NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: This is the RP thread, open to anyone who still wants to join. Remember that this is based in the beginning of EV Nova.

My name is Captain Chris Hairfield of the Rebel Mod Starbridge Trimurti. My ship travels alone and is starting at Rebel II.

IC: Chris and his XO, John, walk into the spaceport bar. They had just come from a long negotiation trying to replenish some weapons stores. Money was running thin. The Rebels need someone to come back and take control of everything. The Rebels are so spread out.

"The Trimurti needs to leave in about an hour or so," John said, even though Chris allread knew it. They both sat down, ordered a few drinks, and jsut wasted away the hour.

The time came to take leave. John went back to the ship to get the rest of the crew rounded up and ready. Chris went to meet the operative. This woman needed to get to New England, and she was allready delayed. The two rushed to the ship.

"This is the Trimurti requesting clearance to depart."

"This is Rebel II Control permission granted"

The Mod Starbridge lifted off the docking pad and powered up its engines. It quickly entered the hyperspace zone and set course for New England.

OOC: Post Deleted By Me due to irrelevance of old charactor.

OOC: Launch time! My name is Empiric Dougson, leader of the crew aboard the pirate ship Nautilus; a heavily modified Argosy with cloak technology.

IC:

Nothing seemed out of place as the Nautilus drifted slowly towards New England. Merchant ships dotted the cosmos as they went in and out of the planets atmosphere, delivering their cargo. When a ship jumped in front of the Nautilus it was all Empiric could do to keep himself from ordering them to break cloak and attack them.

No, they had to wait. Wait for the right ship to come along, attack, kidnap who they needed, and dissapear amidst the stars. If he attacked now, then patrols would be increased, and the element of surprise lost. Empiric was smart, but cowardly. He wanted to lay his trap, grab his prize, and leave to deliver it to a black market port far away. Then he could attack others to his hearts content.

"Sir, they should be here by now. The informant said that the ship would be here by now. I know transport ships run late... but."

Empiric turned to his weapons officer, an Auroran soldier who had taken a liking to pirating.

"Now now Marcus, be patient. She will come sooner or later. We have a lot of money and supplies riding on this little adventure, and I dont want to lose it simply because we were impatient."

Empiric returned to where he was standing and started thinking to himself, his mind clicking away as to how he would nab the ship that was to carry his hostage.

OCC:
The LRR ship:

The LRRSV Who, a Kresta (http://www.cold-war.net/cw_kresta.html) class frigate of the LRR long-range patrol fleet, which operates a wide variety of forigen ships.

The Captain: (Comrade) Sub-Commander Toulon Henri.

Age: 132
Race: Bentusi (The unbound, spacefaring cyborgs. Not like the borg at all)

Crew of the Who:

8 Engineers
3 Bridge crew
3 Medical officers
2 Astronomers
4 Weapons officers
6 Naval Infantry

IC:

The LRRSV Who drifts into dock in the New England spaceport. After the ship is docked, the crew, save for a gaurd force, is freed to roam about the spaceport. Some crewmembers go looking for ship components. The senior engineer looks for a cloaking device, and the astronomers look for the most up-to-date star charts.

Meanwhile, Toulon Henri and two of his bridge crew come walking into the bar. The two humanoid bridge crewmen soon get drunk, and break out into song. They begin their rendition of "Its a long Way to Tipperary," and dance around atop their table. The captain plays the tune on his guitar.

The Trimurti hyperspaces into New England space.

"New England Control, permission to land..."

"This is New England Control, we have a long line waiting for docking clearance, it'll probably be about three hours."

"But, there almost no ships out here, what are you talking about a delay?"

"I'm sorry, but it won't be any sooner than two and a half hours, four tops"

"Shit... how much, and where do you want it..."

"Two g's"

"Bull, one"

"One and a half"

"Fine..." Chris finished, and close the channel in disgust.

"They gotta crack down on those people. Sometimes they are helpful, but not now."

"Yeah well, we can land in about twenty minutes. Time to wait."

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

All of a sudden, a valkyrie and two vipers pulled out from behind an asteroid. The valk unloaded IR missiles instantly.

"Evasive, now!"

The civilian IR jammer was always under scrutiny by civilian pilots for its lack of protection, but it helped marvelously. Almost half of the missled missed their mark.

"Drop grenades and bring the missiles online."

"Allright Chris"

Four grenades came out of the back of the Mod Starbridge. Only one hit the valk but it slowed him down.

"Why are they attacking me, they know they cant win..."

As Chris finished that sentance, a battle-scarred Manticore came into view. The ships shields were still slightly lowered, but it still posed a huge threat. The remaining two vipers sat right at each side of the manticore, as well as the other valk.

"Hard to port!"

The Starbridge pulled to the left sharply.

"Call for immediate Federation assistance."

In the background was the repeating phrase, "This is the Trimurti, requesting immediate assistance by anyone in range, we are under attack by pirates."

The Manticore fired a glancing blow with all its weapons...

The Starbridge groaned under the immense power, but still sped away, turning to face it pursuers but flying away from them.

"Fire Missiles at the nearest viper."

A continous wave of missiles fired from the two launchers.

It wasnt long before three of the vipers were destroyed and the fourth had retreated.

The battle wasn't over yet...

OOC: Sorry for the long post, but I gotta build up the story. Please don't kill the Manticore anyone. It would be hard, and you would die. It's highly upgraded (about an extra 8 million into it, some of it sigma shipyards upgrades) so its fast and efficient to, for a Manticore.

"Nicodemus, move us out of the way!"

The Viper in front of the Nautilus silently exploded as several missiles smashed into the ships side. Empiric strapped himself into his seat at the helm just in time to assist in getting the ship out of the blast radius.

"No manners whatsoever. I cant believe these fools; more then likely this will scare off OUR target."

Empiric fumed, figuring how he would get out of the planetary battlezone. Nicodemus interrupted his thoughts.

"Sir, the Starbridge is sending a distress signal; identifying itself as the Trimurti. The other vessels are pirates I guess; we havn't encountered any of them before."

"None of them our target... Shoot. This place will be crawling with ships soon, which makes my job even worse."

Marcus sat in his chair, watching a digital display of the nearby ships, watching the little dots and crosses that represented their opponents.

"One of the Vipers has disengaged from the rest of the attack force. Shall we take action?"

"Hell, why not. Maybe we might turn a profit from this afterall. Uncloak this damned thing and follow that ship. Attack with the guns as soon as we are in range. Try not to destroy the sucker, after it's disabled I want it brought in and shoved into a Cargo Hold. Call down to Geneve and Carlos down in the Cargo Bay, I want a boarding party as fast as I can get it. Tell em' to detain the pilot and jettison him if he doesn't cooperate."

The Nautilus uncloaked, slowly accelerating to catch up to the retreating Viper. In the distance, a Starbridge and a Manticore faced off against each other, neither seeming to pay attention to the little raid happening in the distance.

"Sir, an argosy has unloaked in front of us to the starboard side. Its taking on the final viper. Just so you know, I don't have a ship ID though."

"Dont worry about it." There was a long silense, nothing heard over the drone of the shops engines and the sporadic missiles being fired. "Disengage the Manticore, we cant take it on as we are."

The two valks pulled back from a small fight against an unknown ship and headed for the Starbridge.

"Pull away!"

The Trimurti turned upwards and did a back roll to eventually fly under the Manticore only about four kilometers away. It was a classic WWII maneuver, but it still had some effect today. The Starbridge rocketed away as fast as the engines could take it.

"Fire the hellhounds"

The one hellhound missile launcher seemed to take so long to load. The valk in front of the Trimurti was hit, pushed back, and rammed into a small asteroid. This halt made the second hellhound miss, but the valks shields were down on that side and the armor was severely damaged.

"Mark this location and we'll come back after the fight."

The efforts to destroy the second valk were much harder. It took over six minutes to destroy it, and in the end, the Trimurti was barely moving. The Manticore had allready docked with the disabled valk and did what it could. It tractored it in and entered hyperspace.

OOC: Sorry, been out for awhile. I'm not sure how to get involved yet, though I'll stay in the bar. I'm thinking I might go over to a less...strange...ship. Something more normal. Perhaps an IDA Frigate? Give me some sugestions here.

The LRR crew soon returns to the frigate, and begins to make regular repairs to it. Plasma cannon barrels are changed, conduits are checked, reciving dishes are cleaned and patched.

The chief engineer continues to search for a local ECM/cloaking device, but to no avail. He goes to a ship supply vendor's.

"Excuse me, do you carry any ECM or cloaking devices?"

OOC: First of all, FPC, thats a good idea about the frigate. Don't make it ridiculously upgraded, and if any fighters, keep it at one bay preferably with vipers.

Secondly, cloaking devices are not sold locally. They are only received through involvment in governments that have that tech or a ton of money, neither of which you have.

IC: "Cmon, time to leave, what are these engines worth?!?"

"Sorry man, it aint workin' for us..."

"Where are any enemy ships, and what is that argosy doing?"

"The argosy is still with the viper and there are no other... Sir, the Manticore has dropped out of hyperspace."

"Can we get away in time?"

"Yeah, its off attacking a shuttle, it knows it cant reach us."

"New England Control, theres a heavily armed pirate manticore attacking shipping and also, we need clearance."

"We just sent some ships and a landing bay has been cleared."

"Allright, thanks"

Chris and John walk into the spaceport bar dismayed. The ship is severely damaged. It'll cost tens of thousands to repair.

They both sit down, "What do you want?"

"I dont know, what do you want..."

"I don't care..."

"Me neither..."

The bartender pulls out two beers and gives them each one.

"Thats good enough..."

"For Heavens sake, the damned ship is damaged! Why havn't we caught up to it yet?"

There was silence on the bridge as Empiric tapped his fingers on the counsel in front of him.

"Its in range now... can I attack it yet?"

"What did I say before! Fire at it already! Aim for the engines!"

The Hail Chainguns ripped through the blackness, letting out quick flashes of light as they fired, the bullets shooting forwards towards the Viper. The enemy shipped dodged to the left, the stream of ammo following it.

"That stuff costs more then your monthly food rations Marcus, make em count!"

The Chainguns ran out of ammo, prompting the AI to start reloading... Marcus took this chance to aim where he knew the Viper would try and dodge too during the lull.

"Gotcha."

Marcus reccomenced the firing sequence seconds before the Viper swerved right, flying into the line of fire just in time to meet the Chaingun ammo. The heat scanners flared around the ship as the engine casing was pierced, severing wires and sending radiation into the abyss. The Viper slowed, using its remaining momentum to turn around and attempt to lock its weapons onto the Argosy.

"Umm... Marcus, how well armed is that thing?"

"Well enough to fight back I suppose."

"Me and my big mouth."

"The rest of the crew would agree sir."

"Shaddup."

The Argosy closed onto the Viper, blotting out the vision of the planet for the somewhat smaller ship. The Chainguns came to life, cutting a path through the Vipers skin, leaving visible marks across it's surface. The Viper fired it's lasers, releasing an escape pod during the process. The Lasers hit the Argosy, causing some damage, but not enough to stop the advance. The Argosy finally stopped meters away from the Viper, It's Cargo Bay coming to life. The Argosy seemed to swallow the Viper over the process of an hour... Another half-hour later it simply disapeared from scanners.

A single Escape Pod was left behind for the patrols to pick up. Its pilot cursing 'those damned pirates.'

OOC: First off, Hairfield, check your telegrams please. Alright, I'm switching charactors suddenly. Sorry, but my old one would be simply too hard to keep with! I'm keeping the name though (pretty original, don't you think?). Anyway, here he is, my charactor. Oh yeah, I've slightly de-upgraded my ships weapons, just to make it not as great.
Name: Matthew Dupree

Report by: Ensign John Korens, Federation Navy.

Criminal Record: No Convictions. Juvenile Records Sealed.

Age: 26

Home Planet: Earth

Alliance: None. Connections with Wild Geese and Nirvana Teraforming Inc.
as well as with Sigma Shipyards and United Shipping

Ship Name: U.S.S. Michigan (Not so original...)

Ship Type: IDA Frigate

Ship Armorments:
Three Mass Expansions
One Helhound Missile Launcher, 50 Helhound Missles
One Raven Rocket Turret, 200 Raven Rockets
Two Medium Blaster Turrets
Two Light Blaster Turrets
One Storm Chaingun, 2000 Ammo

Outfits:
One Military IR Jammer
One Marine Platoon
Sigma Electrical Wiring Upgrade
Sigma Enjine Tune Up
Sigma Mount Reinforcement
Four Extra Energy Tanks (Don't remember exact name, sorry)
One Radar Jammer

Licenses: All Available, Hypergate Access

Cargo Space: 202 Tons


Notes: Mr. Dupree, while heavily upgraded, is afraid to use his hellhound missiles. He feels they cost too much, and in recorded history, has used three. I personally suspect him to have ties to the rebellion, but could not put this in the report, as it was not substanciated. Also, a large amount of weapons space in his ship is unused. He originally had IR missiles and radar missiles, but now simply has empty space. Furthermore, this part of his ship is shielded from scans! Again, I have no evidence to substanciate anything, but he could be a smuggler. A search of his ship mid flight a month ago, however, revealed nothing. Also, not noted above, I did find evidence that he has scanner, and enjine upgrades, that he has NOT filed for. Again, not enough evidence.

-Ensign John Korens
*Signature*

OOC: Okay, it's about time someone showed up who isn't on a clear side. Depending on the charactors, I'll start fighting for someone during the game.

IC:
Matthew Dupree watched as the two men walked into the bar. His radio scanner had picked up the transmissions in orbit, and he thought they looked rather unshaken for someone who was just in a battle. Of course, he could be wrong.

