants Injected…
Flushing Cryoplasma…

Tora, Wake up Tora!

The voice inside my head was so ignorable. I wanted just a few more hours of sleep. I guess I should'na stayed up watching those old sterries so long into the 'suns about ta rise, how can ya be up' hours. I turned on my side and cuddled the Bearable to me. The minor pain at my wrists and back of neck weren't any worse than I'd slept through before, so I kept on sleepin'.

Powering Implants…
Neuromapping Complete…
E-med Alert Status: Red…
Neurochemical Boost Complete…
Higher Brain Functions Detected… Suppressors Disengaged…
Physical Connections Severed…


"Tora! Wake up Those old sterries are nearly a year in the past" Using anger to get through the cryonap fog. My anger has always been formidible, and even now it snaps Tora awake.

Physical Connections Severed…
Restraints Disengaged…
Monitoring Programs Active…


Panic roars though her for a nano second, sending her pulse wild for maybe five seconds as memory tries to over lay the present. But the sensory input is all wrong. This awakening is not that of her decantation and the trauma of her time in the illegal research facility.

The scents do not match, taken in by exquisitely sensitive olfactory receptors ....and scent is the oldest and most deeply imbedded of all memory, and calm returns.

The visual is all wrong, the iris of her eyes a vivid red as they snap open spiraling down to mere pinpoints at the sudden advent of light...the lighting spectrum is different, there is no monster bending over her ready to violate the newborn in every way possible, and calm returns.

None of the additional sensory data matches - touch, taste -more than vaguely.

Control and calm, mantra invoked without conscious thought, aided and abetted by the voice in her head....

Steady Torachan, steady girl, we're safe, he's dead, we're not...

Tora shakes for a long second though. Fine tremmors of memory induced terror that run up and down her spine until she takes a deep breath and firmly reminds herself that the past is just that, the past. Though the inner scar sends one last throb to remind her that the past is always with her.

She sits up, disoriented, reflexively looking about for her Bearable, she was absolutely certain that she'd pulled it close and drifted off to sleep with it half under her as she always did. Then the memory comes clear, the techs telling her that the tattered stuffie wouldn't survive, and her tucking it carefully into her locker.

The body stocking that is all she is wearing is slick with the cryofluids, and she shudders again at the feel of it. Climbing cautiously out of the cryopod she walks carefully, muscles not certain they should be moving, over to a 'fresher and strips as the water grows warn. Tora knows how rationed water often is and quickly steps under the pounding flow. She half leans against the stall as she soaps up and quickly rinses, making sure that her long silver fall of hair also gets clean.

Her locker...first clothes, mustn't upset others, though clothing for her was merely decorative or survival enhancing. Clothes hadn't been allowed in the lab, no sense of modesty ever having been instilled.

Clothes, all tailored to her specifications. Knee high boots of polished black with grey and crimson suede pants tucked into the boots. The cropped top, also suede leather in the same colors, that left her midrift bare but covered her like a second skin up to her jaw. Her weapons strapped down without concsious thought, then the left forearm bracer, supple grey leather hiding nearly twenty terrabytes of fully sentient A.I. Pip making contact with the wrist port and the subliminal hum as the A.I. did her own wakle up was a familiar comfort. The fingerless half glove protecting her primary Non Standard Contact port on her right wrist, leather appearing material, crimson warning. alerting others that the demi glove was more than it seemed, announcing the protections embedded in the 'leather'.

""Tora't'su~ki T'sai, open you mouth and let Pip know you are all right in a verbal manner." I knew that Pip didn't need verbal, not with the pair jacked together, but I did want to be sure Tora's voice worked. She was too prone to go long peroids with out saying a word aloud. Once it hasd been a year.

Tora closed her eyes briefly, knowing why the voice inside her head demanded she speak. "What?! I'm here, I'm alive, and isn't this what you wanted?" She asked the empty air. Her voice was a little throaty naturally, a rich dark honey voice that was some what at odds with her small slender stature. "Pip knows I'm fine."

Still moving slowly she sat down on the bench in front of her locker. "Why did I let you talk me into this fiasco?" Then she answered herself "Because as a FACES I can make ten years earnings in one." She ran a comb though her nearly waist length hair, it was a vivid dark aubergine, complimenting the pale violet of her eyes.

Laying the comb back in her locker she picks up her oldest friend and holds his tattered form to her, burying her face in his age thinned fur. Then it is time to go and be Tora't'su~ki T'sai (http://www.atddm.com/tora2.htm), First Alien Contact & Education Specialist, even if she had only been alive for fourteen years.

Sharp voices draw her out of the semi zen she'd been funcgtioning in...

“Do you need something or are you done with vomiting all over the sterile environment required for proper rehabilitation following cryostasis?”

That voice, male, too close to those of the lab and she flinches a little...

"Sterility? Are you an idiot, or just ignorant? Aside from fatigue, there are no proven physiological side-effects to cryostasis. The psychological danger is immense -- I'm the only Freelancer on this damned ship, so I'll vomit where I want, when I want, thankyouverymuch. Now, if you don't mind...I'm WORKING here..."

That makes her giggle, the voice for some reason inspiring trust, and cautiously she stands and looks around the corner, back into the cryo room.

"Is he okay?"

[OOC: Going to catch up over the course of this post...]

Jacob shrugged and pocketed the handful of tranquilizer pacs he'd grabbed from the medstation against the room's far wall. Chris seemed to have the situation under control, and he was content to let the psion wrestle the crazy woman back to some semblance of sanity.

In the meantime, he busied himself by shutting down the empty cryostations and trying to run diagnostics on the clock. After some inspection, the program itself seemed to be okay; instead, the terminal's atomic clock seemed to be offline.

Jacob frowned to himself. The atomic clocks in the standard terminals were hermetically sealed and guaranteed for three years of problem-free operation. There was no reason for it to have failed in only ten months.

He ducked back over to the locker room, listening with half an ear to Chris's vomiting. He pulled his watch from the plastic personal-effects bag in his locker, and ran his fingers over it.

Nothing. He tried again, with no success. With some irritation, he popped the back cover off of it and slipped in a new battery. The watch beeped, reported BATTERY FAIL - MEM BLANK across its display, and started counting up from 00:00:00 0/0/0.

That definitely wasn't supposed to happen. He ducked back out the door, suppressing a whistle as Tora passed him in the opposite direction, and glanced back towards Chris and the Doc.

"Something's not quite right here. I'm going to go take a look outside, OK?"

He walked up to the massive blast door that sealed the guard post and quickly tapped in his personal code. The keypad beeped annoyingly at him, flashed SERVER ERROR and remained locked.

"Ah, bugger."

Jacob popped the cover off of the keypad, letting it clatter to the floor, and punched the master reset button. The keypad's lights flickered for a moment as it flushed its memory and re-connected to the post's security database. Jacob entered his code again.

ACCESS GRANTED

"Much better."

