We Make Our Own Fate (Alvis&Rania)

The running lights on the ship, the Fateless, flickered through the motions, as the ship drifted forward on it's momentum. The engines were a faint blue burn, ready to go if needed, but not running hot enough to really burn fuel, or to provide any real thrust. The ship was a frigate, once a backbone of a picket patrol. But that had been a lot of years ago. The style and design had been slated to be decommissioned entirely almost a decade ago. Old as the ship might be, it showed a number of newer parts on it. Weapon emplacements, a few communication arrays, and a solid array of shield emitters. Otherwise, the hull of the ship was pitted and scarred, evidence of years of violence and hardship.

Much like it's captain.

The com was pining in his quarters, adn the captain blew out a sigh as he swung a hand at the call button.
"Go ahead." he said blearily.
"Sorry to wake you sir, but we've got a hit on the long range scanners. There's a ship, large tramp freighter, skirting the event horizon of the Schwartz Singularity. Given it's profile, could be a ripe target." The voice on the com said calmly.
"Yeah. Yeah, it's a good target. Spin it up, wake the mob, and get everything ready. Fire up gunships Beta and Gamma, with the rest on standby if something goes pear shaped. And...get my boys out of storage, and get the ready. We got work to do."
"Yes sir." The captain leaned back on his bunk a moment and sighed. Then heaved himself into motion.

He stood and stretched, trying to loosen the muscles in his shoulders. It was a partial success, but the scar tissue on hsi back still pulled. He sighed, adn dug around for his shirt, and pulled it over his torso. He was not a small man, more than six feet in height, and showing the build of a long time fighter. He pulled a jacket on over his shirt, adn then grabbed his side arm off the table, strapping it to his leg. He got a lot of flak from the boys about his choice of weapon, and old style slug thrower. With the technology available, most favoured the laser, or plasma, but no, he was a hard slug man. He'd seen too many fights stagnate when personal shields started dissipating heat and energy. But a good old fashioned slug of metal ended most fights quickly. He head out his door, to the bridge.

The door opened and the captain strode in. No one rose, announced him, or anything fo the sort. He approved of it. Better to focus on the task at hand, adn not worry about standing on ceremony for the arrival of one man.
"Do we have an ID on our target?" He asked. A lean, squirrely man answered him.
"Yes sir. The Bountiful Venture. She's a crown ship, supposed to be hauling goods to backwater planets. Pretty far off her course." The man answered.
"Good. Launch the gunships, rake the ship from stem to stern, and off terms of surrender. But in the meantime, fire up the engines for intercept, and run out the guns. I don't want them to think we're not playing for keeps here." The ship lurched a moment before the inertial dampners caught up very quickly, ad the deck started to hum as the reactors fed power intot he bow gind. One way or another, this was going to end soon.

The gunships sped across the intervening space, adn opened fire. Underslung weapons made them hit far out of their normal weight class, which the freighter was made aware of rapidly. As these guns opened fire, tehy sitiched a line along the centerline of the ship, taking down the main communications, and venting a few sections of the ship. The freighter did not surrenfer.
"Call teams Alpha through Epsilon. Tell them to suit up." The captain ordered. The Fateless cruised in closer until it was along side the freighter. Boarding grapnels fired out to latch onto the freighter and rel it in, letting htem dock with the enemy ship. The captain walked away from his command chair, intending to jopin the rush of men. He was an infantry commander at heart, and he needed to show what he cold really do. He knew life was like to lose hope. The feighter had been rocked by the gunships, and then the boarding grapnels. The captain head for his ready room to suit up, hoping that the freighter didn't do something like vent the atmosphere while the boarding was goin on. It was all down to hope now.

Verity Linyl had been assigned to The Bountiful Venture after the government had discovered her work with dark matter. It had started as a mistake, a miscalculation on her part when it came to studying the energy uses of supernovas. She had been studying the use of the energy emitted when stars exploded and a simple miscalculation had turned her research into that of the power of destruction of man made dark matter; black holes used as weapons against enemies.

Verity’s mistaken research had led her down a dark path that ended in her work being noticed by those that commanded the intergalactic military. A vice-admiral had located her lab and cornered her within it to demand that she turn over all the research she had done. The young scientist regretted her research and refused to hand it over to the Vice-Admiral, frantically attempting to delete it from her com stand, committing an act of perceived treason. The Vice-Admiral arrested her on the spot and sent her to the prison ship, The Melbourne.

She had been tried months later for her high treason. However, over the course of the trial, her research had been dissected and discovered to be the work of someone with genius thought processes that had not been seen in the galaxy in decades. Instead of wasting away in a cell on The Melbourne, the government had forced Verity onto a freighter cloaked ship with a military command to continue her research into the dark matter weapon upon which she had stumbled.

Constantly under surveillance, Verity was forced to continue to work on the military uses of her weapon rather than the recyclable energy she truly wished to work on. However, the mundane routine of months on the ship had Verity noticing certain nuances in her captors’ behaviours. She would be left alone for a half hour every six hours on the ship and that was time she decided to take advantage of. Working diligently, she created a fail safe to the weapon she was designing that would cause it to malfunction with each attempted use, creating more problems she would need to sort out, therefore causing an inert weapon that could never harm anyone.

This day started as any other. Verity was awoken promptly at 7 am to begin her day. She ate her military ration for breakfast before beginning work. After lunch, the guard left her alone with her research for the standard half hour and Verity quickly went to her alternative research.