OOC:

Lesse, is there any objection to me bringing in a Vell-os ship? Just an arrow or a dart, nothing bigger, though I guess not even a Dart is anything to laugh at really...

Name: Captain Aldeith Baranok (bones to close friends and crew mates). An older yet still spry man with many years as a ship pilot/captain. Comfortably wealth due to years of trading medical supplies. Also dabbles in Bio weapons but this is kept a secret due to smuggling regulations.
Home planet: Skye in the Murasaki system
Legal status: Mostly citizen or no convictions. Good citizen along major trading routs.
Favorite routes: Med supplies from Earth in the Sol system to Port Kane in the Kania
system. Duranium alloy from Dunroamin in the Journey’s End system to Earth in the Sol system. Bio weapond from Codec in the Codhaven system to either Menin in the Lesten system or Moash in the Moash system.
Affiliations: Sigma Shipyards United Shipping. Some black market ties
Ship: A well up kept yet still old Leviathan. The Vortex Rikers. (Heavy weapons variant but this is a closely guarded secret)
Outfits: Weapons; 4 heavy blaster turrets, 4 200mm rail guns, 2 light anti missile turrets.
Other; All sigma shipyards outfits, all mass expansion and mass retool outfits, 2 fusion reactors, 1 matrix steel, Multiple sensor boosts, pirate jamer, afterburner, 4 solar panels and multiple marine platoons. (and more to possibly come)

Current location: Bar somewhere in the vast cane band around earth.

“Bartender ill take another round of whatever that was. Ok now continue with the story you say you saw a freaking prate ship uncloak near New England?” “Yea Bones it was the strangest thing my crew or I have ever seen. I mean I have heard about the tech for some time but it always seamed to be one of those tails that moms tell there sons to keep them in line. To see a ship just uncloak in the view screen is unreal.” “Thanks a lot Tristen ill make sure to keep my crew alert for any strange readings or pirate groups.”

:BEEP: “Hey gramps the ship is fueled and the holds are full lets get a move on I got a nice honey waiting for me in Kania, over.” :BEEP:

“Yea yea small fry im coming warm up the fusion reactors and get me some docking clearance while your at it, over.”

“Well Tristen it was great seeing you again and remember you know where I am just hail me. I got to go got too many young bucks on the bridge now days. They never seem to appreciate port time.”

Back at the ship. “Well Foot lets get this bird moving” “Sir just waiting for you.” Ears what you got on the scope?” “Nuthin gramps we got ourselves a paved road outa here.” Set course for Kania. And Lets move.

The Massive hulk of the Leviathan lurches from its berth and fires its afterburners. Moving into jump distance en route to the Kania system.

(yea long post but it was needed)

OOC: Vell-os ships are probably too complicated. Free Pacific States found that out. If you want to be and can easily do it, fine, but dont use all those telepath attacks on me.

IC: A suspicious looking man started to walk towards Chris and John. He was 6' 2", broad shoulders, an athletic build. As he began to talk he had an accent that reminded Chris of the old British accents, but somewhat different. The end of an automatic was seen from under the end of his shirt.

"Come with me," were the only words that came from his mouth.

There was something wrong about him. Both Chris and John got up, but were ready to pull their weapons at a moments notice, and he seemed to know that.

Matt saw the three walk out of the bar. He had kind of been hoping to meet them, would have been nice. You don't get to see a lot of people with that much space experience. Ah well, that's li...what the hell? As Matt watched, two men got up, leaving a twenty (way over the price for their non-alchaholic beverages), and follow them out.
"Shit" Matt thought to himself, "That can't be good."
He walked out just after the two men, who were now obviously following the three men. As they all walked, Matt began to get very suspicious. These guys weren't keeping the twenty feet distance that the Federation Academy teaches it's intelligence recruits. And they were too young to have grown out of such training. Pulling out his communicator*, Matt signaled his ship.
"S.S. Michig....", one of the communications officers started to say, but Matt cut him off mid-sentence.
"Shh, quiet! Look, it's Captain Dupree. This is an emergency. Get me John. NOW!" John was the Luitenant incharge of the Marine Platoon. When he came on the radio, Matt didn't even let him start speaking.
"Look, John, I'm following a couple guys who are following a few guys. It's kind of fishy."
"Are they Federation?" John asked.
"No, definitly not, don't follow the paterns you tought me." Replied Matt
"Alright, me and a couple men are coming down. I wouldn't suggest contacting port authorities yet. They could just be with the IRS or something. John out."
Matt continued to walk, following the two men. He had a bad feeling about this.

They all walk into an area that people don't normally walk through. The men turned to face Chris, and John stepped aside somewhat.

"We are with the rebellion, we have a very important mission for you. I can't tell you what it is unless you accept." he said. "Wait," he said, as if to keep Chris quiet for a minute longer, "think about it, this might mean the end of the Federation."

"Who are you people?" John said quietly.

"What?" the man inquired, "we are with the rebellion"

"Who is your commanding officer?" Chris asked.

"We aren't allowed to say that, you know that..."

"When do we load and what?"

"Weapons, I'll leave it at that."

"What time though?"

"When light floods your landing bay." The man said very routinely.

Chris smiles. We know what that means, this man was authentic, but he still couldn't shake the feeling of somethig being wrong. John followed Chris as he began to walk. Just before he turned the corner there was a loud bang and a searing hot pain in his back. John turned in astonishment, and immediately fell, all life drained from his body. A bullet had ripped through his head and another through his back.

Chris collapsed. Just befoer everything went dark, he thoguht of how stupid he had been, he let his guard down. Darkness enveloped him...

Sub-Lieutenant Kevin Zevon tries in vain to find his way back to the ship. He does not feel very comfortable alone in the alleyways of a forigen spaceport, especailly so when armed only with a Nagant 1890 revolver.

"Turn down this street here, it should lead you to the dock area. You better get back soon, we're ready to leave."
"Ok. Expect me to be back in about fifteen minutes."
"Alright. We can wait that long, I suppose."

He turns down the alleyway, and, to his great surprise, finds a pair of apparently dead bodies. He draws his revolver, and proceeds to check the pulse of the two bodies, to see if one was alive.

"Fred, get the naval infantrymen to my position right away. We've got a possible murder, probably an assassination by the looks of it. Definately a professional killer anyway."

Back at the frigate, three of the ship's six naval infantrymen head out to the lieutenant's position. Toulon is also in the party, along with a pair of engineers. They rush to Lt. Zevon's position.

OOC: FPS you were at the shooting, your post will probably occur before Robots post, even though its not in that order.

Matt watched as one of the first three men pulled a weapon and shot the other two. He began to reach for his own gun, but the two men in back had already pulled out automatics, and were already firing at him. Jumping into a side corridor as shots went by, Matt swore, and grabbed his communicator.
"JOHN, I GOT SHOTS FIRED, GET DOWN HERE, AND HAVE SPACEPORT SECURITY WITH YOU...NOW!"
Taking of hiss jacket, Matt exposed the hood, only to seen it blown off. "Damn" he thought to himself,"That was a nice jacket too."
Putting the jacket back on, Matt pulled his gun from his holster. Half of it was shot off. Reaching down to his shoes, he pulled a small revolver from each. Swinging around the corner, he began to spray shots down the corridor, immediatly killing one. The other two had already made for it, and the third had almost been around a corner when the shots hit him from behind. His momentum spun him out of view, but too many shots had hit him to be alive.
Rushing forward, Matt rounded the corner himself, to meet the end of the barrel of a pistol. "I guess this is it" he thought to himself, but then he saw who was holding the gun.
"Put your hands up! Now! Drop them!" The officer grabbed his radio, and began calling for back-up. He had obviously already been in the area, and, when hearing gunshots, had come running. Matt dropped both guns, raised his hands, and stepped back.
"Alright...look, you've got the wrong guy. The two guys who went running in your direction were the shooters!" Matt said calmly. Hopefully, this guy might be able to get someone to catch them.
"No one came running down in my direction, buddy. Now turn around, up against the wall." the Man said. Even as he said it, Matt heard the sirens of police vehicles arriving.
"Officer, he's getting away! Damnit! You've got to get him!"
"Yea, whatever. You can tell it to the sergeant when he gets hear. Place your right hand behind your back."
By now the two men had probably gotten away, so Matt stopped trying to argue. He just hoped an ambulance would get here in time to save the two men. They had been murdured in cold blood.

Name: Captain Tristen Da'ceana A warrior by nature and spirit, has many battle tatoos, one being the great wolf of the Heraan house crushing a skull.
Home planet: Heraan in the Heraan system
Legal status: Citezen in all federation, auroron and rebel systems, Wanted by the roughnecks for a ill gone fight in a bar on Pryogenesis One where he broke three Fed officers necks after they insulted his dog. which is named Max.
Favorite routes: He works for the bounty hunters guild and is often seen escorting a leviathan under the name of Vortex Rikers between the kane band and the Kania system and various other secret trade routes. Affiliations: honerable warior of the Heraan house, Black market operative(this is little known), Escorts for Sigma shipyards
Ship:The Slander is a Jetblack Mod Starbridge, with a few tweaks done by black market engineers and major shield upgrades.
Outfits: Weapons; 2 Fusion pulse batteries, 4 150mm Rail guns, 2 hellhound missle launchers with full missle tubes, and four IR missle tubes with 25 missles per tube. Other; All sigma shipyards outfits,A thorium reactor, 1 matrix steel, Pirate sensor boost, , afterburner, and 2 marine platoons. 6 stolen Fed Shiled buffers, 1 Tiatanium Latice, and 2 stolen Fed Shield rechargers.
Current Location: Mad Max's Bar and Grill on the Kane band.
"So Max what does this day hold for us. Tristen slams down a zuruvian Ale and speaks into his com unit,
":BEEP:Shale you there:BEEP:?"
, his com goes to static then an attractive voice barks back at him,
:BEEP: "I'm here you drunk bastard, get back to the ship so we can leave, Im sick of wasting time on the Kane band.":BEEP:
:BEEP:"Alright shale while your at the com can you give bones a jingle he might have already left the system but if he has not I have an interesting proposition for him, and we can provide escort service for him if he chooses to accept.":BEEP:
(several minutes pass as Tristena nd his Black eyed wolf max make there way back to the Slander)
"anything?"
"No captain he must have already jumped for Tichel and then im guessing to Kania from there."
" Alright set course for Kania throught the timeran run I want to get there before he does."
"aye aye sir."
The Docking clamps let the Slander loose upon the universe once more, It thrusters burst into blue flame and it blast off towards The Kania system and hopefully a lucrative business proposition.

“Sir we have reached the Kania system and sensors read green across the board.” Well that is a first this junk ball hasn’t jumped without at least duping fuel for a few months. Maybe Small fry was right and we need to go in for that over haul. :BEEP: “Finally speaking some sense up there gramps, It takes my full crew working overtime to keep from having to drop one of these freaking fusion cores. And the energy conduits, well we will just not talk about them. Over :BEEP: “yea yea small fry we will get all your little problems fixed lets just get this baby docked. And remember what I said would happen if you called me gramps again! Hear anything out there ears?” “Yea im reading a small craft with no id sitting behind that rock off our port side.” “Crap how long have you seen him Ears?” “no worries it is Tristen. He probably took dead mans jump. You know what he calls timeran run. That goes through that asteroid belt. “first mate Fozzy put the gunners on full alert and get engineering to put some juice into the shields. We are going to have some fun with whoever is hiding there. “eye Bones all systems ready for battle.”

“Foot bring engines to a full stop, port gunners open doors and split that rock but don’t touch the ship on the other side.”


With port kane just a dark structure in the distanced a hulking levitation pulls to a stop. Hidden doors open up to reveal 2 huge heavy blaster turrets. With in seconds the asteroid separating the massive ship and a shady mod starbridge is beaten to a dusty pulp.

:BEEP: “boo, hey Tristen we see that you planed on surprising us. Well we have a secure connection going want you need? Great ill meet you in the bar at our usual seat in a day. I need to give this baby a overhaul and the crew some off time.”

Following the smaller ship the levitation moves into a free dry dock and unloads its cargo. As the massive crew sets out to relax 2 solitary figures head to a run down and smoky spaceport bar.

Chris woke up in a bright room. His eyes hurt from the lgiht, and he closed them again.

"Chris? You awake?"

Chris didn't move for a moment, then moaned.

"C'mon man, u gotta wake up." The man said, then much quieter "He looksw bad, but we have to take that guy back. We cant man the ship with just us two..."

"Maybe we can hire somebody, or a few people, just for this run."

"We can't, at least not easily. We can't compromise the operative."

"Do they have to know?"

"Sorry, we can't risk it, Bob'll get pissed."

"Oh yeah... Chris, wake up man"

"Ok, we gotta go in an hour, can we jsut cart him outta here?"

"Well, we cant take the hospitals bed."

"Yeah we can, I saw a backdo---"

"No, you can't," a nurse said, "I just heard the end of what you were saying, but Chris has to stay here for at least three more days, and you can't take these beds unless you want to buy it."

"How much?"

"Too much"

"Fine"

The nurse walked away, but tried to stay close enhough to still hear. The two knew that so talked quietly.

"We have to get him out, now."

"Allright, when that nurse leaves we'll try to get him out"

"Chris... it's not working..."

"Allright, then he won't make a fuss about us taking him to the ship, he'll be asleep. By the way, you hear anything about John, I'm getting worried..."

A man with many fierce tatoos waits at a secluded set of barstools, when an old grizzled man, who looks to be battle hardened walks into the bar.

He sees the younger looking man and smiles walking over too him.
The barmaid who servers that table hesitates to walk over as both men give of an aura of bristly danger. both look scary enough to her to stay away for a while. The grasp eachothers hand and begin to talk.