Jacob ducked under the slowly-opening blast door and glanced both ways down the corridor outside.

“If psychological damage is that worrying to you I suggest you leave the physiological care of the staff to me, considering it is my field of expertise, and deal with that semi-comatose woman over there.”

Years of dealing with irate patients left Siegfried with little patience for back-talk

“Yeah, he'll probably be ok if he doesn't strain himself anymore. I guess psion-training doesn't include bothering with learning your limits. You should probably take this stimm to keep you going, seeing as you ARE the only Freelancer on this ship.”

Siegfried fished a small patch out of one of his pockets and dropped it next to Chris before striding over to the girl slumped in her cryotube. He peeled her eyelids open one at a time then checked her pulse and temperature, another perk of the cybernetics in his hands. Her status was normal for someone recovering from cryostasis, but Siegfried was curious as to what the 'Freelancer' had fiddled with.

“Well, she seems to be fine, aside the side-effects of tampering with her psyche when she's fresh out of cryo. I'll leave psychological health problems to you. Now, where is the thawing crew? Someone's gonna get a tongue-lashing if those medbots are supposed to be the only personnel on hand.”

As the blast door creaked slowly open - sending powerful vibrations throughout the entire unit - Jacob would be engulfed in a wave of pale azure light shining above a large pneumatic hatch. It was down a long, murky hallway, the walls spaced wide and lined with cracked pipework leaking a fluid with an abhorrently minty odor that evaporated as quickly as it touched the ground, with a steep utility stairway leading up to it, starting somewhere near the middle of the loathsome corridor.

When the blast door had fully opened, a terrible quaking caused by the inexplicable failure of the door power controls, sent hellish shock-waves raging down the pipework; causing more cracks and fissures, while some pipes shattered entirely, and also creating a cacophony of metallic sounds as lockers shuttered, the flood shook, medbots rocked, and cryostations quivered. It wasn't hard to assume the noise could be heard beyond the hatch.

Chris would also noticed an increase, though extremely slight, in the amount of psychal energy waves permeating the various layers of existence that he was attuned. Though the reasoning behind the sudden increase could again be attributed to anything normal.

No one else would notice anything, save for the gust of cold, noisome air coming from the blast doors Jacob had just opened, and the horrible report that had followed.

Chris groaned heavily and tried not to think -- it hurt too much. His eyes passed over the stimulant tab that the tall doctor had dropped by him, and then he closed his eyes. Taking drugs to deal with the after-effects of other drugs didn't seem like a very brilliant idea...cryo did bad things to his psi-talent, and he hadn't had his Enhancer gauntlet...so he'd dumped what remained of his psi-booster into his system, and that was dangerous as it was, without taking into account the fact that his psi hadn't recovered from the cryo...

The headache was rising all the quicker now, and it felt like his head would split open, and he desperately wanted to just pass out...but he couldn't. Not now, not like this. Couldn't show weakness...not here, not yet. Not amongst people he didn't really know -- he was a psion, and being able to glimpse into peoples thoughts and know what they were really thinking...well, it inspired a degree of paranoia...

"...personality collapse...is a real bitch, Doctor. It should have been in your briefing -- it is a very significant risk when being under cryo for as long as we were. In this...case..." He paused for a second, his hands covering his face to hide the way his teeth gritted again the pain...

"The subject...patient...entered a hyper-aggressive state. Fight-or-flight response, and no way to escape. That indicates the necessity for immediate response -- not sure why, but...couldn't wait around. Most of the time they just fall into a coma -- not really a coma, you understand, but functionally similar..."

He held his forehead in the crook of his thumb and forefinger, his hand shading his eyes -- because they were squeezed shut. Light hurt...

"I didn't have a choice. Crash reconstructs are hard on a psion, period, and I haven't recovered from the cryo yet..."

His words faded out. He was babbling, and that brought a sudden spike of anger -- he should have better control than that. Did have better control than that...

Then, all of a sudden, the headache was gone. It didn't fade away...it just vanished. He dropped his hands from his face and opened his eyes, and the world was brighter than it had been before, and he felt whole again. His psi surged through his body again, and he hadn't realized how empty he'd felt...

He smiled, then, and laughed -- damn the act for now -- he was him again...and someone opened the door. Chris grumbled lightly...and headed for his locker.

He opened the lock with a touch -- it felt good to be whole again, and a little playing was very much in order, like using telekinesis to open a locker. That done, he peered inside, reached into the very back, and removed a small black box.

"Right where I left you..."

He popped the box open and removed one of a set of vials, then closed the box, sealed it with his thumbprint, and slipped it into a specially designed pocket on the left thigh of his pants. The vial was slipped into a slot in his enhanced gauntlet...and his right arm felt very cold for an instant, then the vial was released back into his hand. He tossed it into a neaby trash receptacle -- there was nothing dangerous to be found in it, it wasn't even glass. A durable plastic, actually. A quick query of his boost system showed that his reserves read full, which was somewhat re-assuring.

He didn't use the psi-boosters much, which was somewhat peculiar in a former-Service psion...but he liked not having them available even less. They were a very potent reserve, something to be tapped only when absolutely necessary...but when he did need them, like he had with crash-rebuild...they were lifesavers.

Last thing to do was grab his kit, which fastened to his belt just above the pocket where the booster-vials were. That was it. Then he returned to the cryostation to check on the others, his step a little bit bouncy...and if something felt a little odd in the air, well, it wouldn't be -right- if something wasn't wrong...maybe it'd explain why the Warden was so damned slow in appearing...something he intended to take exception to.

There were RULES, after all...

Tora had completely ignored the distraught woman's frenzied screams. In the lab the screams of those decanted were part of the routine, normal, and just as routinely ignored. The pain and terror were just facts of life to such as she and of no particular importance to any one who mattered. The item hadn't.

“Yeah, he'll probably be ok if he doesn't strain himself anymore. I guess psion-training doesn't include bothering with learning your limits."

Tora's eyes went wide, her face instantly deathly pale, terror spiking as she involuntarily took a step back. The nearly impossible to override urge to flee courses through her like wildfire, though she knows that it would do no good. It never had before and it just made his pleasure greater when he trapped her, using her helpless self, nearly succeeding in twisting pain into pleasure within her. But she'd managed to survive, and she would again.

She watched the psi suddenly laugh, and flinched yet again, unable to stop that reaction. Her eyes never left him, watching him as he headed toward his locker as one would watch a cornered and lethally venomous asp. Faint tremors once again danced up and down her spine, as memory tried to override the present.

"TORA!" My scream was laden with imperative tones. The Empire had had their own psionics; honored and exalted rather than "allowed to serve to redeem oneself for the crime of being different". But, as among any group, there were those who went 'wrong', bent. Those were hunted and prosecuted with all the fervor humanity generally reserved for the Chosen who'd become the Fallen. And those Fallen tended to be very bad indeed. Two of those at the hidden illegal lab were on the Empires 'ten most wanted' list. And one was the stuff of nightmares.
And Item 1X09000001 was the subject of his special research.

