Arms uplifted in a position reminiscent of Atlas holding the
Heavens and lilac eyes submerged into pools of indigo light, K’llan Z’arr
turned to the panicked worker and in a ragged voice ordered, “Go…
now
!”
The Zirgesh turned his double–heart shaped head towards the Vosaia,
rapidly blinking six obsidian eyes, then scrambled to his feet while yelping in
a reedy voice, “Uh… yes, yes! Gratitude!”
As soon as the Zirgesh factory–worker reached safety, Z’arr
seemed to increase her concentration, then at her command, the dome–shaped K–Shield
angled itself and several hundred pounds of shattered glass pieces slid down to
the ground between the Vosaia and Human. Within the passage of a heartbeat, the
blue light of the kobalt infused barrier abruptly winked out of existence.
Exhaling deeply, K’llan Z’arr briefly met Avara Serros’s
eyes, then turned and sprinted down a pathway to her right between two
untouched panel scaffolds. Yet again, Captain Serros took off after her,
scrambling over crystal and durexium, joined a moment later by Perez, Naxos,
and Rygel.
“Well, this is very exciting.” Lieutenant Rygel commented as
he climbed over the large heap of glass next to Serros, blond head bright in
the warehouse’s glass–reflected light.
“Of course, it is a hunt, but we must hurry before our prey
escapes.” Lieutenant Belgrum Naxos chimed in, saurian form leaping over the
pile with almost frightening ease.
“It looks like that’s exactly what may happen.” Commander Perez
added as the four Nova Squad members watched while Z’arr once again caused a
localized explosion with a hand grenade to take out a portion of the
manufacturing building’s wall and jumped through the self–created doorway.
“Double–time, people!” Serros yelled, again pouring on the
speed, this time outdistancing her Squadmates to reach the opening just as she
caught site of Z’arr slipping into a matte–green, glass roofed sky–car that she’d
dropped to. Now the commands she issued earlier on her CPA made observable sense.
“Gonna lose her!” Marcus Perez called.
With a yell of defiance, Avara reached the edge and leaped
towards the closed sky transport, landing with a heavy
thud
and frantically
scrambling to catch hold of the roof. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see
the rest of the Squad slide to a halt at the splintered building wall and could
hear Perez comming Major Ca’rrakk for a fast pick up.
Z’arr immediately started swerving in wild yet fully
controlled maneuvers designed to drop her unwanted passenger, causing the Captain
to lose her grip for a moment and slip to the passenger side of the two person sky–car.
She barely caught herself before she tumbled into the night–cradled street
below. Traffic ripped the atmosphere next to her as the Vosaia driver plotted
the vehicle’s path perilously close to oncoming sky–lane traffic.
Holding on for dear life and beginning to have serious
doubts as to the merits of her plan, Captain Serros discarded the idea of
trying to use her pistol to break into the STV’s glass side–roof for fear of
harming the rogue Agent she now fully intended to capture alive. Gripping the sky–car’s
roof bar with her left hand while her feet locked onto the boarding rim and,
once again wishing she was wearing her armor, the Shield Operative resolved
herself to having to do this the
hardest,
rather than just the hard way.
Serros drew her MA knife–hilt from her side, thumbed the
activation button, and a split second later the hilt’s micro–assembler had flash–crafted
a durexium bowie–knife blade. With all of the Arca–infused force at her
command, Serros thrust the nine inch steel–hued knife blade down, slicing into
the glass side–roof with ease and ripping a full section away.
With a startled yell, Lieutenant Z’arr pulled the green transport
into a dizzying climb, running the vehicle far beyond its build specifications
in an attempt to dislodge the Human Captain. Almost losing her grip on the
knife, Serros grabbed the STV’s roof–lip, slicing her hand for the effort but
maintaining her hold. Once more she thrust her knife through the flexible
glass, taking out another large section like peeling skin from an overripe
orange. In answer, the Vosaia pilot pushed her controls down and to the right,
the grim determination flashing across her features causing Serros to take a
quick survey.
Maybe not my best day
cracked into Avara’s mind as
she spotted a weather–scarred advert strut closing in at a breathtaking rate.