"Well it to you long enough old friend, Those cores still giving you trouble; I'm telling you i could have four new thorium cores for you in two weeks for the price not even you could pass up." "And the real price of the cores Tristen?" " Alright alright i could get you them for really cheap, and they work to peak performance you have my honor on that" " All it will take is your participation in a little operation that I have been putting together." "It will be dangerous Bones, so i thought I would tell you about it."
The Barmaid finally gets up the nerve to serve the two men, The auroron looking man orders a Zuruvian Ale and the Older man orders three shots of whiskey, an old earth drink that everyone has but no one seems to drink.(most likely cause it costs 50 credits a shot).'

"Thank you missy"
"My Bones your getting polite in your old age, I can remember when you would have pinched that pretty maids ass and asked for her number."

"Alas my warrior friend those days are far from over, besides she was eyeing you, and I would be careful not to tell Shale about that or you will end up with a dead barmaid and a lot of questions that the port authorities will want to ask you."
"Aye to that"
"So you say This operation is dangerous and has lucrative optimistic
outcomes?" Tristen Nods.
"I'm in"
"Great now I can tell you what the actual operation is, My contact Mouse with his ties to the free traders guild stumbled onto a Pirate cash in the Procyon system, and this is no ordinary cash of pirate missles and drugs; It's stolen Tech, Polaris and Fed to what extent we do not know the value, but for starters he did see several stripped down RAGE gunboat chasis and several different weapon systems that would be of great use to us both. I thought why not take a look, There are also four upgraded thorium reactors that we could retrofit to your ships engine grid, They wiegh less then your two fusion reactors combined and put together will generate 8 times the power, greatly increasing your shields and speed."
"sounds promissing my friend"
"I know, I know bones we will split the spoils fifty, fifty."
"Agreed Trist"
"Great Now here is the plan I worked out for the operation; Your ship is a registered frieghter, so we can get a shipment of colonists to take to the Planet Nirvana where the cash is. We need to get there in about two weeks so the need to find colonists is imperative. If we cannot find any we will have to show up with an empty ship and have the problem of pirates with scanners wondering why a leviathan fully crewed is headed to Nirvana with no cargo. My ship of course will be in one of your docking bays. thats all Ive planned so far. We should go back to my ship and go over the Layout of the cave that the Cash is in, we also need to go over guards and ship patrols that are protecting it."

"Meet me in two hours abourd the Slander, I'm in docking bay 2, section 7, pad 2."

"I'll be there Tristen."

"YOU FOLLOWED THOSE MEN FROM THE BAR, SHOT ALL THREE IN COLD BLOOD, AND THEN DISABLED THE SECURITY CAMERAS. WE KNOW YOU DID IT. THIS ISN'T GOING TO MAKE IT ANY EASIER ON YOU!" The detective slammed his fist on the table, trying to scare the hell...or more like a confession...out of Matt. And while scared, he really had nothing to confess to.

"You got my statement, so either press some charges, or cut me lose." Matt replied. He knew they didn't have the evidence, because otherwise a prosecutor would be interviewing him right now, not a couple of detectives. Even as he finished talking, the two left the room and another man entered.

"We're not pressing charges. Your weapons only match the bullets in one of the victims, and he had enough contraband on him to...well...probably to buy himself your ship." The man said.

"Don't be so sure about that. When can I get my stuff back? And who are you?" Matt asked.

"Captain Ments, homicide. I got it right here." Pulling out a couple of evidence bags, the man tossed them across the table to Matt, who began reloading the two revolvers, and set the small laser pistol to charge.

"How are the two people I tried to save?" Matt was rather curious, otherwise what he had done would simply go to waste...and his criminal record, of course.

"One's dead. Didn't stand a damn chance. The other's been stabalized at the hospital. Doctor's say he should awake in a couple hours, but their not going to release him for at least three days, possibly a week." The Captain said.

"Damn....I wonder why someone would randomly attack two people like that?" Matt reholstered his weapons, and started to get up, but a third man walked in.

"Would you mind giving a description of the other two men to the sketch artist?" The captain ask. Matt could tell this guy was trying to clean up a mess, and probably had a lot of pressure on him.

"Yea, no problem, but do you think I could get a ride back to the spaceport when I'm done?"

"Sure, I'll have someone give you a ride."

The Captain walked out, and Matt began describing the two men to the sketch artist.

"How's John, and how's the ship?"

"You don't want to know either answer" Jeff said as he and Alec rolled Chris out on a makeshift rolling bed. They had asked the receptionist about John, and weren't at all happy. Losing their ships XO, and the captains best friend, was horrific. The ship only had four crew to begin with.

"No, what happened?"

"Well, first of all, we just heard about the ship. Its in pretty bad shape, but we need to get a reb operative onto Earth. We have thirty minutesw to get onto the ship, thats all. Its really badly damaged though. Thousands in repairs. We are going to have to pull into our savings accounts to repair it, but we will do all those repairs on Earth."

"What about John, aren't you going to get him?"

"He's dead"

(for furthar note let me choose if i acept a mission or not rising)


Back on Tristan's ship bones and tristen go over a detailed holo-print of the pirate cave system.

"Well it looks like it will be hard to get in there. I meen geting onto the planet will be a brease if everything works out right. The caves are a diferent story." Bones pointing at a section on the holo-grid. "see here this bend is a very esily defended location and they have more locations to fall back upon. My marines are ready to deal with insertion and exrtaction from the cave but we still will need a better count on how many are in there. I meen my marines are good but they can only kill so many pirates untill they are overwhelmed."
As for geting to the planet i say we stop by earth. There always semes to be some people trying to get of of that planet. We just get a load of pasengers and maby even some industrial suplys. Yea i know we will loose money on the industrial suplys but i have yet to find a pirate that will attack for industrial suplys. When we touch down we will slowly unload the ship untill it is dark. Once darkness falls we take how ever many marines we need in your starberidge to the entrance of the cave."
The rest is up to fate.

("")

("")

Post removed duet to duplicate coppy
(i blame it on my computer posting it 4 times )

(Sorry about having you accept the mission, I just thought it would be an oportunity you could not passs up)
After setting down the Slander in One of the Vortex Rikers many docking bays, Leaving Max to Guard the ship;Tristen and Shale begin to walk towards the bridge. They soon enter. Tristen heads strait for Bones to talk over strategies and such about the comming attack on the pirate cash.
But first Bones goes over the pre flight check with his crew.
Foot starts up the main thrusters and the hulking ship heads towards the Kania Hypergate.
Ears on the other hand is getting a slow start o his duties. This most likely is because he is staring at Shale. Not only is the woman beautiful but she is covered in savage auroron tatoos. this gives her an exotic aura.
She soon notices this attention.
"What are you looking at skiny?"
conversation between the two erupts as it always does when they see eachother; ridicule and insults flying as fast as a viper hitting the afterburners.

Meanwhile Tristen and Bones remenice on their coming challenge.
"So Bones you think we will be able to find some colonists on earth?"
"Tristen, Tristen, Tristen I don't think, I know, People are always trying to get somewhere new and since the rescent terraforming Of Nirvana People have been headed there in droves, We will be able to find our cargo."

"I also like your plan to bring some industrial goods with us, i can pay half the price of those if you want me too bones."
"We will talk of prices and finaces after this little incursion we are planning."
"Agreed"
The Leviathan reaches the warp gate. The Giant Machine reads the access code of the hulking ship and grants it passage through.
From the eyes of the spacefarers on Port Kane the huge ship is seemingly swallowed by a flashing bright blue mouth.

OOC: Large Chickens, please don't hit the submit button four times. Gets kind of confusing.
IC:
Matt walked through the spaceport, heading for the launch bays. He had just been kept overnight at a police station, and had nearly been shot before being taken into custody. Things were definitly not going his way. As he walked into a docking bay, he looked around at the nearly empty room. There weren't many ships here (ever), and his frigate seemed the bigest. As he walked towards the ship, he saw a group of men walking towards the ship next to his. Except they weren't walking...they were carting someone? "What in the name of..." Matt though to himself, but stopped. He could care less if people were carting around their friends, probably some new teen thing.

"So, whats the story?"

"Well, this little guy isn't one of our average, everyday Pirate Viper."

Empiric rolled his eyes.

"And we aren't your everyday, average Pirate Argosy either... Get on with it."

Carlos moved the lift upwards towards the side of the Viper, running his hand alongside the hole-riddled skin. Eventually he reacher a part of the surface that seemed no different then the rest of the skin.
Until he hit it with a crowbar. Empiric was on him faster then Carlos could react.

"This thing is worth a good deal of money! Why the heck did you do that for?"

"For this."

Carlos peeled back the exposed part of the skin, revealing a small alcove carved into the structure of the ship.

"Are those what I think they are?"

"Yes sir, they are... Fake licenses, drugs... what's this?"

Carlos almost dived into the hidden compartment, leaving Empiric to wonder exactly what he found. He could hear Carlos's voice from inside.

"Sir, be damn glad we didnt hit this guy with anything harder, he has an EMP Torpedo strapped to the inside of the skin. This must have been why he backed off from the battle."

Empiric whistled loudly, scratching his head.

"So where did you say this sucker came from?"

"I decoded the construction logs, standard stuff really. This guy was part of a cache held in or near Nirvana. It wasn't all that specific."

Empiric moved over to a panel, and hit a button to contact Nicodemus at the helm.

"Hey Nico, I want to drop off this ship, minus some choice parts. Is there a planet in the general vacinity that we could sell this thing at?"

Nicodemus's voice came fuzzy over the intercom.

"We are wanted in most places, but Earth is nearby. We could sell it to our contact there."

Empiric sighed.

"Fine, and after that, I want to see if we can hitch a ride to Nirvana with a civilian ship. Play guard or somethin'."

Empiric switched off the intercom and sighed; he wanted to know more about this Nirvana cache and how he could get his hands on it.

As the Vortex Rikers jumps out of the Hypergate in the Tichel system,
Tristen scans the great expanse of space, pondering this endevor that he has put together.
The Jump to earth is of no consequence. all goes as planned.
Bones will search the Kane Band with Shale for refugees, and for a cheap price on industrial goods to fill the hull of the Vortex Rikers.

Tristen on the other hand has some Black market transactions that cannot be put off any longer.
He walks to the Mad Max Bar and Grill and awaits his apointments. he knows they will be here, some with things to purchase and some with things they need to purchase. As always his faithful Wolf-Hound Max of which the Grill is named for enter with him.
His first apointment enters the bar. has a few words with the bar keep and goes into the back where the secret door is, he knocks three times and enters.
Tristen then scans him, he has a loose asortment of credit chips a small laser pistol and a comm device. "May I see your com?" Tristen asks
"Sure." The pirate gives up his com trustingly.
"So, what ya got fer me this time warrior?" asks the man.
"The regular asortment of everyday missles, no liscense needed here. I also recently got my hands on four emp torps, still waiting for a launcher though, For those bording raids I have just what you need, a M2k68 ausalt rifle the latest in Fed tech for hand held weopons."
"Aye?"
"AYE my friend, it shoots 200 rounds per minute, or you can push this button and the gun will convert to sniper mode(Tristen pushes the flashing blue button and the weapon converts from a simple looking assault rifle to a deadly long rifle) whadya think?"
"I'll take it", says the Pirate "Oh almost forgot how much?"
"2,500, this wasn't easy to come by."
"I'll give you 2,300."
"done"
the happy pirate walks away with a small messenger backpack containg the collapsed rifle. Tristen smiles to himself, this pirate was definetly not a true killer or he would have asked about the little red button on the bottom of the gun.
As he watches the news about an hour later the news caster is covering a late breaking story.
Fire is everywhere and a docking bay opn the kane band is utterly destroyed, The authorities blame an engine meltdown. Tristen chuckles to himself
"curiousity killed the Cat didn't it Max."
The dog Barks loudly and Tristen Laughs even harder.
His second and final apointment of the day comes later, he watches the clock as he waits, Tristen knows he needs to get back to the Vortex Rikers before Shale comes to look for him and gets herself into trouble again. He cannot see why these federation officers can't seem to get it in their heads that an auroron woman does not want to be wistled at, and finds it offensive enough to start fights that always mean death or broken appendiges for the officers and maybe a scratch for Shale. Yes this next contact better come soon or he will have to leave them till next month.

Tristen waits patiently for his contect fiddling with his needler rifle a weapon that his friend Mouse designed for him, it uses small titanium cone shaped needles and propels them at extremely high velocities, not only does this give the bullet potential to go through almost any armor, but it the untapered end of the needle does maximum damage top anyone who is fired upon.......... and so Tristen waits for his next contact, a man by the name of Empiric a true pirate who knows the meaning of death, not a buffoon like the last man.................................

*Knock Knock Knock*

A panel in the wall opens, revealing a semi-tall human with Brown hair and a thin pair of glasses. Empiric steps into the room, a little more morose then usual.

"Alright Tristen, you gonna scan me or what?"

The pirate stood still as the scanner moved up and down, searching for what was not there. "No weapon?"

"Tristen, you know I abhore violence. You'll also find that I left my comm device back at the ship."

Tristen scanned for a couple more moments, and finally lowered the device. "So where did you get the dampener?"

"I had Carlos tweaking around with it, It can block out most short-range magnetic fields, but only in a small radius. I figured I would add a couple to the table. By the way, here is my gun and comm device."

Empiric handed his weapon and a small black reciever over to Tristen.

"Now the other one."

"Tristen, I'm hurt."

"Hand it over."

Empiric eyed Tristen's rifle, and pushed up both his sleeves. He ustrapped the barrel and firing mechanism from his arms and layed them down on the table. They both sat down at opposite ends of the table. Empiric cleared his throat to begin. Max layed down next to Tristen.