I'd done all I would allow myself to do. Tora had to get past this on her own.
Painful but pure.

The psi didn't even seem to see her. That and the voice inside her head's sudden distraction let her overcome the impulse, but her breathing was more than a little fast and shallow for a few minutes. She stepped quickly into the o the cryo room once he'd left, and looked at the Medic more comfortable with him despite how he sounded than with the psi.

Before she could speak to him, the other man - she thought his name was Jacob -managed to get the blast door open. The pungent smell that roiled in, in an almost visible miasma, had her gagging and turning toward the door as she managed to maintain her balance despite the rocking and rolling the room was experiencing.

"What in the voids name is going on!' But she wasn’t sure anyone heard her over the ear rupturing boom that followed hard on the heels of the stinking fog.

She lies on the floor for a long time, trembling and struggling to breath. The psyker hadn't been the only one to burn through his supply of drugs, and the crash from a synth-adrenaline rush was always ugly. Cold sweat makes her pale grey skin sheen in the harsh overhead lighting. Her abbreviated clothes cling to her body with every breath that rattles in her lungs.

She can only see the lower half of the psyker who had... rearranged her, but her eyes shine with adoration even through the tremors that shake her body. She hadn't loved someone like this since... well, she can't quite remember ever having felt this way before. It feels so queer, though, to care about someone else, but every thought flitting through her addled skull reinforces how right it is.

She curls into a fetal position at the sudden gust of wind: it's cold in these primitive garments. Slowly she drags herself to her feet, sitting on the edge of one of the cryo-beds. She turns a rust-colored gaze on each of her companions in turn, evaluating them with the cold calculation of her training. The doctor will have to go, of course. No one can be allowed to treat him like a two-bit trainee still wet behind the ears.

"But how to do it?" Her eyes narrow. No matter, there seemed to be more important things going on.

She props herself up on shaky legs to pry open her storage locker. The stenciling on the locker is in a debased dialect of her native tongue. Clearly someone had been expecting her to need the tools within. She worms into the armor hanging within. Truth be told the armor is little better than the sticky undergarments she already has on, but it always feels right. A knife with a responsive grip and a high-tech alloy blade also await her, along with her personal flechette pistol. These she hooks onto the quick-release clips on her freshly donned belt.

She eyes the open doorwary warily. "What is going on?"

That was, in fact, the thought that had been looping through Jacob's head for the last few seconds.

"I haven't got a fucking clue. I do know one thing, though," he said, ducking a hissing pipeline. "If everything was going according to schedule, other people would be up and about out here. And even if something had screwed up, there should be an engineering crew down here fixing these bloody pipes."

He peers cautiously at one of the spewing pipes.

"Smells like mint. D'you know what this stuff is, Doc? Is it poisonous?"

He looks down the corridor again, off to the right.

"There's a general systems terminal in a repair closet down that way, or at least there used to be. Anyone want to come with me to see if we can figure out what the hell's going on? I've got a feeling that the Warden isn't coming."

Action is always better than inaction, it keeps the memories at bay and Tora moved to follow Jacob, as Pip informed her that the man was correct. According to the ship schematics that had been uploaded into the A.I. there was indeed a general systems terminal in a repair bay nearby..

"The schema in Pip's data base says prowward forty feet. The opening on the starboard side. Though I am no engineer, one should certainly have been dispatched to inspect this line failure." Tora looked out past Jacob and frowning at the mess mostly filling the corridor.

"The gas isn't going to bother me in all likelihood. It's not corroding the walls, therefore the nanos should scavenge it. ..Oh" She had forgotten her hard learned manners.

Nodding at the woman who had managed to get herself dressed and return to the main roon she nodded, then looked up at the taller man standing in the doorway and smiled faintly "I'm Tora't'su~ki T'sai, your FACES. They assigned me to this team at the last minute and I'm not sure why." She half turned and gave half nods to the Medic, but couldnh't bring herself to look directly at the psion. The terror trembled too close in her mind.

That's it, just ignore him. He's not the one, he's different" I soothed hoping that I was telling her the truth. She deserved as much of that from me as I dared give her. She had come so far from what she had been and this was the closest she had come to reverting to what she had been. That I would not allow, for either of our sakes.

Richard had by no means ever been one of the most intelligent people he had known in his lifetime. That is certainly not to say he is incompitent when it comes to his engineering, however in other fields one could describe his knowledge and common sense as "lacking." However there are two times when such jugments cannot be passed: in situations involving high pressure, emotional pressure, and when gut feelings are needed. This was one of those times.

Gazing down the corridor Richard gave a slight groan. There was nothing right about this scene. Nothing. Nevertheless he nodded to Jacob. "Yeah, I'll go with you and we can check out these pipes too...see what's up."

Both Jacob and Richard set off down the corridor. He hadn't checked to see if any others followed right away, he was more concerned about those damn pipes. Rifling through old memories he tried to figure out what had gone wrong. Regardless of whatever was dripping from the pipes, the fact that it was dripping was cause for concern. Thinking for a moment he decided that the pipes carried either water, gear lubricant, cryo ooze, decontaminants, or in the worst caze cenario were responsible for fire-suppression.

Stopping for a moment his stooped over a puddle forming on the floor. Wafting in the air he tried to determine the smell...minty? Turning to Jacob he shrugged. "This seems fixable at the moment. We just need to find the purification system at this sucker's origin and do a little exploritory surgery." he added with a wink.

Straightening himself up he looked down the corridor. "What really bothers me is why no one bothered to do this already, if the failure was with the cycling of the cryo ooze we all could have been in trouble which should have made this job a priority." He took a pause to point out the whole scene. "All of it...its not right. I just can't figure it out. Maybe something went screwy with the maintenance bots?" He knew that was not the case but at the very least it was reassuring.

"Now, lets get to that terminal."

Chris returned from his little trip feeling on the whole much better. He'd passed the girl he'd done a rebuild on on his way out -- and touched her mind in the passing, and found things to be running along smashingly -- which was, to say, the programming bundle was spreading its webs into all sorts of interesting places. It was a horrible thing to do to a person, but the things he'd found in the mind...well...he couldn't, could not, allow that run free unchecked.

That was the point, after all. His work had been designed to make useful, productive members of society of dangerous killers...and it had worked. Perfectly. If only his tests hadn't shown that he had an aptitude for being a Battle Psion, he'd still be in his lab, changing the world. Now...now he wasn't even in the same galaxy...

But his research had made him uniquely qualified for the position of security officer. He had spent time as a field officer, and though he hadn't been able to perform any but the most basic functions of a Battle Psion, he had found that he was very, very good at taking care of his troops...