Gripping the boarding bar with both hands, Captain Serros
deliberately swung herself out and then
into
the half–torn, flexible
side–glass. She made the vehicle’s interior in a spray of glass just before the
strut would have diced her in half. Upon entry, Serros’s booted feet struck
Z’arr, causing a suppressed groan and a slip on the sky–car’s choke. The result
was an ear–rending screech as the side of their transport scraped another STV
in the adjacent sky–lane.
An instant later, K’llan Z’arr’s right elbow struck out even
as her left hand stabilized their trajectory, only to be caught, deflected, and
the blow returned by Serros. The next thirty seconds or so became a dizzy,
vomit–inducing exchange of speed–defying blows, parries, half–kicks, and
attempts by both women to keep the vehicle stable.
“Captain Serros, we’re closing in. Situation?” Lieutenant Dane
Rygel’s voice came in over full audio through her CPA rather than her ear
piece, which had evidently been lost at some point during the evening’s gymnastic
endeavors.
“A little…
uh
… occupied right now.” Serros answered
as one of Z’arr’s blow’s slipped past her guard to smash into her solar plexus.
“Any time you wish to join your friends… is fine with me.”
Z’arr commented acidly, attempting four more strikes before her sentence was completed.
Catching each effort, Avara grinned wolfishly. “But we seem
to be getting along so very well.”
Before the Vosaia had a chance to retort, something large
slammed into the side of their transport, causing the vehicle to careen down and
out of the appropriate sky–lane and rake its already damaged side against a light
azure and steel colored glass building. The result was yet more shattering sheets
of glass, the glittering shards tumbling from view into the traffic lanes below
like falling stars.
Turning her head, Avara spied a gold and red colored
transport vehicle at three o’clock and a stony–faced Major Goyan Hadarr behind
the controls. Serros also noted
Excalibur’s
ES2
shuttle was
visible, currently maintaining a nine o’ clock position.
Z’arr swore and wrestled with the choke to regain control, Captain
Serros instinctively reaching out to help her to ensure their mutual survival.
For the span of a slow heartbeat, the two worked in concert then,
just as the transport leveled some, once more Hadarr’s gold STV slammed into
their battered green vehicle. The impact smacked loose Serros’s half–grip on
the choke as she was hurled bodily to the rear–interior of the transport, then
half out of the busted glass siding she’d originally entered in through.
Reacting quickly, Z’arr floored the STV straight down,
swerving the transport to avoid the other Vosaia who was so close to her tail
that the two sky–cars were practically kissing. With another twist Avara, who’d
literally been clutching with all of her might onto the battered doorway and,
lying flat against the STV’s side due to the very real constraints of gravity,
finally lost her grip entirely. Despite her best efforts, she slid across the plane
of the transport and then out into open air.
* * * * *
As the night and lights enveloped her like a swimmer caught
and swept under the languidly warm yet potentially lethal waves of her
childhood home on Kylos, Captain Avara Serros was struck by the momentary
thought that the failure of her mission would be ‘
"
One Hell of A Mess
" for Marcus to explain
in a report to the Quorum and Naval HQ. Then suddenly, she could see him,
really
see him. He was directly below and balancing in an almost hysterically funny
and certainly ridiculously precarious position.
Both Ca’rrakk and Belgrum Naxos were holding onto the side
of their shuttle port doorway with one hand, and gripping Marcus’s holster–harness
with the other. Half suspended out of the shuttle’s entry, Commander Marcus Perez
had both arms outstretched towards her. The hilarity of the situation really
lay in the fact that the shuttle itself was practically hovering on its
starboard side, gradually de’celling to match her fall speed.
“Avara. To me;
grab on
!” Marcus’s golden–brown eyes
were dark with worry, the muscles of his neck popping as he stretched steel and
sapphire armored arms towards her.
Getting her darting emotions under control, the Captain
inhaled and, exerting effort, focused much as Z’arr had done earlier but in a
different variant, causing her entire body to be sheathed skin–close in the
dark blue colored energy of a K–Shield. Serros stretched out her fingers and
felt them almost painfully crushed by Perez’s life–or–death grip. With a
jarring thud, Avara smacked into his body, causing both of them as well Lieutenant
Naxos and Major Ca’rrakk to all crash into the port side of the shuttle.