"Someday that dog is gonna get you in trouble Tris; I still remember what you did to Greg when he insulted it."

"Just talk business Empiric, I'm running late."

Empiric shrugged. "I got a rather nice Un-IDed Viper. No manufacturers mark, no registration. It also has a convenient space for non-legal goods. Of course, I emptied what was in there already."

Tristen raised his eyebrow. "So that was you who uncloaked near New England?"

Empiric shrugged again. "I am also willing to tell you where the stash is that it came from. For a price. I also want a cover for my ship to Nirvana, possibly an industrial transport or passenger vessel."

Tristen leaned back in his chair....

"Empiric i know where the cache is and I have a detailed map of the cave network that it leads too, and I already have everything in motion to take the cave all we need is more men to storm it, if this means asking you to come along then so be it, but you will only get 20 percent of the profit/goods that we find, and My friend Bones needs the four thorium reactors for his ship, so those are not to be tampered with."

"Tell you what, since your a man of honor i will let you in on this operation we need more men and you and your crew have seen a lot of fighting", Tristen Hands Empiric his effects.
"Tristen! do I sense trust? I thought you only trusted that woman you crew with and the dog." Empiric puts his things back in their respective areas.
"of course I will need to converse with bones, I will talk to him after you leave."
"I was thinking the Viper is worth at least 200,000 credits, It has many upgrades and you could turn around and sell it for three times that much to some of the fools with credits that come in and out of the Kane Band."
Tristen looks over the electronic schematic of the ship that empiric brought with him.
"I'll take it." He passes the Pirate captain his credit chip, Empiric checks the amount, it says 250,000 his eyes widen a bit.
"The ship is worth that much, I will not cheat a customer, and I hope that you will not try to cheat me, because i will kill you and all your crew, and you know that is with in my power if we are stuck in a dank dark cave or in an open space port."
"Yes I know all too well."
"Well I need to get back to my ship, meet me in the Kerrela system in two days, we will dock then and ride into the Procyon system undeteced, this is also where i want you to hand over my viper."
"then we are at an accord," Empiric says.
"That we are, No tricks Empiric, You also know the capablities of my ship and what it can do, not only will that be waiting for you but an armed capital class ship, with many improvements, I hope to see you in two days, now if you will be so kind let me buy you a drink at the bar and we will respectively be on our way."
"Delightful."
The two sit down at Tristen's favourite table, they get their drinks and in an hour there is no sign that a major black market transaction just went on in such a place.
Tristen on his way back to the Vortex Rikers, and The Pirate captain..................................................

Chris got off the cart feebly and walked with the other two men to meet a woman who just walked up. She was the rebel informative. She wuickly alerts them that she may have been compromised allready, but fails to give a reason. All she wants is to get onto the ship.

"Cool down, it'll be a minute," Jeff said.

"I don't have a minute, I need to get to rebel II now."

"Jeez..."

All of a sudden, a sniper shot came through the front glass. The shields on the Trimurti were down, and the shot missed Jeff's head by an inch. Everyone fell to the ground. A small team of federation men were cautiously approaching the ship.

They weren't fast enough, it powered up shields and lifted off the ground. The engines couldn't carry it very fast though.

"Get this ship moving if you can, and try to plug up that hole before we go into space..." Chris said, in pain from the fall.

"We are going to have fed ships on us in no time, I can guarantee it..." Alec said, not the least bit happy...

Down on the serface of earth (a long and bumpy hyper lift ride from the kane band) Bones, his first mate Lupe, and Shale cantinue there serch for imagrants trying to get to nirvana or somwhere close. Having already found a load of industrial goods on the band Bones is using all the time that he has to find some aceptable familys. "Cmon Bones that family will do fine. I meen look at the daughter shes so cute." "Shale please just stop talking. you obviously know nuthing about picking up familys for transport. I meen look at the guy who says he is the dad. He is for shure a pirate. That family is just some hostages he probably took a while ago." "But we have to save them if that is true. It is just horible to know that they are hostages and almost sertanly doomed." "AARRRGGHHHH Shale your soft sopt is hard to find but it for shure is going to get me or somone you know dead. We will take them and the opther familys that Lupe has negotiated prices with already. Hey lupe talk to the Jonsons here and then get us the first ride up to the band. For some reason i just dont like this planet much. I think it is the old fashoned style." Ya ich will. "K Shale you come with me and we will devise a plan to get rid of this little inconvienience."

Later up on the band most of the familys and all of the cargo has been loaded. Foot is going throug hpre flight checks and ears is requesting flight clearance. Inside the large cargo holds that have been hasely converted to hold familys a small araged confrontation takes place.

:Marine officer: "Excuse me sir but may i see some id. We dont usualy do this but it is quite important."
:Pirate: "hey man why u haselin me i dont see no one else getin checked."
:Oficer: " im just looking for somone and i gota start somwhere"
:pirate: "ok fine here"
:Officer: "well mr. ...um stevens... your just the man i was looking for It is kind of embarasing but we where wondering if you could identify your lugage for us.
:Pirate: Oh, yea shure. where are they?
:oficer: Just follow me. Ok so these are your bages. thank you. Oh and may i introduce you to some of my friends here.
:Federation dock police: Well hello Black tooth havent seen you in a while. Well i guess we will have plenty of time to catch up now that you are going in foer kidnaping.
:pitate: What? No No I wont go back. damn your Aldeith you will pay for this.

Back on the bridge of the vortex rikers. "Well shale i hope your happy. We got rid of the fist bump. Now i just got to hope that trist isnt cooking up some black market crap behind my back."

"smal fry this bird ready to fly?" "sir yes sir" "great now where is tristen"

Even through the sounds of his enjines as his ship lifted from the ground, Matt heard the gunshot. Looking through the window, he saw the Federation Special Forces team apporoaching the now lifted off ship. Curious as the situation was, Matt really hadn't been paying attention. Untill he heard a gasp from his sensors officer, that was.

"Report, what did I miss?" asked Matt, who was half asleep in his chair. Liftoffs were always dull.

"Sir, that ship that's taking off was being chased by Federation authorities." The sensors officer answered.

"No shit sherlock, what's your point?" said Matt, still not fully awake.

"Sir, it's exiting at the same trajectory we are, and doesn't seem to be changing course." replied the sensors officer again. The first officer had moved over to see what was up, and his eyes widened.

"Your point?" Matt asked. He was starting to become curious.

"Well, sir, there's a Federation Frigate at 262.169." As the man finished, Matt almost immediatly knew he was in trouble.


Normally, he wouldn't of worried that much. But if a special forces team had been dispatched to take care of him, then the Federation really wanted him. And with the S.S. Michigan sitting right between two enemies, chances were the IDA Frigate would be cought in the crossfire. The only ways he wouldn't be hit was if the Federation Frigate thought the small ship was part of the IDA Frigate, or if the captain was very nice to law abiding citizens. Chances seemed to be slim or none both ways (allowing that the ship's captain would probably not try to get close enough to the S.S. Michigan so that the two would be seen on one blip in the sensor log).

Getting up from his chair, Matt turned to his first officer. "I want shields on, and us taking evasive, as soon as were in orbit. That frigate is going to try to kill whoever this guy is, and I'm not risking this ship in the crossfire. Get the Federation captain onscreen, try to convince him to reposition so that we won't get hit. I'll be in my office. You have the con."

Walking into his medium sized office, Matt sat down, and listened to the doors closing. Looking at the small com screen on his computer, Matt hit a button, and hailed the small ship.

"Unidentified ship, this is the S.S. Michigan. Please respond, over."

OOC: I’m not sure what roll I’ll take in this but I’d just like to state my existence.
Ship name: Ghost Raven
Ship type: Heavily Mod Nel’Kimiss Fast Cloak Raven, (yes they exist I made one in the game)
Pilot Name: Kelatight
Crew: 1 (the ship is controlled interlay threw the mind, sense Polarus ships are organic and actually live, this can be accomplished)
Race: Freed Vallos
Occupation: Traveler of the stars, Trouble shooter.

I’m one of those ships you just see every now and then, when I decloak within a system that is.

OOC: I’m not sure what roll I’ll take in this but I’d just like to state my existence.
Ship name: Ghost Raven
Ship type: Heavily Mod Nel’Kimiss Fast Cloak Raven, (yes they exist I made one in the game)
Pilot Name: Kelatight
Crew: 1 (the ship is controlled interlay threw the mind, sense Polarus ships are organic and actually live, this can be accomplished)
Race: Freed Vallos
Occupation: Traveler of the stars, Trouble shooter.

I’m one of those ships you just see every now and then, when I decloak within a system that is.

The Argosy was powered down within the docks, a dark mountain among the men walking to and from their ships. Empiric's mood darkened once he entered through a side hatch.

At one point he had been a respected scientist, a leading researcher in Off-planet Archealogy assigned to the Nautilus. But when funding dried up and the government support went away, he was left pennyless and adrift in space with a heavily modified Argosy. Thus, the new occupation. He hated having to subject his crew to this hell, but he had no choice; none of them had a choice. Well... except for Marcus, but he was a soldier and lived for the thrill of a fight.

"Sir, did you get any buyers?"

"Geneve, did you ever think any of this was worth it?"

Geneve rolled her eyes, and started to get the medication from the cabinet. This always happend whenever he met one of his old friends. Empiric would get drunk and play around with his stupid knife for a little while, eventually falling asleep in his chair.

"I mean, for gods sake, we were scientists once!"

Geneve dropped a pill into Empirics drink as he sat down, after which he nodded and took another swig. "Thanks... and yes, we got a buyer. Call Carlos and Nicodemus back, I also secured the cover we need for Nirvana. Problem is, our share is cut to 20 percent."

Geneve stopped.

"How the hell did that happen? Somebody steal your guns and force the info out of you?"

"Bah, Tristen already knew. I dont know how but... ah well. From what he said however, the trip will be worth it. On this paper is where we need to be for the ship dropoff. I want Carlos to finish restocking once he gets back, and then get clearance to leave quickly. I saw someone being picked up for kidnapping on my way here, and I want to be long gone by the time they start looking for tech runners and dealers of stolen goods."

Empiric scrunched himself further into his chair, his eyelids drooping and eventually closing. Geneve looked at Empiric and eventually left the room, making sure to put his sleeping meds back into the cabinet. She turned around as she was about to walk out the door.

"And yes Empiric, it has been worth it. You make a better pirate then a scientist anyways."

buffered by his snores, she left the room.

sorry this was an extra post that i deleted

As Tristen Reached the Vortex Rikers Dry dock Shale bursto out of the ship,
"What took you so long?"
As She moves to slug him in the gut He gracefully sidesteps and gives her a little shove nocking her to the ground,
"Shale we can't play right now, save it for when we are alone and have some vacation time to spend with eachother, right now I need you to be the profesional warrior that you are."
"Yes Sir!" Shale says
As Tristen moves to meet Bones the old man starts talking a mile a second.
"Well how was the market today, I see that one of your customers forgot to ask you about the little red button on his rifle." The Grizzled Trader Laughs heartily.
"Well I made a deal with someone I hope you aren't angry, You remember Empiric?"
"The scientist turned Pirate, Oh yes I remember him all to well, Good man, can be a little to uptight sometimes but a good man indeed." Bones stops talking for a minute and ponders tristen's stance.
"Are you drunk"
"Indeed I am, and I have learned to hide it well if you were the only one who could tell, But being drunk aside, I need to talk to you about the operation and our latest edition to the team."

The two friends take their leave inside the Giant Vessel.

......Later In the Captains cabin.......

"So we are to meet him in the Kerella system in two days?"

"Thats right, I'm glad that you are not angry I even bought you a preasant that I thought you might be quite partial too, just incase you wanted to rip my left nut off."
Tristen hands the schematics of the upgraded viper to Bones, "It's all yours my friens, hope you will enjoy it."

"This must have cost you a small fortune."

"Na it was nothing I can't afford, hope you enjoy it."

[knock knock knock]
Bones's first mate Lupe enters the cabin,
"Sir! we are ready to leave and we await you and Master Da'ceana on the bridge."
"We will be there shortly."
"Aye Aye sir."
Lupe leave the cabin from wence he came, The Two captains look at eachother and nod, exiting the cabin behind The Vortex Riker's first mate.

The Great Ship Exits the Dry Dock slowly, then it Hits its thruster and heads for the jump point to the Kerella system to wait for the Pirate Empiric and his crew. They will meet in the Velmer Asteroid belt, which is very rarely patroled.

The ship enters hyperspace and leaves the home planet of Man behind.

OOC: That ship is allright Mechalus but you may want to reconsider. Noone will ever fight you, and your ship will be uncontested. You can do it, but it may not be as entertaining.

IC: "See if we can pull her next to that frigate, we may be able to avoid the frigate that way."

"Yes, sir"

"Don't call me sir."

"Sure."

"Can we make it in time?"

"I don't know, its going evasive and powering up shields. This could be bad."

"Chris, the frigates hailing us."

"Allright, keep trying to pull near it"

"Ok, I'm putting him on."

"Unidentified ship, this is the S.S. Michigan. Please respond, over."

"This is Chris, what do you want?"

OOC: Hairfield what u taking about get next to the frigate to avaid the frigate??