So he fell back into that role easily enough. Touching the minds of the others with the gentle hand of an expert -- it was said that he had one of the softest touches of any psion ever in the Service,, and only the most alert of trained Psions could feel him at work. That was an incredible advantage as a Freelancer, as the number of Psions who could feel his touch and operated outside of the Service were probably countable without taking off one's shoes...and one of them was Chris Falkner himself.

Most of the others were a little shaken from the cryo, but otherwise unbothered. Rebuild-girl's head was orderly and uncluttered -- it hadn't had time to clutter up since he was done with it, but it would in time. His work was unmistakable, there. Each psion had his or her own 'footprint,' if you will, and Chris' was extreme gracefulness and order -- everything was exact and perfect. Others thrived in the natural chaos of the mind. Chris could work with it, but when he built, he built perfect.

Then he touched the last person to awake, a girl he didn't know...and passed her over once, then did the mental equivalent of a double-take. What the devil? That required a second look...

Blink.

People just didn't get that scared of something, normally...and it was directed...a little gentle probing and the image was conjured up -- at him. Him. That was an unsettling thought -- he wasn't used to people being that afraid of him.

He wasn't very tall, only five feet and nine or ten inches, and wiry-slim, maybe a hundred forty to forty-five pounds, depending on when he'd last eaten. And though he had a certain sharp handsomeness about him, he wasn't winning any beauty contests -- he was handsome in the same way certain austere forms of architecture were...but threatening? Not something he usually attributed to himself.

Intimidating, yes, but that was due to a carefully cultivated aura of competence and near-fanaticism. That was not the same thing as threatening. Threatening tended to indicate a fear of his actions, whereas intimidating was a fear of -what- he was.

This woman was afraid of what he might do to her, and that bothered him more than a little. Almost as much as the screwy readings he got from her. Best not to linger over-much...he'd noticed the tell-tale signs that someone had been inside her head before, and the signs had nothing of his finesse and order. They were scars.

His first urge was to find a way to make it better -- to put her under his knife, so to speak, and to do his best to undo what had been done...but a moment's thought brought him to the realization that there was far too much danger in that. The crudity of what she'd suffered didn't set well with him on many levels, and Chris was very familiar with his own protective streak...

He was very proud of his record when it came to 'psionic surgery,' he'd never lost a patient and had been very much on the rise in that area -- one had to be proficient in the basics before one could move onto something as advanced as personality programming...

Still, dear lord, if her reaction was that strong to him -- someone she didn't know, merely based on his being a psion...he was going to have to deal with it, one way or another. The preference, however, was for it to being an operation that she consented to...so he would wait and not act. For the moment. Until he had no choice.

Then his attention was turned to the situation...and he frowned, and sniffed, and let his hand slip into his kit and remove a small pill, which he slid into his mouth and placed beneath his tongue. Likely harmless, but it was always good to be prepared.

Oh he was good, but I hadn't been just any one. I'd say with more than minor confidence that ninety nine out of a hundred adept level psionics would never have known he was there. But I hadn't been a lesser adept, and that was information that Tora must never learn. No non psionic would have been able to survive the transferinto the VEM, and I would not have risked it if I had not been dieing. But the alien device had worked perfectly, fortuantely for me.

I lashed back to drive the Free Lancer away, it was purest instinctive reaction. And it came to naught. I lived in Tora's mind as much as she did, but she had been mutliated, her potential burned out deliberately. I wasn't sure if he'd even registered my presence, much less understood what it meant.

Tora shrugged, being ignored wasn't going to upset her, there had been times when it had been what she desired freverently. Unconsciously her hand went to her belt pouch and she pulled out a handfull of nutrient cubes. Her higher metabolsim required a steady nibbling of the rather tasteless lozenges, and the habit was long ingrained. She followed the two men who'd headed out, the absence of repair crews making her frown more than a little.

"It isn't standard practise in the corporation to allow machinery to fall into disrepair like this is it?" She asked the party in general.

She stopped at the leak the man with the engineers patch had briefly inspected and removed a small swab from another pouch. A dab of the mint scented liquid went on the A.I.'s analsys padd, and Pip hummed into activity. The gloves sensors were limited but unless it was some exotic substance Pip would let her know it's composition quickly.

Being First Contact required a broad spectrum education, a little knowledge of a lot of things, and the ability to think outside the human box. That is where Tora excelled, but then again she hadn't been raised as a human.

The thought of meeting Others, brought a genuine smile to her face, transforming her remote expression into one of glowing joy.

Then one of the pipes surrendered to the numerous fractures winding through it's metal and it broke free of its stancion. Tora's hand flashed up, faster than the eye could follow, as the metal shrieked, catching it before it could crash into her and any others nearby. "Ware the pipe!" She called as she rose fluidly from her crouch over the pool of unidentified liquid, and pivoted on the balls of her feet. Looking about she spied a clear spot to lay the length of metal. "I hope the rest of the ship isn't going to fall apart about us." Her frown was even deeper as she laid the length of pipe down. It hadn't been carrying any liquids and she'd been spared a soaking but as to what had made it fail structurally she hadn't a clue.

"It's almost as if the ship, it's old."

Chris snorted idly -- "Yes, that would make sense, when you consider how long the silly thing has been in transit. If we're waking up when we're supposed to be waking up...well...it was a long ride, eh? But...you knew that, right?"

Sharp hearing? Yeah. Right.

Well, he was a psion, after all...and the girl was going to have to get used to being around him -- which meant hearing his voice, and so on. He wasn't about to have a...hmm...loose cannon...in his backfield, as it were. Not about to have that at all...

Like the man said -- acute paranoia was a survival trait, and entirely understandable when one had a window into other peoples little delusions and fantasies. Scary things, human beings...

"Ten months is old?" Tora's astonishment over rode the fear that bubbled up again, causing her to stiffen slightly then she forced herself to relax. That his voice, not to mention his appearance, was so different helped, as did compelte difference in surroundings. And the voice inside her head helped as always.

"We launched from New Delphii ten months ago, right?" She looked down towards the two other men, raiseing her voice so that they could hear her clearly. "And even if ten years has passed, No Empire starcraft would be this derilict after just ten years." She shook her head frowning at the notion. Why the primary training craft the guild operated were almost universally over a century old and in perfect working condition. Even if hey were a little smaller than later built craft, none had ever fallen apart as thise ship was apparently about to.

Her frown deepedned as she realized that Pip hadn't advised her of the liquids analsys. She 'reached through the implant *Pip?*

Everyone else was off doing whatever while Joseph was rifling through his locker. He had a variety of choices in armament before going on assignment: a light particle rifle, particle hammer with riot shield, and the versatile riot gun. He choose the riot gun, it seemed to be the most rational weapon given his role as Peace Warden. Unlike the others, he had no light armored suit in his locker nor did he bring one with him. Instead, the light-electromuscle suit had anti-kinetic and energy dispersal protection built into the nigh-transparent amalgamation of violet biomechanical circuitry protected by an elastic polymalmetal sheath. A sleek uniform was to be draped over it.