“You guys okay?” Serros spat out a second later, pushing
herself into an upright position and stamping out the black–threatening pain of
her lacerated hands.
“Tolerable.” Ca’rrakk answered with a grunt, fur flat in
anxiety and irritation.
“Yeah, great. Let’s
not
do that again, okay?” Perez remarked,
rubbing a bruised jaw.
“No promises, buddy.” Serros answered with a shaky grin.
“
So
not surprised.” Her EXO retorted.
“Major Hadarr, status?” Serros asked after having Commed her
CPA.
A crashing sound could be heard over the channel, followed
by several moments of silence and then another crashing sound reminiscent of a
stack of steel crates filled with seashells tumbling down the side of a cliff,
smashing into the rock face again and again before finally hitting turf.
“Lost her, Captain Serros. And my STV.” Major Hadarr’s
strained voice echoed throughout the shuttle, her tone frustrated and slightly
embarrassed.
“All right; we’ll pick you up and regroup. It’s not over
yet, people.” Serros replied.
* * * * *
“According to Odass, the meeting between Lieutenant K’llan Z’arr
and our unknowns will take place tomorrow night at the Adrenix Factory at two
in the morning, local time. That was all he knew.”
“Do we trust his information?” Lieutenant Commander Diana Adeline
asked over the Comm, worry etched in her voice.
“Yes. He’s proven a valuable resource to Quorum Strategic
High Risk, Intelligence and Enforcement.” Hadarr answered the Ops and Intel Officer’s
query.
“Just like that?” Commander Marcus Perez asked, surprise
evident as he paced around the hotel room Nova Squad had rented for the day, the
team having decided it was better to not draw too much attention to themselves by
ferrying back and forth from Ophere to
Excalibur
. As accommodations
went, their quarters and the Harmunn Hotel were anything but impressive.
“Ha. Just like that with a promise to not look too closely
into some shady business dealings and a generous fee for his information
services.” Avara added dryly, issuing her signature, crooked half–smile.
“Did the fence have any intel regarding what kind of forces
we can expect at the meet?” Lieutenant Naxos asked, his vibrato gently rolling
through the room.
“Unfortunately not.” Major Hadarr answered. “And setting up
recon tech may very well give the game away.”
“Captain,
please
hold still.” Major Ca’rrakk
admonished, his large, fur–covered, four–fingered hands surprisingly gentle as
he adroitly treated first Serros’s ear then lacerated hands.
“Sorry.” Avara answered the
Excalibur’s
Senior
Science Officer and Nova Squad’s prime Field Medic. “Rygel, any hits confirming
Z’arr’s whereabouts?”
“Mm. None so far, Captain.” The Lieutenant responded,
fingering the bridge of his nose as he scanned data feeds coming in over his
CPA, river–water hued eyes flicking at a rapid rate over reports. “I’ve hacked
into Ophere’s local Peace Keeping network; a lot of chatter and effort to
ascertain who tore through a certain glass production company a couple of hours
ago,” Rygel said the last with a short chuckle. “But the PK has little that’s
helpful. Also, nothing useful as far as unusual transactions from Voss’s
finance centers.”
“Okay, Dane. Keep at it. There’s something…
off
about
Lieutenant Z’arr.” The Captain stated, trying place a mental finger on the
reasons for her instinct.
“If you mean ‘off’ as in our target slipped away from us, I
agree.” Belgrum Naxos commented, the trained, professional hunter and scout in
him irritated at the escape of their prey.
“No, I mean off in the sense that K’llan Z’arr doesn’t fit
the template of willing betrayer.”
“And why is that, Captain Serros?” Major Hadarr asked, a
skeptical cast to her voice.
“Because she could have let the glass–factory worker be
crushed and in doing so, have had a much better chance at securing her escape.
She didn’t.” Captain Serros said flatly, confidence growing as her thoughts
aligned with instinct.
“Many people commit crimes because they think their actions
are correct, or because they feel situation has compelled them to do so.” Major
Hadarr remarked, her sincerity of belief unusually easy to read, turquoise stare
challenging.
“Perhaps.” Avara replied with a shrug. But in her mind, she
replayed Z’arr’s actions and enacting of the K–Shield. “Either way, I want it
clear that our mission is
to capture
, not kill Lieutenant Z’arr.”