Bones Took the helm and orgered Foot to take the Vortex Rikers out into open space. Foot was a great pilot. After retiring from the viper racing circut he found that piloting was in his blood and joined bones way back in the old days." Bones ordered Navagation to find him the fastest way to the Kerella system. Navagation wasnt really a place Bones likett to hang out. It was always dark in that section and the personell where a little nerdy for his likes. (He wanted to be there first. Yes he Knew that Empric was trustworth but this pirate cash may prove to much. Even best friends could turn on you when there was enough money at stake. Money for bones really didnt mean that much. he just wanted some new reactors). After that he quickly called down to small fry the unruly yet extreamly eficient engine crew boss to prep the fusion reactors for max spead. Small fry was still a teenager and still needed to be kept on a close watch otherwise he could get everthing messed up like any tenager seems prone to. There where only 2 real reasons why the roughnecked engine cr3ew would pollow the lead of such a pimply klittle brat and that was his strangly emence knowledge of almost any ships engine systems. and from threats that if anyone decided to break rank in the engine room they could polish the ports without a space suite. Engeneering didnt even need a call. Bones' sister ran that department and she had that place working like a military establishment. They always had the solar panals pumping out the energy and kepth the shields at there max performance. Finaly before actuially moving out bones asked ears what he could hear. Ears was the sole radar operator on the ship. He was born blind and actually uses a n audio scope insted of the usual stock visual scope. Contrary to popular thought Ears ability to see with his ears has kept the vortex rikers out of many a harry situation. Comanding a ship of this size was like being the mayor of a small town. Bones know everyone by name and everyone trusted him with there lives. Once the ship was mioving and Lupe had been asined to the helm Bones retreated to his quarters

Due to the size of his ship Bones aforded himself some treletivly large quarters. In his studdy he sat down and pored himself some Zeruvian ail and pored over the viper that he had just recieved. the ship was so small and powerless that it wouldent really make for much of an escort. Yet he know how he could use it so he stored the seetis into his desk and loged into the maitenence termintal to have the men have ths ship overhauled for maximum speed and preformace.

Finaly there would be some rest. Things where bownd to heat up in the following week.

____________________________________________________________

Arival in the Kerella system awarded no suprises ecept that Empric had goten ther first. "Ears get me some readings we are siting ducks untill we know what the hells out there and what they are doing. Foot Get us over into thoes asteroids i want some cover" Yea bones whas a litttle anal but any slip ups now could meen hundreads of inocent lives.

:Beep: Empric hows life i heere that you are in business and have some stock in the same company that i do. Care to join me in my ships cantina. We can discuss our buisness ventures together. :BEEP:

With that bones had engines brought to a full stop and waited for Emprics ship to aproach.

OOC: Chris is using my IDA Frigate to try to avoid a Federation Frigate. Sounds weird when you don't use the first parts of their name.
IC:
Matt stared at the face for a second, then blinked. "Wait a minute, your the guy they tried to kill back in the spaceport...twice...who the hell did you piss of, anywho?" Matt said it more jokingly then seriousy; if anything, he needed to get this guy to work with him, otherwise one, or both of them, might end out dead.

OOC: Oh yeah, and hairfield, shields wouldn't come up untill I'm in space....as I ordered. If I break a regulation on the way up, the chances of that frigate being nice and treating me as a hostage is sl...none and none.

Tristen sits in the quarters assinged to Shale and him pondering the next move, Bones and Empiric were glad to join his little raid on this cache, He hopes that their firepower will prove to be enough to stop the pirate guards and then he can lay a hand on his prize, His first mate lays by him snoring softly, He looks over at max, who is also sleeping.

As Shale wakes up she grabs for the form on the other side of the bed, pulling it close to her body, only to find out it is hairy and smells like Dog.
"Max get off the bed."
Max wines and does her bidding
"So where did our Captain go off too."

As Tristen walks down the corridor he thinks about the device he recently recieved from a pirate merchant. Definetly Polaris tech and nothing to be taken lightly. He makes it to his docking bay and finds The Slander waiting for him, as he enters the ship he can feel the something is wrong.

He ducks just in time as a sword swings the air where his head used to be, not thinking he weaves around his attacker and simultaneously breaks their arm and leg with two quick strikes, he then knocks them out with a strike across the face.
As he looks down he sees that it is one of the colonists that they picked up on Earth. He then checks the fallen womans forearm and find the it has the battle tatoos of a Moashi Dog.....

"Aldeith definetly need to screen anyone who comes on his ship, especially when rats like these are coming on board."

Tristen reaches for his Com and sends word of the insurgents defeat to the Security force of the Vorex Rikers.He looks down at his side and pats his Needler rifle,
He then goes to the Back of the Slander, There he opens a hatch the leads into a secret stash area. Picking up his flagon of Zuruvian Ale he poors himself a small glass and drinks to the oncoming battle, Some blood will be spilled and he honors that whether Pirate or Trader. Men and women will die. The security officials come on board with a knock and take the Woman whom he defeated away.

Tristen then walks back to the hatch to replace his Zuruvian Ale checks that his Polaris weapon is still where he left it and leaves the ship restarting the security protocals and setting a new password, hopefully his Marine officer won't leave the security off in the future.
He soon returns to his quarters and lays down next to Shale and awaits the summons of Bones and Empiric, they will want to know about the attack that went on and finish planning. He dreams of his days on Heraan a young warrior wanting to leave his homeland to search the stars and make his way in the universe, but before this he had to survive three campaigns into Moash space and several Raids on federation outposts on the borders of the Empire's space. Then and only then was he allowed to Leave Heraan and become a private enterprise og his own accord.

"I don't know what all this is about. The first shooting got me, and now we are attacked by the Feds." Chris said, "watch out... Anyway, we have to illegal cargo, a spotless record, and anythign else you could hope for. Well, I guess my record isn't spotless anymore..."

The starbridge immediately pulled to the port side. It was pulling away from the Michigan and the Fed ship. It strained as it tried to escape orbit and stay out of the Frigates range of fire. Four laser pulses left the Frigate. They each hit their mark just as four more were sent out followed by an EMP missile. The starbridge pulled up and to the left sharply. It then dove down, straining the engines. The first missile missed, but the second that was just launched hit dead on. The vessel was thrown away by the blast and shields were nearly nonexistant.

"What about hyperspace?"

Alec just shook his head.

Chris' hope sunk.

"We need help from another ship, or this frigates going to kill us"

"What? The comms been on."

"Turn it off..."

"Its allready off, Chris, but we have worse problems."

"Let me guess, the frigate?"

"We have about twenty seconds till it catches up."

The only transmission that eminated from the nearby pirate ship was a single word: "Launching." After that the Argosy opened an unloading hatch, allowing a sleek Viper to shoot out amidst the stars. The hatch closed, and then the Argosy cloaked, leaving no trace of its previous whereabouts.

The Viper burned its way to the ship, stopping outside of a docking bay. The doors opened, allowing the Viper to slip in. It coasted into the bay, afterwhich various arms attached themselves to the hull. Empiric quickly extricated himself from the Viper once pressure was restored, picking at the cuffs on his rather expensive looking jacket; re-fastening the arm mounted gun. He handed a small identification card over to the guard waiting for him, who took it and looked at it long and hard. Empiric shifted his glasses on his face, turning on the transmitter in the process. He smiled and waved to the security camera overhead, wondering what overpaid fool was scanning him at the moment. He would take no chances aboard these giant ships; too many people, and one of them was bound to recognize him.

Empiric's frown returned as he grabbed his card back from the guard, and started along the corridor leading onwards; it wasn't too long before he reached a corridor intersection, and it was there that he met with several armed guards blockading all forward passage; a familiar figure among them. Empiric stood in the center and bowed to his old friend and sometimes competitor.

"Hello Bones, long time no see."

Opps, accidently posted same thing twice and it wont let me delete... ah well.

Bones liked the position he had empric in. It had been a while since he had seen even a little dought in the mans eyes. Bringing the pirate abord had unsettled him just a little and bones would take any advantage he could get these days. Yea he was holding an over powered gun under his loos fitting coat and had a small contingent of marines sorounding him. Still Bones wasent shure what Empric would pull. He was a very cunning and smart man. Without a dought imbonses' mind he figure empric already had a plan to take this ship by force if that was needed.

"Welcome abord i figured you would get a kick out of landing in that secific bay. It was to one that you destroyed oh so many years back."
"Ahh and this is the first time we have met since then biones. I havenk known you to be a man that runes and hides from just one little pirate. "
With that coment a fiew marenes (which bones quietly remembered) chuckled.
"Marines how bout you all go serch the pasanger compartments. One attack is too many on my ship. And be assured that if any hapen after your serch there are going to be allot of you trying to find a job in aroran space."

"Thoes days where so long ago and an old man has to be carefull. Lets head to the cantena where your partner tristen is waiting. We need to discuss this "situation they you two are geting me into."
"gese old man why are you being so freaking carefull we the planes are flawless and we just need to get there and land befor somone finds us out."
"Shutup and follow me empric. Oh and lets keep the safty on your gun. De presurising in space is a painfull event and i wouldent want to have some young crew boy have to scrub your guits off the bulkheads."

With that they headed into the cantina as the large ship prepared to hyperspace to nervana. Following close behind a cleverly cloked pirate ship.

[OOC: Oooh. EVN RP! /me ransacks Big Sack O' Entrance Ideas/
Be aware, this has nothing to do with my normal national buisness, and should therefore be ignored by anyone not in the thread.]

A odd, angular ship drops into sight from hyperspace.

As the rip folds up behind it, the angular, clunky ship fires up its massive engines and roars in towards New England at an astonishing rate.

SHIP_IDCODE: Andromeda Corp. MKIII Asteroid Miner Steelfang
Steelfang: Requesting landing permission.
Wolf 359 Traffic Control Center: IDCODE received. Request granted.
Steelfang: Affirmative. Dock number, please?
Wolf 359 Traffic Control Center: Bay 14b, Washington Spaceport.
Steelfang: Affirmative. Stand by for landing.

Landing negotiations complete, the Steelfang drops slowly towards the spaceport.

[OOC: SHIPSPECS: Andromeda Corp. MKIII Asteroid Miner Steelfang (From the Federation Database)
Speed: 450
Max. Accel: 140G with compensation
Turn: 32 degrees/sec
Shields: 120
Armor: 650
Weaponry: 2 Medium Blaster Turrets
Equipment: 1 Andromeda Corp. Asteroid Shipping Mass Driver (for sending asteroids off to be processed), Gravimetric Sensors, IFF Decoder, Afterburner, misc. upgrades, and Escape Pod.
Cargo: 30 tons internal, attach points for up to 200t external hauling.
Mass: 230 tons.

I'm just making this up on the spur of the moment, so don't berate me about errors, OK?]

Tristen waited in the Cantina, thinking about the latest attack on his life by the dirty Moashi dogs. He no longer found the assasins of any challenge and wondered any Moashi could best him. Telling himself not to get too cocky he oredered another Zuruvian ale and put his feet up on the bar stool next to him.
"I'm going to be passed out before they get here at the rate they seem to be moving."
As if on cue Bones and Empiric enter the Cantina heading for Tristen's table, they look serious and determined to find something out, they know he is keeping something from them, they know they will not get anything out of him, but a good merchant always trys.
they come to his table and the conversation begins.

OOC: OMFG!!!! GRRRRRRRR!!!! IT DELETED AGAIN! FIVE TIMES! AND I FORGOT TO COPY THE TEXT EACH TIME. Anyway, now that I'm calmed, I mise well say this. I don't think there is a Federate Frigate...I think it's Federate Destroyer. Oops. Anyway, change the name "Federate Frigate" in all my posts to "Federate Destroyer."

IC:
Matt watched as the Michigan came into the firing path of the Federate Destroyer. Lasers and torpedoes immediatly began pummeling the IDA Frigate, and Matt was thrown to the ground. Within seconds, however, the barage had stopped. Looking out the viewport, Matt saw the Federate Destroyer repositioning itself to continue fire. The captain was obviously merciful to traders who got in the crossfire, but Matt knew it wouldn't be long before he could begin firing again. Getting back in his char, Matt turned to the small screen on his desk.

"I just bought you like two minutes, I'd suggest you use it to get the hell out of system. And be careful; I don't want you wasting the two lives you just got."

Even as he finished, Matt knew the chances of this guy getting away were slim and none. If a Federate Destroyer had been sent to find him, his chances of making it through the sol system were slim and none. But that wasn't Matt's problem...Matt's "duty" was just to get this innocent the hell out of here quickly.

Of course, Matt doubted this guys innocence. While the Federate Navy had just gotten a large budget increase, Matt doubted they were sending Federate Destroyer's after people who were smuggling small goods. Of course, Matt knew he was smuggling, but the question was, what? "Probably drugs." he thought to himself.

OOC: For anyone who didnt see this there is a great site about all the EV Nova stuff www.evula.com/survival_guide I think. If that doesnt work take off the end part. Also, my internet hasn't been working too well, all my Federation Frigates are now Fed Destroyers, makes it much easier.

IC: This wasnt working as well as Chris had hoped. He needed a new angle, some way to escape. His ship could get away from the Destroyer, but not away from the RAGE gunboat that was conveniently flying diagonally to intercept him now.

'The navy must not have much to do..."

The woman in the back began to panic. Chris, or any of the crew, had any idea why she was so sought after, but she didn't seem to want to tell.

"Thanks for the time, but we really have no way of getting out of here. Out hyperdrive is all screwed. We need to land to get repairs, but thats not going to be easy. Either that or a good hour to try to fix it." Chris said all this rather gravely, and then, in an audible but much quieter tone, "switch to Rebel fo--- shit, uhhh, whats its name, turn off the channel, you know wh---," the channel turned off, "---at I mean. God, I never call it by its code, nobody can ever hear me. I hope that ship didn't hear me..."

"I'm turning on Reb four now."

"This is Chris of the Trimurti. We need immediate assistance. There is a Fed Destroyer and a RAGE. We don't have hyperspace working right now. Either help us fight, or get us off this ship."

"I hope that works, because we only have a few minutes. That gunboats awefully fast..."