Joseph suited up, noting the brief feeling of molecular nervebinders slicing through his dermis to connect to every muscle and nerve fiber down to the bone. It hurt like hell, but only for an instant. It changed color, totally transparent and thinned out to only a few molecules. The suit went up to the base of his skull and stopped, requiring the thick impact security helmet to protect the rest of his head. It felt like a second skin, or more appropriately, and extension of his own skin that he was only aware of when he looked over at his arms exposed by his short sleeved uniform and noticed the way the light reflected against it.

Other than above-average protection against munitions, as well as upgrade modules that increased flexibility, Joseph also noticed that his strength had increased dramatically, by approximately a third of normal. The neurocontrols connected to his spinal column and cerebral cortex allowed him to focus all of the suit's power into a single muscle if the need arose, though at the expense of the suit's longevity.

After a few moments of admiring the suit and small tests of his exact abilities, Joseph holstered the riot gun to his side with the shoulder strap, loaded himself up with as much lethal and non-lethal ammunition as he could possibly carry, grabbed the IonMagnum at the bottom of his locker as well as a few other trinkets he brought along with him - a set of brass knuckles and a combat knife -, and left the room with his impact helmet gripped under arm.

He picked up pace as the reverberations of the door were felt throughout the unit.

"What the hell?" If the Warden didn't know were here before they sure as hell do now.

Stetson spied the condition of the corridor as he came around the corner. The smell was abhorrent, and the ghostly sight of the place was not easing his tension either.

"I'm no engineer, but it's not normal for a ship to be in this shape after only ten months of travel. Even if Nyx constructed it out of junk parts from pre-industrialized societies." Stetson said observing the terrible condition of the pipework.

He donned his impact helmet with a mechanical hiss following its connection with the electromuscle suit and a slight buzzing noise of the micro-power core coming to life. Within perhaps two seconds he was now a fully armed and armored Peace Warden.

Joseph wasn't too surprised at Tora's sudden display of strength; all his years of combat experience meant there was little that could actually surprise him. It only looked a little odd because Tora's job description didn't mention anything about requiring abnormal levels of strength.

"Yeah, I'd rather not get taken out by a piece of falling ship debris." Joseph said with a sardonic sigh.

He turned to the engineer as he investigated the foul phantom substance, "Any idea what the hell it is or how to fix the pipes before I gag?"

(OOC: I have to post for NYNJ till Tuesday or thereabouts. I'll get up a post detailing what Largent ect. have found out sometime tomorrow. SLEEP IS NOW!)

Chris blinked for a second -- the briefs had described a ten month travel duration...now that he actually thought about it. But a second ago he would've sworn on his mother's grave (presuming that she was dead, anyways. Tests had identified his psi talent while he was still an infant, and thus he'd never had a family...) that it'd been longer than. Years. Many years. Decades.

"Lack of maintenance will burn anything. That seems to be the most likely problem, and there will be Words Spoken on the matter..."

Chris was one of those people who possessed the remarkable ability to speak in capital letters. Not a particularly useful trait, but an interesting one, none-the-less...

*Working* Pip replied before Tora grew too concerned. The arrival of the man she had noticed wearing dark glasses earlier turned his attention to him as he spoke. He agreed with her and that made her more confident of her assessment. Tora blinked at the hiss when Joseph sealed his helmet. And his armor, it looked very close to the Empire's PALADIN armor. She'd have to ask him about it some time.

"Lack of maintenance will burn anything. That seems to be the most likely problem, and there will be Words Spoken on the matter..."


She turned back to the psion without forethought, her voice sharp. "But not a ten month lack of maintence." Tora's voice was tart. "This is more than just that. And to dismiss it as lack of maintence is unwise" Then she blanched and turned away, moving quickly down the corridor to where the Peace Warden and the two others as they looked for general terminal. It wasn't a run, she wouldn't run, never again, but her strides were brisk, and her hair ws a smokey shade of black.

If any one of the group had bothered to investigate they would have discovered that their data on Tora was woefully incomplete. She had been made a part of the group just minutes before Nyx had started sending teams into cryosleep. And much of what data there was, was sealed, behind Tanaran Empire Explorer Guild sigils. Her medical information was mistored under several partially named files, and once it was found and assembled it would be noted that there was no data on her EEG, or any equivallent of an EEG.

She listens to the discussion with a growing sense of impatience. She would think them all cowards afraid of the dark, except she can't bring herself to think ill of the psion. For some reason that frustrates her. She works through a quick warm up exercise, flexing and tensing, twisting and bending as she chews on her lip. Something needs to be done.

She growls softly and starts rooting through the bins in the cryo bay. Surely the designers of this rotting hulk hadn't been complete idiots. There!

She slips an air mask over her head and glances at Chris. "I'll be back.." She can't help but feel a bit breathless just looking at him. What was wrong with her?

The shallow hiss of decompression echoed faintly in the cryo-chamber, the final late arrival in the last cryo-tube was beginning to awaken. An outdated neural uplink device implanted in the base of his skull, a souvanier from his primary employer. Serving as a status monitor, connected to the cryo-tube's many sustainment subsystems, it also held a small databank for storing information on various marks, a handy feature in his profession. The small amount of explosive in the implant also gave him a handy way out of interrogation.

For now, it served a much less sinister purpose, keeping him alive during his long sleep. As the gelatinous substance drained away from his scaly body, Jekel Slipstream's crystal-blue eyes blinked open, first through the second translucent eyelid the Argonian people used for underwater navigation, then fully as the door to the tube disappeared. Finding himself suddenly unsupported, Jekel tumbled out of the tube like a corpse. The disorientation would pass in time, he told himself, at least he hoped so. He was dimly aware of his clothing situation, his employment situation, and the fact that he was unarmed in unknown territory.

Then it hit him. This was another one of those stupid contract jobs, the kind that meant he couldn't bring his old-school slug-throwers on-board for the misplaced fear of decompression hazards. They had the advantage of silence over lasers, after certain modifications were attatched. Nothing, however, was quieter than his knives. And he loved those knives of his, they were the closest thing to children he had.

Picking himself up off of the floor and the lukewarm puddle of bluish goo he'd been entombed with for the past ten months, Jekel began a series of push-ups to work his lazy muscles. He'd done this sort of thing before, several times in his long life. As his count reached two-hundred, he threw himself upward as hard as possible, ending in a crouch. A few squats brought his legs back online, his knees popping faintly with each movement, as did his shoulders when it became their time to rotate. Jekel was a bit rougher with his neck, however, sharply cracking it from side to side.

Those eyes of his scanned the room. It was a fairly standard set-up from what he'd seen in the past, albiet a bit spartan. He was fairly certain there was supposed to be some sort of welcoming party, or at least an android. Still half-aware of where he was, his body carried him to his equipment locker like it had been pre-programmed. It had, actually. He'd retraced his steps at least a dozen times before going into the tube. Biometrics opened the storage container, revealing his issued equipment as well as his personal gear he'd brought along. The reptile changed out of his sticky undergarments for a fresh pair, pulling on a pair of black fatigue pants, tucking a black t-shirt into the waistband before encircling himself with a cordura rigger's belt.