"Rebel Four?" Matt thought to himself. "What the hell is that?" Even as the communication cut, Matt began to understand why half the Federate fleet was going after this guy. He was smuggling something, alright, but it was a rebel something, not a pirate something. Not that Matt cared...he had done the best he could, now it was time to save his own ass.

Rushing back onto the bridge, Matt sat down just in time to hear the hail.
"S.S. Michigan, you are hereby ordered by the Federate Fleet to lower your shields and come to a complete stop. A search warrant on your ship has been authorized."

Without thinking, the weapons officer and helmsman complied. Of course, their captain didn't object...the Michigan had nothing illegal on board. All the Federate Destroyer would do is search through, get some experience, and try to "punish" Matt for getting in the way. It wouldn't work, of course, but it would show up on his record. "Two arrests in the last 24 hours...that's really not going to look good on my record."

[OOC:
Character Name: Frederick Baker
Character Info: Frederick Baker is a salvage expert. He specializes in towing capital ships, and his ship has grossly oversized engines so it can pull these huge loads. His ship is well-known for being the only remaining Andromeda Corp. Asteroid Miner MKIII, as the company went out of buisness over twenty years ago. -Federation Intelligence

Note: The legs on Steelfang are designed for clamping onto (and into) asteroids so they can be towed somewhere.]

Frederick blinks as he hears the distress signal coming from the comm unit.
He leans over and shouts into the intercom.
"We've got a Rebel in trouble! Eddie, deploy weapons!"
"Here? Are you insane? That's practically suicide!"
"Do it. Mitch, charge up the mass driver and load some scrap into it."
"Will do, captain."
Frederick leans over and grabs the controls.
"Good. Deploy the legs, too."


Steelfang pulls up and out of the atmosphere, accelerating towards the gunboat as the engines open up all the way.
A set of six massive hydraulic legs deploy out of its bricklike hull.
Finally, hull panels on either side hinge open, revealing a pair of Hail Chainguns.


As Steelfang rockets up behind the gunboat, the mass driver slings a horrendous mess of scrap metal and asteroid fragments at the gunboat.

A few moments later. the chainguns open up, adding a hail of bullets to the barrage.

"Chris, an asteroid miner has engaged the gunboat. Its pretty heavily armed but still, gunboats are pretty powerful and miners can only have---"

"I get the message."

"Good"

The starbridge turned around 180 degrees and headed for the gunboat.

"We engage in 10 seconds."

Matt watched as the two ships engaged the gun boat, allowing the Destroyer the time it needed to reposition. If he powered up enjines again, he'd probably be destroyed, if he didn't, they'd probably be destroyed. "Come on." he thought to himself, "Thirty seconds, get the hell out of here..."

The Trimurti fired all the weapons it could and on the first pass, ripped visible holes in the allready damaged gunboat. There was a small internal explosion, but it held up. The gunboat turned to fire at the Trimurti as it pulled away. A barrage of energy and projectiles leapt from the gunboat, scarring the starbridge.

"Chris, I'm kinda losing control of the ship a bit. It doesn't want to respond."

"Crap."

"More crap. The Frigates bearing down on us and will be able to attack in a matter of minutes."

"Switch on the con to the reb frequency. This is Chris of the Trimurti. We need a ship that can take us to Rebel II, and we need it now. We are preparing to launch escape pods."

"Launch escape pods, this ship is useless."

"Self destruct initiated."

"Allright, lets go."

The three crewmembers and the rebel operative all entered the espcape pod, and a few seconds later, it flew off into the void of space.

NOOOOOOOO!!! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIEEEEEEEEE.......

shot in the head by senior officer

Steelfang's barrage cuts off abruptly. The miner catches up with the gunboat, slipping over the top. Its landing legs line up with the sides of the gunboat...

And they clamp down. Hard.

The massive legs, designed for clamping deep into asteroid rock, begin to bend the gunboat's hull...

As Tristen, Bones and Empiric chat, a beacon light comes on in the Vortex Riker's cantina, Bones answers his com and says a few words into it, and is then replied to by his first mate. He nods to the other captains telling them that this is the time and to get to their stations.
As the Ship lands at Nirvana's new spaceport, the industrial goods are sold to a market master and the colonists pay their fares to Bones and leave his ship to start their new lives on this new and unspoiled world.

Empiric's Argosy lands in the docking bay adjacent to The Vortex Rikers.
Empiric heads for his ship and waits for Tristen's signal.

Tristen waits in a quiet docking bay for Bones and his Marines.
Shale Quietly enters the Slander and starts suiting up for battle.
She hums an old auroron war hymn, and Tristen chuckles to himself.

Bones enters the Slander signaling tristen to open the back hatch docking bay door of the Black Mod Starbridge to let the Marine squads into the Empty cargo bay of the Heavily armed ship.

OOC: Guys, perhaps we should find a way to combine our two completly divergent storylines?

[OOC: I'm not quite sure what's going on. I just arrived here, received a distress call, and dived into battle. I tried to read the rest of the topic, but Large Chickens' posts (as well as Sun Monkey's) seem to consist of one block, and are almost impossible to read.]

[OOC: I'm not quite sure what's going on. I just arrived here, received a distress call, and dived into battle. I tried to read the rest of the topic, but Large Chickens' posts (as well as Sun Monkey's) seem to consist of one block, and are almost impossible to read.]
sorry about that im not using the correct english composition rules for my posts, im just typing what comes to mind, bear with me. oh and by the way get over it

Tristens eyes widen as Bones leads a large force of marines off the vortex rikers. As they swifty pile into the slander tristens eyebrows slowly climb twards his hairline.

"What, and you where woried about not having enough marines for this battle? Gese Bones there is enough marines here to storm a small moon" "Yea ok ill admit that i was being anal but i like my operations to go without a hitch expecialy when deeling with cornered pirates. Now lets get to waypoint alpha before Empric gets out of the bar. His whole heart isnt into this i can tell. And when your not fully into a mission people nedlesly die.

Under the black cover of night Tristens slander flyes swiftly across the hilly terain of Nirvana. Flying at dangerously low altitudes and using the hills for cover it heads twards a location that had been selected as a staging area for the upcoming assult.

"Leave me behind will they? Gah, I hate playing catch up."

The sound of heavy machinery echoed across the canyon walls. It took some doing to get out of the giant ship, but he had done it. It took even more to get his ship cloaked and out of the docks without setting off an alarm, but he had done it.

Empiric continued muttering to himself as the unloading lift hit the ground.

"They didnt tell me where they were gonna meet, that was fine... but Im insulted that I had to steal the blueprints to the base. You would think they didn't trust me."

Empiric motioned for Marcus to unload the automatic mortars from the ship, and set them up where he drew a giant X in the soil with his boot. He watched the cave opening through his scope, and spotted the auto-mortars he had positioned to aim all around the entrance, and a couple of back exits. Marcus walked up behind him, more excited then even Empiric was. Empiric motioned for Marcus to kneel.

"Marcus, remember, use the auto-guns to keep the base occupied while our acquaintances dash in. I will personally be leading my little squad to breech the hidden docking hatch over the hill. If anyone that arouses your suspicion leaves through the back exits, use this."

Empiric gently hands Marcus his Rifle.

"Now then, you understand?"

Empiric and Marcus stared at each other for a short while, broken only by the sound of the hydraulic lift powering back up. Empiric grinned, and walked back to the Nautilus, watching as Marcus made himself comfortable on an outcropping; his Auroran battle sense kicking in.

Empiric armed the detonator he had under his sleeve. He didn't want to plant the bomb on Marcus, but, if Marcus was caught... he was good as dead anyways.

Tristen watched the exchange between Marcus and Empiric and became quite interested in their short exchange.

"Was the Pirate actually Planing to Kill them of one by one as they exited the main cave entrance with a sniper, and what were those mortars for??"

Lucky for him he had waited around with Shale and a couple of Marines for Empiric to land in his staging position,

Tristen clicked his Com on and gave Bones the signal to start the attack on the cave with his legion of Marines.

"Knock on their door."

He then signalled Empiric to begin his phase of the attack.

"Knock on their back door."

His signal was answered by Three large blasts, Smiling to himself Tristen got up and Signalled his marines to hide out in a rock outcroping with their heavy weapons, one Marine's orders were to watch the cave and kill anyone who was trying to enter after the Three captains and their groups had entered the Cave. The other marine's orders were to watch Marcus and make sure he didn't start shooting Tristen's allies which included Empiric..........

As he Stalked past the Landing sight and too the entrance of the cave Tristen nodded to himself encouragingly,

"Hey Shale, looks like they took the cave entrance with relative loss of life; lets go see if we can help those poor welps out,"

she nodded to him, unholstered her Plasma rifle and entered the cave,
Tristen followed feeling the rush of battle He Unsheathed his Polaris Plasma Blade in one hand seeing this destructive weapon made his blood hot, he uncontiosly felt the weaves of the universe around him as he embraced his warrior spirit, he then entered the cave, to capture the cache............................

The destruction before Matt's eyes was...non-existant. But it would be quite existant in a couple seconds.

Just as he thought it, the Federate Destroyer came into firing range, and opened up on the two ships that had ambushed the gunboat. Matt would have done something about it, but attacking Federate Destroyer was not something a trader...at peace with all (including the Aurorans)....usually tried. It could simply piss off too many people. Yet, if he could somehow get the crew of the ship that couldn't hyperspace into the protected hold of the Michigan, he could get out without any real problems.
"Hail both ships. We need to figure out a plan to get them the hell out of here."

Empiric listened as the Auto-mortars unloaded their rounds. The ground around the entrance came alive as pirates poured out of the building, only to be blown apart by the incoming mortars. Empiric could imagine Marcus picking off anyone who moved within the blast radius.... He could readily envision the marines blasting their way into the main entrance.

Any minute now some of the pirates would launch some of their hidden cache in a counterstrike, and he was ready. That was when the well camoflauged docking port started to open, causing the sparse vegetation around the hole to sink inwards.

Empiric threw the grenade into the appearing hole, and could hear the shouts of surprise coming from within. Seconds later he could hear an explosion, he watched a large cloud of dust waft upwards from the hole. Now was the time to enter.

"You two, get on the edge and lay down covering fire. Geneve, Nicodemus, and I will get down into the docks. If any of the ships make it out, aim your guns at it. I dont care if you have to jump onto it and take it apart from the outside, I dont want anything getting to our cover fire over the hill."

Gunshots erupted from the underground hanger, only to be surpressed by Empiric's men.

"Now is not the time to lose my nerves..."

Empiric attached his hook to a pre-placed stake, stood at the edge of the hanger, and jumped. Followed closely by two others. If he was lucky, he could be in and out of the hanger as quickly as possible.... if he was even more lucky he could get to loading things as quickly as possible.... forget this percentage stuff; what they dont know was here, they wouldn't know was missing.

OOC: Sorry you guys, my internet is worthless, havent been able to get on for a while, I got lucky today.

IC: The escape pod launched from the hull of the crippled starbridge and into the void of space. Luckily, these things moved pretty fast, and it was lunched away from the destroyer, so Chris had some time to think; not always good.

"Chris we're recieving a hail from the frigate."

"Put it on. Let's see what they have to say..."

Tristen ran through the caves dealing death upon the pirates that seem to come out of the side tunnels like ants.
He checked his skematich of the cave system and pinpointed the hangar where the cache was.
"I hope Bones and his Marines have made it to the hangar."

Shale looked at him, "Bones is an old campaigner he has made it to the hangar and is most likely defending the cache."
She then looked over the outcropping and shot three times, she grunted with satisfaction as three pirates screemed in pain as their flesh was slowly eaten by plasma fire.

The remaning pirates started to break cover and run back to the hangar, which they thought was safe.
Shale shot twice and two more pirates went down , the other three ran helter skelter, but were outrun by Tristen and sliced asunder by his blade.

Moving on the two cremates headed towards the hangar. Fighting their way through Pirates and corsairs as they went.......................

"Prepare to receive them in docking bay 1." said Matt, as the viewscreen came on, showing Captain Hairfield, and the crew of the Trimurti.
"Um...Captain...we only have one docking bay..." said the X.O.
"Exactly, so open docking bay one. And get that perplexed look off your face. Captain Hairfield, you mind if we pick you up?"

Steelfang begins to accelerate towards hyperspace range, dragging the broken, battered remains of the RAGE gunboat with it.

"Guys, we're getting out of here. Specify a meeting point."

"Fine, whatever you want. You ship has to be better than that destroyer..."

The comm turned off.

"Allright, get what you need."

All the crew grabbed multiple handheld weapons and concealed them.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to this," Chris said as he grabbed a machine pistol and hid it under his jacket. "It won't be much longer now."

Matt nodded to the crew of the Steelfang. "How about Nirvana in the Procylon sector? It's not a very big port, and few Federation Personell are stationed there. It would be perfect for a meeting."
The escape pod flew through the small docking bay, and the doors immediatly closed. Before the Federation Destroyer had time to react, the IDA Frigate was jumping out of system.

Matt immediatly headed down to the docking bay, and, once reaching there, looked at the personell swarming towards the escape pod. Two medical teams and and an enjineering team were en route already, and, if more was needed, all of the medical and enjineering departments were on standby. Of course, security wasn't, but that thought never occured to Matt.

The escape pod door opened. Three men calmly walked out, trailed by a nervous rebel operative. Chris walked wityh a limp and was bleeding a little. A medic came to try to help him.

"Chris!" Alec whispered.

Chris knew what that meant. He didn't want to alert anyone with their firearms. He just waved the medic away. Chris stood there, waiting for someone to approach him.