Neglecting the fancy armor he'd been issued for issues of mobility, Jekel slid his arms through his custom harness, a kevlar/cordura thing that held his Mercworx collection. A Sniper model, the slimmer of the line, sat on each side, both situated for crossdraw. The Equitorian, a larger blade about thirteen inches total in length hung upside down on his left side, again ready for crossdraw. Another was attatched horizontally to the small of his back. A series of smaller knives, cheap pieces of sharp steel designed to be thrown if needed, were attatched under the Sniper models. The Snipers were more intended for general-purpose work, while the larger Equitorians were for bigger situations, or if he simply wanted to stab someone less. He didn't need both pairs, obviously, but that wasn't the point.

He wore a lot of black, since his scales were already a charcoal color. The final accessory, a Blackhawk! universal holster he'd had for longer than he remembered, went on his left thigh, into which went one of the laser pistols that had somehow appeared in his locker. The pistol came out again, held low. It pointed well, for something he'd never shot, but it wasn't his old Glock 21...

The hatch was an immaculate construction compared to the rest of the corridor. Only a rusting, crumbling timelock tarnished the image. It was counting down slowly in fuzzy-green LED starting at ten minutes, with each second ticking off seeming to cause the lock to decay even further. It would open once, and then never again.

Ports in the wall opened unleashing a horrid creaking sound that reverberated through what felt like everything. Flashing warning lights shambled out coating the entire hallway in a rotating tide of sickly red light so dim it was almost black. Static came over the intercom, with sporadic ticks and growls from a sound file and speakers so decayed they were beyond use.

Richard's scanner would quickly note an amalgamation of unidentified protein compounds, common amino acids, oil, sugars, complex compounds not analogous to anything he had within his database; a whole list of things that ought not be there.

Anyone who did not notice Jekel's sudden entrance before hand certainly would now; after two minutes his cryostation began to emit a horrible orchestra of grinding metallic sounds that screeched through the very essence of physicality. It went on for maybe ten seconds, before pausing briefly, only to be replaced by a small explosive sound of the entire crystation's internal mechanics shattering into nothing. Then it began to smoke, and no more sound came forth, or power emitted from any of its electronic systems. It was dead.

Just as the clamor subsided, everyone would suddenly find a new alert file in their implant cybersinks relayed through the unit's datanode. The message was short and obviously automated.

TO: Unit 412-B5:C10 Codename: Nahum
FROM: Kerberos

<BODY> Please report to reactor room 37.

In only five minutes the hatch would finally grind open.

Chris frowned as his computer gauntlet relayed the message to him -- the lack of an implanted microcomputer meant that he required the computer gauntlet to serve as a translator -- it wasn't any less effective than NyxConsortium's issue implants, just different. If it hadn't been a Service system, it would've been a disadvantage, but...meh.

"Well, that's just wonderful. I wonder if somebody is trying to irritate me...because the effort is succeeding admirably -- and is entirely unappreciated."

Right hand checks the laser pistol in the cut-away rig. Not as sleek as his old Service piece, but the Service pistols were non-standard in every way...and wouldn't have worked well in this particular environment, anyways. Ahh well.

So be it.

"No matter. Suppose we should be on our way..."

And as the door opened, he looked pointedly in that direction and cast his psi-sense out a little bit further...no surprises. No surprises...

Tora frowned at the new message, wondering exactly where it had come from. She was positive that it wasn't part of the standard proceedure. And Pip's report on the absolutely incomprehensible results of the scan of the unknown fluid. It was a amalgam of unidentified protein compounds, common amino acids, oil, sugars, complex compounds not analogous to anything in Pips data base.

"This doesn't fit anything in the data base. I wonder if it's alien in origin?' Tora said softly to herself as she whirled about to take in the cacaphony of sounds coming from the cryochamber.

Her eyes widened at the sight of an Argonian. There weren't many of them in the Empire and she hadn't heard of any at all locally. She'd never learned Argonian, but she nodded to him in a friendly fashion then looked back at the mysterious message.

TO: Unit 412-B5:C10 Codename: Nahum
FROM: Kerberos

<BODY> Please report to reactor room 37.

That had her blinking. "An unusual sport for a meeting " Tora commented to no one in particular as she watched the hatch open. She'd given the hatch, with its strange dichotomy of immaculate and dissolution, a dubious look and an even more reserved one at the dark on the other side.

Couldn't they just open the damn hatch? All this business about flashing warning lights and static over an intercom that should have been removed long ago seemed wholly unecessary given the fact that the opening of the hatch was entirely uneventful.

Richard had of course been examining this amalgamation that Tora had already voiced her own opinions about. He could turn up nothing and really didn't have the desire to delve into the issue any further, there were more pressing matters to attend to, namely this message from the SI, Kerberos. Appearantly they would finally be getting some answers once the group got to...reactor room 37.

Just before the hatch opened Richard heard the tremedous noise behind him and turned to see the final member of their ensemble whose exit from his cryostation had been far more spectacular than anyone elses. Richard had to hold back a chuckle when the Argonian began doing pushups and cracking his neck, even if there was a reason behind it. However, before he could introduce himself his attention shifted once again to the now open hatch.

He had to admit he was rather disappointed. He would have at leasted like someone there to greet them, other than the dreary darkness that had taken the imaginary person's place. Taking a step out he looked around. Besides the fact that someone had neglected to pay the electrical bill everything seemed rather normal. Shrugging, he turned back to the others.

"Well, a welcoming party would have been nice, but this works too."

Jekel looked over his shoulder warily, wondering what exactly had just happened, partly happy he'd gotten out of the damned thing before it started doing whatever it was doing. Perhaps some superior being liked keeping him around after all, then again, there were much worse ways to die, and he was still alive...

He was a bit of an eccentric, true, but there was a method to his madness. A world-class assassin, every manouver had a purpose, every action a reason and calculated risk. In this case, he'd thrown those principles to the wind for the chance at fast cash, and it had royally screwed him. Great.

This did put him in a unique position, though. Disappearing people on a starship wasn't an uncommon thing, it wouldn't be a bad time to work on his blade-work, not that he needed any. Practice surpassed perfection, after all...

"Well, a welcoming party would have been nice, but this works too."

Tora shrugged. She'd never had a welcoming party and though she understood the definition, in practise it didn't make one bit of difference to her. And parties in general were something she avoided whenever possible, having more unfortunate memories of being what could only be termed a party favor.

"Why don't you lead the way?" She suggested. It seemed a sensible suggestion to her, as Pip was apprising her that the down loaded deck plans made no mention of reactor room thirtyseven. Which she mentioned with a slightly disbelieving not to her voice. "Thats most unusual. THe file is labled compressed but when Pip goes to extract there's something wierd" She concentrated for a moment eyes going soft as she dove deep into the cyber link. "Pip's po'd" she commented softly "The schematics keep altering like there is an active subroutine generating random deck plans." She shook her head, baffeled and now a little uneasy for other reasons.

Chris grinned. Widely.

"Very well, then..."

After a short consultation with his computer gauntlet -- which he had pre-loaded with deck plans at a security clearance that was only a single step below that of the vessel's commanding officer -- he was off. The only way to know that he was tense was that his hand never strayed more than an inch from his laser pistol in its cutaway rig.

Or that his other hand -- his right hand -- he shot left handed, often, because he needed his right hand free to use the enhanced gauntlet -- pointed more or less in front of him, index and forefingers together...which, the educated would note, was only a single miniscule motion away from the activation trigger for the gauntlet's psi-blade function...

Tora snarled under her bereath. Her comment had Not been addressed to the Psi. She wouldn't speak to him unleas she had to!

Maybe something will leap out and eat him. She thought vindictively. Then she wondered where that thought had come from. The though of the unknown leaping out of the dark wasn't a frightening image to her, it was the known leaping out of the dark.

'And vindictiveness isn't like her at all.' The voice muttered to herself.

Sighing Tora resigned herself to being tail end charley, she certainly wasn't going to be hard on that ones heels. Though she was used to being last, it would hamper her if they did enounter an unknown alien life form.

It only took him, oh, maybe ten seconds to realize that he was walking off by his lonesome. Which was, to put it very simply, just not on. If people wouldn't follow him out of emulation, then they would damn well follow him out of fear...or, because, he really disliked the Psion-Commissar role, though it was one he was very, very good at playing, simply follow him because they felt it was the most natural thing in the world...

But...that required mind games, and mind games took time, and he wasn't exactly blessed with a preponderance of time at the moment. So he whirled on his heel and bestowed upon the still-stationary occupants of the compartment a simple raised eyebrow.

"Not coming? Can't have that. Strongly suggest you get a move on, lest events occur that none of us will enjoy. We have a legitimate request. There is no reason that we should not move swiftly and smartly in accordance with that request. I will not allow myself to be held down by lay-about co-workers. Are we clear, Ladies and Gentlemen?"

He'd been a good officer. Fair and respected, if not particularly beloved, which was understandable, considering his occupation. The glory of battle and the love of the troops had not been his to claim, and he'd understood that, even if certain of his superiors had not...but there were methods that were just as effective.

He had played the part of the fanatic before, and to be truthful, it came easily to him because it had not been at all far from the mark. Even now, even after his unjust discharge, he still believed...it was, in a way, what made him so terrifically dangerous...and that wicked little smile of his was a far more effective weapon than the laser pistol at his hip.

I will not allow myself to be held down by lay-about co-workers. Are we clear, Ladies and Gentlemen?"

That was so completely unexpected that Tora knew the look on her face had to be in the so called 'priceless' aatagory, for it was the last thing in the universe she'd ever expected of a psi.

Close your mouth Tora, you're catching flies. And yes that smile is utterly, sinfully, delicious.

Shut up! Tora wailed at the voice in her mind. I'm not even noticing his smile

'Oh don't lie to me! Oh yes you are and about time you saw a man and felt like that.

Felt like what?'[i] Tora's inner voice was horror laden.

Like the woman you are despite all they tried to do to you. Want me to show you some memories...?

[i]No! Don't you dare make me blush, and you know I will! Tora shouted in the silence of her mind. I like the quirk of the eyebrow. She whispered in her innermost thoughts.

Some day when you realise that you don't have to be human you are going to be a holy terror. Woah child, easy now.' The voice soothed against the sudden tide of pain and panic. 'You come from human genetics, but you aren't human and thats not a bad thing. Some day you'll accept that." She distracted Tora with her talk and the emotions she'd deliberately summoned. And as while Tora wasn't watching so to speak, walked her towards Chris. The clone wasn't a Cheval, not exactly but the intense regimen of training the clone had undergone while in the growth tank made it even easier to control the body.

Jekel wasn't about to take orders from a quirky human, much less one that wasn't paying him. His implant, however, told him there was a much more pressing issue at hand, one in the room holding Reactor 37...

"If you'd drop the Fred from Scooby Doo routine, I might be a little more inclined to follow you into the unknown, since I've known you for maybe thirty seconds and trust you about as far as I can drive one of my knives into the soft flesh of your abdomen..."

He'd noted the tell-tale equipment the man wore, in addition to the damned laser pistol which looked a lot like the one he was carrying. Must have been a bullshit regulation, since this guy seemed to share his preference for customized equipment. Psions wheren't anything new, just another breed of human as far as he was concerned. Much more dangerous, but still human. They still bled just as easily, and freely, when edged steel met epidermus and seperated the layers of skin until he hit bone.

Yes, he had killed one in the past, on a contract assignment, and that one had been a 'Freelancer', too. They always seemed to turn up where the money was, and in that case it had been around one of those wealthy business executives that had become his favorite targets. The screamed so readily when sharp objects entered sensetive areas, always willing to beg for mercy when Jekel was fresh out. Well, that wasn't true. It was hard to be fresh out of something when you didn't stock it in the first place...

"But since you insist on the leadership role, I'm going to assume you've got directions to Reactor 37, which means you're more useful than I might have guessed, or at least your glove is... Freelancer..."

The Silent Butcher's voice was a smooth baritone with a bit of a hissing accent he'd accepted as his 'normal' voice. Disguise was a valuable tool for the professional killer, and no disguise was complete without a matching voice modification to fit the part. Hopefully, the didn't know who he was, or if they did, it wouldn't cross their minds that he was actually Jekel Slipstream the escaped convict wanted for contract murder in close to a dozen systems...

"Your move..."

He'd taken note of the hand positioning the Psion had taken, and wasn't about to be caught off guard. Those steely eyes of his met those of the Freelancer. The next move was up to him. Jekel's stance wasn't entirely hostile, but then again it wasn't exactly passive. He had a natural suspicion of mystics of any race, real or imagined, and such things weren't easily set aside under the current conditions...

"Not coming? Can't have that. Strongly suggest you get a move on, lest events occur that none of us will enjoy. We have a legitimate request. There is no reason that we should not move swiftly and smartly in accordance with that request. I will not allow myself to be held down by lay-about co-workers. Are we clear, Ladies and Gentlemen?"

Thomas had been leaning against a wall with his eyes closed ever since the message came in - sleeping, for all appearances. Now, he straightened up and smiled at the psion.

"On the contrary, sir. I wasn't lying about. I was, in fact, working out our route."

He walked a few feet down the corridor and stopped by a service hatch. A quick swipe of his ID, and the thing hissed open, revealing a narrow service tunnel.