Matt walked up, and nodded in greeting. "Pleasure to meet you in person...again...without you getting shot. First off, just ask if you need anything. Secondly...are you sure you don't want any medical attention? You look in pretty bad shape...I can assure you our medics are highly trained. If they screw up, of course, you could always sue for malpractice." Matt thought it was strange the man had waved off the medic, but some people didn't like doctors. The question now was where to go..the meeting place, or somewhere else first.

"Before anything, I need to know where you stand in this conflict. With the aurorans, the federation, the rebels, or some distant alien race?" Chris said, preparing to pull his weapons if the answer be the Federation. He didn't know what he would be able to do against all the crew of this ship, but he didn't want to captured... again.

Matt sighed. Somehow, he knew it would come to this.

"I'm with United Shipping and Sigma Shipyards....in other words, I'm a complete nuetral. No alliegances. And I'm not ready to break that nuetrality. Right now, I'm making boatloads of cash, and I'm not going to give that up, not matter what. My brother died fighting for the rebels...and all my parents got out of it was a flag. Frankly, I'm going out on a limb helping you here, but I've already done some stuff for your side with Sigma, so I thought 'why not.'"

As Matt finished, he noticed something. As Chris had asked the question, he had tensed a little. Probably nothing, but Matt filed it away for future reference.

"You know, I really didn't want it to come to this."

Empiric lazily waved his gun around in the air for effect, knowing that Geneve had her rifle pointed at the marines. He could hear Nicodemus finishing loading the supplies onto the surface lift with a forklift. Empiric had easily loaded more then the supposed 20% he was entitled too, but that didnt phase him. He could hear Bones on the other side of the blast doors, placing explosives.

"Well soldiers, you moved a little faster then you should have... see? Speed isnt always an asset. Next time, wait with your squad before running through closing doors."

Empiric leveled his gun and shot a marine in the head.

"Gee, I guess you didn't move fast enough."

Empiric shrugged and walked over to the lift. This was moving too fast for his purposes; he had barely cleared the pirates out of the docking bay before the marines showed up, and it took split second reflexes on Nicodemus's part to close the blast doors before the squad could make it inside. He watched as Geneve backed onto the platform, her gun still aimed at the other marine.

Suddenly the Blast Door blew, sending debre everywhere. The blast knocked over Nicodemus's forklift, crushing Nicodemus instantly. Empiric cringed and immediately hit the UP button on the lift, causing the floor panel to rise on a hydraulic pillar towards the launching doors in the ceiling. The lift had nearly reached the ceiling by the time Empiric could see Bones. Empiric smiled smugly at Bones, before completely dissapearing onto the surface above.

"Start loading onto the Nautilus, I dont want them cutting through the pillar and sending all this stuff crashing back down."

The two men above nodded and started moving the supplies to the ship. Empiric turned on his communicator.

"Hey Marcus."

"Ya boss?"

"You enjoying yourself?"

"Ya."

"Good. Set the mortars to attack pattern BETA."

Marcus looked at the control mechanism for the Auto-Mortars and shrugged. He input the code for attack-pattern BETA and was astonished to watch the mortars reposition themselves to aim at all the entrances. He watched as a soldier left the cave system only to blown apart by the explosion.

A bullet pierced through the air, blowing through his chest. He knew those damned Marine snipers were aiming at him in case something went wrong. And now, something had gone wrong. He watched as a mortar fired back at the area where the sentry was posted, and then the cloud of dust... only time now.

Empiric pressed the detonator on his arm. He could hear the explosion and see the dust cloud coming over the rise.

"Well, we need passage to Rebel II. I don't care how we get there, but there is no way I can land on any Federation planet. And there is no way I am getting into the hands of any Fed." Chris said, still ready to pull his weapons, but not as tense anymore.

Tristen knew something had gone wrong, the blast doors to the hangar were closed and there was bloody marine uniforms stuck in between the two peices of interlocking metal.

"Empiric you Pirate scum," He said; offering a few choice auroron curses that would have made a cunjo hunter blush.

He spoke a few words too his marines, that were watching marcus outside, and told them that if he started firing any weapon that they needed to react as quickly as possible with sniper fire.

Tristen then had a few words with Bones who was setting charges to blow the doors, they talked and decided that bones could figure the door situation out from here. Bones looked at Tristen's schematic for the cave, and noticed a small tunnel leading into an exaust duct, that ran straight above the main hangar.

"Oh Empiric I think you will rue the day you crossed me," said Tristen. He sheathed his sword and pulled out his needler rifle, setting his mini-scope in place; He began to head for his destination.

As Shale started to join him, he stopped her, kissing her softly he told her to stay out of this, this was his fight and he didn't want her getting killed over a bunch of stolen goods. She nodded to him seeing that his warrior spirit would not be denied. Shale stayed with bones and began looking at the charge placement on the blast doors, adding her two cents.

As he ran silently throught the rocky caves he wondered why he had not seen Empiric's scheming earlier than now. His higher than though additude at Trist's black market office, his willingness to go along with getting only 20 percent of the spoils. The pirate is smarter than that, he planned around the main plan.

Tristen's blood began to boil, He yelled Empiric's name to the empty cave walls, glancing this way and that he looked for the tunnel, a pirate came into view, The man looked very confused, he had a noticeable head wound.

The pirate finnaly noticed Tristen and became quite irritated.

"Now who in tha blazes be you mate?" the Man rambled.

Tristen gave the dazed man no time to think that over as he neatly clocked him over the head with the butt of his rifle sending him into a unconsious state.

The warrior finnaly found the tunnel, he started climbing up the shaft into the exaust port, and finnaly came out of the top port, this would be a good spot to wait for anyone who was going to come out of the top of that hangar. He sighted his scope in and started reciting his past kills to himself one by one in the old auroron fasion.

He heard a huge blast, and then a hydraulic lift starting up.............he shook with anticipation..................................................

"I have hypergate access, and can get you there in a a couple days. But first, I want to stop at Nirvana though, and thank that other captain. I got a mission there anyway, so if you don't mind...." Seing the concern wash over Chris's face, Matt continued. "And don't worry, the Federation has no military presence on that planet. Only the local police force and a couple of RAGE Gunboats."

[[sorry guys been out of town for a bit]]

For Bones the fight had been fairly easy. The skill of his marines coupled with the slight drunkenness of most of the pirates made his casualty rate neer zero. As he neered the hanger that tristen had pointed out to him he split his marine force into 3 different squades and sent them down coridores that would bring them into the bay at different locations.

Heading up the middle bones took a slightly larger squad. As he neered the bay he could hear gun fire and screams of pain. This would seem normal to anyone but both sides where firing marine issue laz rifels. Steping up spead bones reached the main entrance of the hanger only to see one of his squades caught in an ambush and empric clamly loading suplyes onto a lift. With lighning quick reflexes bones fired a 3 round burst and hit one of empricks men that was operating a heavy machine gun. With guns blazing bones' squad charged the bay only to run into the heavy blast doors that smashed shut. Without even thinking bones called to his remaining squad and had them start placing blast charges on the door they where behind. He then started preping the blast that would clear the lage doors that blocked his path.

Emprick would pay for this. He had killed damn neer one third of bones' marine force and bones could heer him exiocuting more. As the charges where being set tristen and shale came running down the coridore clearing out remaining pirates. With only a quick glance tristen knew what was going on and after a fiew words with shale left through a small access hatch in the wall. Shale stayed behined and nerviously chated about how she thought the explosives should be placed.

Once the doors where preped bones had his squad move back. The doors blew prefectkly sending huge chunks of door and ruble into the room. Before the dust even had time to setle marines where rushing in from two different directions firing upon empricks location. As Bones exited the dust cloud he just caught a glimps as empric and more than 20% of the spoils left through a large bay door in the roof. Once again there was a large blast door seperating bones from empric.

"Damn that space scum thoes are my thorium reactors he has." "First mate Lupe get the vortex rikers off her ass and over this location now. I got a pirate on a launch platform with my reactors. I want you to make shure he dosent go anywhere." Ey sir we whill have this bird hovering above the location specified." "Oh and ears if his ship cloakes i placed a beacon on it so you should still be able to see it." "sweet ill light him up so the gunners can cut him down."

Bones knew this stunt would get there little operation more publicity that needed but emprick would not get away this time. Last time it had almost costed bones his ship this time it was hundreds of marine lives.

p.s sorry for any mis spellings im in a bit of a hury

Empiric didn't like being shot at, it reminded him of his old lecturing circuit. When the hit his left leg, it was all he could do to duck down behind some of the munitions... it was a bad move on his part. He examined the box of missiles he had ducked behind, and decided to try for a less volatile location.
The bullet nearly struck him in the head when he decided to look around the side of the boxes. It bounced off a nearby metal box, and lodged itself into the crate he was ducking behind. Not good. He watched as Geneve used the forklift she was riding as a shield, ducking below the control counsel. He picked up his recorder.

"Geneve"

"What now? Isn't getting shot at enough for you?"

"Get out of here."

"What the hell do you mean?"

"Cut our losses and get the ship out of here. Launch before they make it out of the tunnels and tear us to pieces."

Empiric could see Geneve raise her head above the edge of the counsel, only to have the glass shatter on top of her. She turned it back on, aiming it directly for the awaiting hatch on the side of the ship. A bullet screamed past her. Empiric watched as the cartridge exploded, causing the forklift to weave back and forth. He watched as Geneve tried to keep the forklift going straight. It toppled, and Geneve spilled out onto her side. She nursed her wound for two seconds and then rolled behind the toppled forklift, barely dodging the bullet aimed for her head. She then made a run for it, her arm draped over what must have been a broken rib.
Empiric watched as she ducked below the ridge of the lift, and then saw her being raised into the ship. Now he could fend for himself.
He stood once the ship made it off the ground, and was met by a bullethole in the chest. He fell backwards, clutching his left hand side. With his last waking thoughts he breathed deeply, reeling in pain. Bones missed his heart by an inch intentionally... he wished he was gonna die, as opposed to what he believed was in store for him.

_____________________________________________________________

Tears rolled from Geneve's eyes as she ordered the ship to cloak... but something malfunctioned. She could see sparks coming out from the navigation counsel; somebody probably cut the wrong wires when installing a tracking device. She redirected the controls to her counsel, and was slightly unhappy to find a ship on her tail. She prepared for a fight.

"Fine." Chris said, worried. He wasn't sure, but he thought this was a trap. Just a setup to get the Feds to capture him. He would have to remember to lock his door if he got a room so no one could get his weapons. Regardless, he had no choice, he hd to go along. "Whatever you say."

Matt nodded, he could tell the man didn't trust anyone around him, but Matt could care less. The guy...er...what was his name...Chris...didn't have much of a choice, with a platoon of marines and 100 crew, it was either go along, object peacefully....or...well....receive the rebel flag, like Matt's parents had.

At any rate, he didn't have time to stand around. "If you'd like, I'll have someone...hmmm...you, over there...yea, you, come here. I'll have the ensign show you four to some guest quarters. If you don't mind, I need to get back to the bridge, and make sure we all know where we're heading, so we don't end out at the Auroran homeworld again....eh, Ensign?"

The ensign winced, and nodded. "If you'll come right this way, sirs."

Tristen walked up to a gangle of Marines encircled around a downed figure. He eyed Empiric's unconsious, yet breathing form; muttering curses under his breath Tristen headed towards the captain of the Vortex Rikers.

"I admit you still got it my friend," he told Bones,
"but if you'll excuse me I've got to be gathering my cut of the spoils before the proper authorities get wind of our little operation and have all of us locked up, I'll sort things out in the hangar; you know i'll give you your cut; Ill even package it up for your cargo bays."

He sent Shale with four Marines to start getting the Slander under way, He meanwhile would get the cache ready for lift off, and since Empiric had taken more than his share, his would not be as hard to prepare................
________________________________________________________

As Tristen walked into the Hangar he noticed that he was not alone,
turning around he saw his black market contact Mouse.

"Hey Mouse, what are you doing here?" Tristen Inquired.

"Trist I need a Ride, get me off Nirvana, the Pirates know it was me who ratted them out too you about this place, and the three guys that did get away aren't too happy with me." The short childish looking man stuttered.

"Sure Mouse anything for a friend" said the Auroron.

"well lets get started," Mouse said and the two began to seperate the cache into portions. One larger Portion for Bones and another for Tristen.
Mouse who was busily working never noticed Tristen sift through a small box and grab a small piece of tech out of it. Smilling to himself the tatooed man carfully rapped the tech in a soft thick cloth and stuffed it into his backpack...................................

Matt nodded, he could tell the man didn't trust anyone around him, but Matt could care less. The guy...er...what was his name...Chris...didn't have much of a choice, with a platoon of marines and 100 crew, it was either go along, object peacefully....or...well....receive the rebel flag, like Matt's parents had.

At any rate, he didn't have time to stand around. "If you'd like, I'll have someone...hmmm...you, over there...yea, you, come here. I'll have the ensign show you four to some guest quarters. If you don't mind, I need to get back to the bridge, and make sure we all know where we're heading, so we don't end out at the Auroran homeworld again....eh, Ensign?"

The ensign winced, and nodded. "If you'll come right this way, sirs."

Chris and his men followed the ensign peacefully, anxiously awaiting their arrival on Rebel II and thinking about what type of ship they could even afford. Their budget was slim, with only around 10 grand stashed up, that wasn't enough for a large down payment...

Bones watched as the massive hulk of the vortex rikers came into view.

"Hey guys here she comes i want the stuff gathered over there ready for a fast load up. If tristen left in that big of a hurrry then there must be feds coming. And if it isnt feds then it is defenetly pirates that are just a little mad." The landing pad was busteling with marines preping suplys, helping the wonded or baging up the dead fo a deap space burial.

Bones was happy with what was left. The thorium reactors proved too heavy to take in such a hurry so they where left behind by emprics ship. there where also some valuable weapons systems. Mostly tracking and aiming devices but they would do good to replace the non existant systms that where in place. The new setup would alow for a crew of 4 to operate teh total weapons system insted of a crew of neer 40. The rest of the spoils where just assorted goods that would make life eisier and much more comfortable.

as bones' ship landed the marives imediatly began to load it up. bones took this time to have a fiew words with empric.

"Im not shure if you can hear me. I know that that wound is non fatal i had a pirate bless me with one before. All i can say is that you should be layed up for some time. Well im guna leave you here and hope that the feds pick you up befor the pirate reenforcements get here. One thing is certain this place is guna be a bad place to be around in about 30 minutes."

wit hthat bones boarded the vortex rikers and had her blast inot space. he would probably just circle the planet and land in some other city. This usualy threw off and investigators because they always figured somone would flee out of a system after a major crime. A long vacation would be nice for the crew. Time to morne and time to upgrade the ship. All bones could think about was what had emprick gotten away with and who got to him first pirates of the feds. Hopefully the pirates.

************************************************
5...4...3...2...1... And... Action!

The lights blared up around the Galaxy 8 news center, part of the greater Federation News conglomerate. Stacie Stevens smile was plastered across her face as the camera cut to her.

"And the top news story tonight is of what appeared to be inter-pirate warfare on Nirvana. Federation Forces stopped what was a massacre, as Pirates fought over a large cache of illegal tech and supplies in a hidden base on the planet. We now have Paul Porten at Nirvana with a live interview."

The camera turned off as the pre-recorded interview blared across the screen. Stacie's smile faded as Make-up artists rushed over to apply her heavy mascara and deep red lipstick. She watched Paul over the small screen in front of her, imagining how this would probably be the only story that far out fool would cover in a long time. Her head snapped to attention, however, when she heard what came next.

"Yes, we have one of the captains in custody. We had to fight off heavy pirate reinforcements, but we have captured the aggressor Empiric Dougson. He is undergoing intense investigation at the moment, but do not worry, we aren't harming him. He was abandoned by his fleet, which we picked up as it was leaving the sector. Must have been a decent strike force, because all we saw was a heavily modified Argosy. We have no other suspects at this time."

Stacie rolled her eyes. Only the military could pull off that lie.

"We urge all planets to be on extra alert. However, if anyone see's anymore pirates attacking pirates, do not interfere. They may just wipe each other out if we're lucky." The captain chuckled at this comment.

Stacie smiled as the lights went back on.

"Later tonight, as we continue our coverage on this breaking news, we will ask our experts to continue their debates on the usefullness of Nirvana, and of the applications of terraforming. For those who are up even later, we will re-run the debates on Pirates: Threat to Society or a Necessary Evil? This is Stacie Stevens reporting."

As soon as the lights turned off Stacie flipped a finger at her producer.

"If I have to read this dribble one more time I'm going to shove my heels up your..."
**************************************************

In his state room bones reclines in his favorite old earth "lazy boy" Watching tv and siping on some darvinian grog he slowly flips through the large amout of chanels.

"For only 3 payments of 39.95 you too can have theis beautifull pen and pencil set"

"The great cunjo is a deadly predator as you cn see"

"Empric doug...."

"she cant take much more captain"

Bones falls over backward spiling his drink and scrambling to get the remote back in his hand.

"....not worry, we aren't harming him. He was abanndoned by his fleet, which we picked up as it was leaving the sector. Must have been a decent strike force, because all we saw was a heavily modified Argosy. We have no other suspects at this time."

The general Glaxy * news theam song is cut of short as bones tuns off the tv.

Aww crap the feds got him. Im guna need to keep up on this story to see where it leads. Maby i can get Rat to hack into some of the fed com nets and take a gander to see what he can find. I dont trust this crap about no other suspects.

With that bones heads off to the lift and down to deck 3 where the crew mess is. There is the best chance that he will find Rat. And to get himself a Darvinian grog. being that his nervs have just been re frazeled

Tristen Looks over the spoils gathered by him and his crew, His marines sat in the back of the slanders living quarters teaching Mouse how to fight,
A becon light came on and Shale answered the call.

"It's Bones, he says to watch out for any suspiscious activity, the feds may be on too us." She said

Tristen nodded taking the helm he punched in quardinates, heading for Auroron Space and home,

"Shale before we get outside of Com range with the Rikers tell Bones that I'll see him at the usuall spot on the Kane band in 3 weeks.", Tristen said

and hour later they were hyperspacing towards Tristen's home planet, to relax and add some upgrades to his beloved ship, and and to get more Zuruvian Ale...........................................

The ensign stepped out of the turbolift, and showed the four rebels to four diffirent rooms. Smilling he gave them each a keycard. "Enjoy your stay....and, just so you know, the Auroran thing wasn't my fault...he said he wanted to go to Aurora, not Nesre Prime, I swear...Anyway, the ship is open to you, just try not to send us off course. There should be enough ship's maps around to show you where everything is. Have a niced ay."
The ensign walked off, leaving the four rebels to their own thoughts.
________________________________________________________
"We've arrived in the Nirvana system captain. I'm not reading anything unusual, excepting a bit more federate activity than usual." said the sensors officer, looking over his control pannel.

"How much Federate Activity?" asked Matt, curious.

"Just a couple Destroyers and a Carrier." answered the man, smirking.

"JUST A COUPLE WHAT? WHAT THE HELL IS A COUPLE...DAMNIT, REPORT!" yelled Matt, leaping from his command chair.

"Seems there was some sort of large scale battle. The ships seems to be leaving." the man answered.

Matt ran over to the control pannel, to see all three hyperspacing out. Suddenly, something dawned on him. "Those ships must have been preparing for hyperspace since we jumped into the system...right?" he asked.

"No sir. Actually, they already had their hyperspace engines online." answered the sensors officer, and he and a couple others started cracking up.

"Not funny, buddy. Set course to land on the planet, and keep a look out for that Asteriod Miner."


OOC: Note, a few days passed between my last post and this post in the game, but I didn't want to RP just jumping around the galaxy. I'll assume Hairfield's charactors either kept to themself or mapped the ship, taking down all information they could.

Shale sat reclined at the helm of the Slander piloting the ship, Tristen Lay asleep in thier quarters.

They were only about 2 days away from Heraan.
Safe, or so it seemed.

In an instant a red light started flashing, telling Shale the someone was about to come out of hyperspace into the system they were passing through.

This section of space had no planets just a vast asteroid field, some sparce dust clouds, and a few space hulks. She piloted the Jet black Starbridge to the nearest free floating asteroid and set the ships course to follow the asteroid at a safe distance, but still close enough that the ship jumping in could not detect them; unless of course they had Polaris sensors.

She then left the helm and went to wake up Tristen and tell him about the incoming vessel........................

OOC: Yup, we just had time to learn more about IDA frigates. I'm just waiting to see what we find when we land.

Paul knew that if he didn't instill some more excitement into the story, his job would be on the line. Not only that, but that witch at Galaxy 8 would have a field day laughing at him. He looked around the bend, watching stretchers go by. They were still working with the civilian casualties caused by the pirates as they tore the place apart looking for any of the stolen goods. Somewhere was the military ward, and there he would find his target.

Paul motioned for the cameraman to follow him, the hand-held camera hidden in a black case swinging on the cameraman's side. Most field reporters did their own camera work using the remote-control hover camera's, but Paul liked to do things the old fashioned way. Besides, he didn't want to get blamed if the rotten piece of tech fell too pieces.

--Level C, Military quarentine Zone. No Unauthorized personel.--

Paul moved passed the ID scanner, using a fake card the news center provided him. One of the benefits of belonging to the greatest military owned News Center was that they sometimes looked the other way when equipment dissapeared. He tapped his ear-phone, and started to speak.

"We have just made it past security, and I am heading towards the isolation ward. That is where military prisoners are held."

Paul looked at a door to the side.
--Level C, Room 225. Patient: Empiric Dougson.
WARNING: ONLY AUTHORIZED PERSONELL--

"Ya ya, we got the point already."

Paul entered the room, and watched as the man in front of him breathed slowly, using a breathing machine and an IV.

"Funny, the military said he was in stable condition. He looks like he could keel over at any minute."

Paul looked at the needles arranged on a table, none of them looked friendly. Paul motioned for his cameraman to place a jacket recorder on Empirics hospital gown so he could start the interview. They weren't going to get real lively discussion, but they did have his voice on file. Besides, Paul didn't want to have to explain what he was doing anyways.

The cameraman suddenly grabbed Paul, hurling them both into a closet. He motioned for Paul to be silent, preventing Paul from moving using his other arm. Paul could hear the conversation in the room through his ear-reciever, which was recieving from the jacket recorder.

"So Mr. Dougson, are you awake yet?"

--No response--

"Inject him."

The room was pierced with a loud scream. Paul could only guess as to which needle was inserted.

"Take him down into confinement. Inject him again if you need. I want to know how he got the information, and if any Federation involvement was leaked."

________________________________

Seven hours later, the torture session was broadcast on Galaxy 8 News, while Paul and his cameraman went into hiding.

OOC: What happened to everybody??? It's been five days!

OOC: been gone. Doing sone nordic ski racing (waiting to find a way to tie the stories together)

Listening to the torture film disturbed bones greatly. yes he was now and forever an enemy of bones' no one deserved to be treated that way.

Tristen jumped out of bed,
"Great an unexpected visitor."

"Make that three Trist, their pirates, and they are headed strait for us, someone must have put a tracking device on us." Shale said hurredly

"two class 4 valks, the viper we can deal with easily enough, but those two may prove a problem." Tristen stated.

"What the hell is goin on up here?" Mouse stuttered as he made his way towards the controls.

Shale took one look at him and laid him out with a double strike to his temples. he was down and out cold.

"Hes the one with the device," she said

as she rifled through his over coat pulling out a little black and red device she smashed it with out a second thought.

Tristen nodded and hit the thorium fed thrusters, warmed up the guns and prepared for an oncoming dogfight..............................................

OOC: are ev orreveride/oraginal ships allowed in this , because i have a mac and cant seem to get EV NOVA (56k) i wont have a big ship , are corvettes allowed or , hawks , cos i could probably bring it in as a new type of ship and there arent anyupgrades in ev OV / OR that arent in nova .
if so here are my specs -
IC-
class - corvette -
3 laser cannons 2 plasma cannons ,
1 laser turret
one missle launcher with 15 missle , a chaingun (i have PLAYED ev nova but only a little way in) and a fighter bay with 2 defenders.
1 shield booster and level 1 armor unpgrade (OOC- dant know what its calle din EV NOVA)

OOC: Sure thing, we'll just say it's one of the older ships from back in the time of the Colonial Council (Which, as of right now, was known as the Confederation for awhile).

Isn't nice to know the rebels won EV in our thread?

The Blue engines of the Slander, glowed with the intensity of a nuetron star.

Tristen skillfully, flew the ship, weaving in and out as the valks and the viper attempted to pummel their prey.

Tristen locked onto one of the valks and emptied two of his Hellhound tubes, watching with satisfaction as the Huge payloads of the missles blew the Pirate ship in half.

He then moved on to the viper who had very good manuvarability. It raked the slander with several vollies from its medium blasters, and then got caught in some railgun fire.

Tristen was suprized to see the ship explode in a huge electrical ball.

"An emp torp, on the inside, that wasn't very smart," Shale said.

"Empiric ran into these guys i think, they were with a highly upgraded manticore, I recall the Emp torp strapped to the inside of their vipers for some reason," Tristen relayed.

The last valk try to run, but to no avail, Tristen's ship was much faster, He took out the valk's engines with overwhelming fusion battery fire, and watched with satisfaction as the Valkery slowed, and finally drfted with no help from thrusters of any kind.

Tristen looked at his first mate,
"Shale, we now have a ship to take, this could prove to be a lucrative, and dangerous............................................................................

I'm sorry, but I don't think I can stand to post in this thread any more.
No offense, but the amount of horrible writing, bad spelling, and general idiocy has risen too high.
Plus the fact that we've got at least three different plots here, and two of them I can't make sense of.

So, so sorry...

OOC: Meh, don’t be sorry. Sorry to see ya go! Just one question, if you would care to answer; what’s the plot line you could see? Cuz I’m having some trouble recognizing them myself... heh. By the by, as a suggestion, can everyone agree to run their posts through a spell-check/word processor and remove some of the worst stuff? Anyways, back to trying to find my way through this intergalactic soap-opera.

IC:

Geneve sat back in her chair, watching the other colonists go about their lives. She found it amazing how quickly bars went up. She read the placard on the wall, realizing that this joint was older then the hospital. Named after the same person as well. Her communications link blared alive.

"--- Geneve, this is Carlos ---"

She switched off the comm. device. He had been bothering her for the past seven hours to get back into the ship, but she wasn't ready yet. Being there without Empiric... Ah well, it didn't matter.

She ordered another drink.

She toasted the dead, then the soon to be dead, and then the living; names becoming jumbled as she tried to enjoy the dark Ale. Soon she would be meeting with a representative with the Rebels, who would want what she had. They had been after that Galaxy 8 guy Paul just as the Federation had been after him; just to get what he knew. She was lucky to stumble across him, and even luckier he was in need of a new job. All the rebels knew was that she was willing to make the exchange after a mission.

This was her first mission without Empiric, and if the rebels were willing, he would be with her to help in the next one.

The one I participated in, of course!

BTW: I rather like the approach I took in getting rid of the RAGE gunboat. Perhaps I'll program it in a plugin.. short-range, superpowerful tractor-beam that disables but does not destroy, with a high damage rating should do it.