"This leads off for about thirty feet," he said, as he flipped through his stored schematics, rechecking the route he had plotted. "Then there's a ladder leading up that should take us to the local lift station. From there we can ride one of the lifts to the monorail station, and take that all the way aft to section 37. From there we just have to take the service elevator down into the reactor room."

He smiled a nasty little self-assured smile.

"It's not the regulation route, sir, but it's a lot faster. And given the state this ship seems to be in, I think it's best if we get there sooner rather than later."

He ducked into the corridor and disappeared into the darkness.

Chris nodded slowly at the large...lizard...thing...and his wicked little smile turned a little wickeder...

"It would seem that our technician friend has derived a superior route, and a quick Dowsing agrees with him...so. So, so, so...get a move on? You can refute my leadership all you want, and you can threaten me all you want, and that's your right. But if you do anything, anything at all, that actively endangers the rest of this section, I will put you down like the rabid animal you will have become. Do not doubt that for a second -- I know what you're thinking, I know what you are, and I know what you can do...and for the moment, your potential value far outweighs the detrimental effects of your continued existence. It would be in your best interests to not allow that to change..."

His voice became a little softer, but still carried. It had a considerable darker tone, however...

"Just as an aside, it would not be conducive to your continued existence to ever, ever threaten me again. I'm not what you need to be afraid of. While we're on similar subjects...I don't care about what you did in the past -- just fly right in the present and we'll get along fine."

Then he turned on his heel and followed after Thomas, his enhanced gauntlet slightly raised and a wisp of light dancing above his index finger. Whether it was illumination or...something else...was impossible to determine.

The interplay between the Argonian assassin, for that is what the dark ones usually are, distracts Tora for a moment longer. I've met a few where as Tora has not, and it was part of my job to know about more than just renegade Psionics. The Tora, the unconscious part that I refuse to try and completely control realizes consciously that she is very close to the Psi. Might I say that I heartily dislike what some societies have done to their gifted ones. Before she can begin to startle I slide away from the controls so to speak, letting her take over. If she had been altered before decanting she'd have made the perfect Cheval, but she has been spared that though if Dark Heart had known how to do the required alterations I'm sure he would have done so. Chevals are vanishingly rare and being liscensed to possess one is all but impossible to obtain. They are the ultimate luxury for a psionic. A mark of power and status that little else rivals for the psionics of the Tanaran Empire.

'Damn it I've done it again, lost time. I hate it when I do that. Why doesn't the voice in my head help me, stop it from happening? Void take it I wish this body had never been decanted, then maybe I would have ended up a real human, had a real life. Tora's thoughts were bitter as she strove with all her will to shield them from the voice in her head. She didn't want her only friend to know how often she dispaired. She didn't realise that she was so strongly shielding from within that she might well be shouting out. She'd been told by the voice in her head that she couldn't, that what had been done to her voided that. She'd been grateful for that information, it meant she couldn't ever be like the He had been.

But if you do anything, anything at all, that actively endangers the rest of this section, I will put you down like the rabid animal you will have become.

Tora half stumbled as she came back to herself, but her lightning fast reactions caught her. She chose to attribute it to shock at what she'd just over heard the psi say. 'It's all bluff and lies. Put himself at risk or effort for another? No way! She snorted mentally as she pivoted smoothly to head down the tunnel opened by Thomas, willing to be at the psi's back but not to have him at hers.

Jekel calmly whipped one of the larger Equitorian blades from its sheath on his chest, the matte glare of the steel spinning quickly before coming to rest in a traditional grip while he held it outward, pointing toward the Freelancer. The thirteen-ish inch length of the weapon combined with Jekel's already excellent armspan gave him an impressive reach. It would be hard to evade him in the close confines of the spaceship corridors...

"Never once did I threaten you. I doubt I can operate your glove properly, and given the circumstances, your 'usefullness' outweighs the sudden desire I have to see your insides strung across the walls of this corridor. As for 'endangering' the lives of this merry band here, it isn't them you should be worrying about..."

The knife went back down, switching positions in Jekel's hand without so much as a thought to a reverse grip. His eyes never left those of his potential enemie's...

"Either that annoying thing you humans call 'ego' is leading you to paranoia, or you've caught one of my thoughts somehow. Stay out of my head, Freelancer, and my friend here will stay out of yours..."

The knife came to the traditional grip again, and Jekel tapped it against his own skull to emphasize his point. He wasn't sure if the 'ego' could be surgically removed, but he was willing to try. The Dark Argonian moved up to the mouth of the tunnel, peeking inside...

"It's a dark and scary place in there, I don't think you'd much care for it. This tunnel, on the other hand, looks decently safe..."

His head turned slightly to the side, the crystal-blue gaze falling on Thomas...

"Lead on. You seem to know this ship better than the rest of them..."

Then back to Chris ...

"After you, Freelancer... Do you have a name? Freelancer is such a long word, and I hate wasting time..."

Actually, it was more gratifying to kill someone you knew personally, but that wasn't the point. Freelancer was a lengthy word, and as much as he enjoyed toying with the man, he was going to need a more convenient way of doing it. Of the gathered humans, he was the most likely to figure him out, not that he cared. The little girl occasionally had flashes of fear in her eyes, something that led him to believe something reminded her of something else from the past that scared her more than anything else, and it was someone within their little group.

The mechanic, at least that was what his snout told him, was more of an engineer than a fighter, but he still had a weapon on him. The others, he wasn't much concerned with. He'd need something other than a knife to take down the other security officer, however, unless he could get through that armor and at his neck if it came down to it...

Chris's smile turned grim, then...

"Falkner. Christian Falkner. You may refer to me as 'Captain Falkner' or 'Sir.' 'n I'll tell you what -- don't give me a reason to go messing around inside your head, and I won't. Keep your knives to yourself and we'll be fine, hmm?"

Then his smile brightened a little and he continued walking. Cocky? Yes, he was...but justifiably so. Truthfully, he rather hoped the lizard would not become a problem. He had enough problems -- such as the poor girl with the odd though signature...

For the moment, however, he was settled with the unpleasant task of herding cats. Which, admittedly, became easier when those resistant to the herding could be 'directed' with subtle psionic nudges in the right direction...like...So.

Jekel nodded in satisfaction. Another potential target for his verbal barbs. Officers would be officers, overconfident that a title would protect them from say, nine inches of cold steel, but he'd play along for now...

"Excellent. Then Faulkner it is. Would you be so kind as to lead us into the unknown?"

Jekel was interested to see how well the mind-reader was able to concentrate with him padding softly behind him, a true test of his nerves. He might come to respect the man, should that arrogant streak of his subside enough for him to quit acting like a pompus ass long enough for Jekel to not want to butterfly the human's throat area anymore. Then again, as much picking as he was doing it was to be expected, but that was the true test of skill and wit that was the point of this whole exercise anyway. He had to be sure that the man wouldn't crack under the weight of his abilities and the amount of stress being placed on him at the moment.

It would be interesting, if nothing else, to see how well his mind held up, and how long it took him to snap...