She had just begun to write a new program for the fail safe when the ship was suddenly rocked by some unseen force. Verity stumbled to the floor as unsecured beakers and test tubes shattered on the floor around her. Covering her head until the rocking stopped, Verity heard the soldiers scrambling around her as they prepared for battle. Battle? Why would anyone attack a freighter?

Verity’s eyes widened as she scrambled to her feet, the white trench coat covering her military green jumpsuit as she ran over to her com stand. Her long, brown hair was pulled back into a messy bun, tendrils of her wavy hair falling over her face as her emerald green eyes scanned the screen and her fingers worked feverishly to gather up all her failsafe data. The panic was palpable on the ship as the military command on the ship had not been trained properly in defense should a massive attack happen; they were more prison guards than anything, ensuring she didn't try to escape until the research was finished. Verity took advantage of the chaos to begin the download of her work onto a padscreen. Plugging the small device into her comstand, Verity typed in a command and the familiar time bar screen appeared on both devices. The download was enormous and her time was cut short when a soldier burst into the room, commanding her from her lab to head towards a safe room. Verity yanked the padscreen from its plug as she pretended to stumble with the ship’s movement, knowing her com stand and shattering the screen where the rest of her research was before following the soldier from the room, stumbling through the white corridors of the ship as debris fell around her from the ceilings.

"What's happening?" she called out through the rushing gas and falling debris as the guard escorted her through the hallways, pushing her to move faster as she held the padscreen against her chest to keep the glass from being shattered.

The freighter wasn't moving fast enough. It was pushing it's engines hard, but it wasn't going to be enough, not to outrun a military frigate. The gunships wheeled around, swinging in for another pass, raking the stern of the ship with fire, this time breaching the housing of one of hte engine, slewing the ship to one side. Fortunately it slewed away from the event horizon. The Fateless moved in, and fired a series of heavy grapnels, piercing the side of the ship, and pulling it alongside of them. Multiple airlocks lined up, and sealed. Override programs started their work, forcing the access points open, while boarding parties made ready.

The captain shrugged into his armour, feeling it adjust to his frame, a good clean fit. Assault armour, the kind worn by the more elite members of the government shock troopers, it was rare to see outside of their service. But the captain had been careful, precise, and managed to get access to a number of suits of it. The biggest change that had been made to the armour was the helmet. Normally a fairly plain unit, this onehad been reworked into the visage of a grinning black skull. The captain pulled that helmet on, activating it, bringing up the HUD within to make sure everythign was working. And it was. He lifted his rifle, checking it, making sure it was loaded and ready. His squad was already set, adn they made theri way to an airlock. It rolled open as they approached, and the squad swept forward. It was time to go to work.

Her guard was looking worried.
"We're being attacked. We're not sure by who, they haven't said anything to us." He answered. His comlink crackled in his ear.
"We have hull breaches along the spine of the ship, sections six, seven, and nine! Internal inegtrity is falling in that area, we're going to lose the spinal region! All hands evacuate immediately! Emergency sealing is engaging in sixty seconds." The voice announced. The guard swore.
"There's almost eighty people in that area! No way they're all getting out in a minute!" He cursed They made a turn, getting to a heavily reinforced door, and the guard started cyclingt he locking mechanism. It took a few moments, but a heavy vault style door rolled into the wall, allowing access. "Get in!" He ordered curtly.

Teh rifle barked, throwing a heavy slug into another trooper, laying them out cleanly. The captain and his squad were efficient in their fire, snigle shots, single kills. He could hear the whooping and sheering of the less adept members of his crew, running riot in the ship. They weren't in the habit of taking prisoners. They moved around a corner, and the captain could hear the rumble of a security door opening. Whatever they were doing, that was likely where they were keeping their valuables. The captain caught sight of a trooper making an order to someone, beginning to draw a side arm. The rifle barked again, throwing the man back into the wall, a hole in his chest where his heart used to be. The other person was a woman, but she didn't look armed. The lab coat marked her as a civilian, and the captain was not in the habit of shooting non-combatants.
"Freeze! Do not move!" He raored at her, the vocalizer in his helmet amplifying the order to a near deafening bellow, with a strange undertone of a growl in it. It had been a later addition to the unit, but it added that growl at around 17 hertz int he infrasonic range, the same frequency of a predator cat from earth. It caused a terror reaction on an almost genetic level in humans, making it useful in getting people to pay attention. He had, of course, made sure the helmets for his squad filtered the sound out.

Verity found it hard to maintain her balance on the violently tilting ship as more and more debris fell around her and her escort on their way through the corridors towards the safe room. Clutching the padscreen as close to her chest as she could, she used her other hand to brace her body against the walls of the corridor as they were tossed around like marbles in a jar.

“But we’re unarmed,” Verity screamed back to the soldier over the explosion, “Why would they attack an unarmed ship?” But she was interrupted as he panicked, exclaiming of the number of people who were going to be killed in 60 seconds, making her questions entirely unimportant. When they arrived at the safe room, Verity took hold of one of the metal reinforcements of the corridor as the soldier moved to open the vault. When debris fell, she covered her head and leaned against the wall to protect herself.

She nodded when the soldier opened the vault door and pushed herself up off the wall to enter into the sealed room. But just as she ducked her head to move in, she heard a loud bang right next to her. The sound was loud enough that her ears began ringing. Covering her head with one hand, Verity hunched her back took a step back away from the door. It was then that she saw the escort, his face a contorted mix of surprise and horror as his mouth hung open, his eyes wide. Looking down, Verity’s surprise was turned to horror just as the escorts look as she saw the bloody hole ripped clean through his chest.

Verity opened her mouth to scream but another voice interrupted her, telling her to freeze in place and not move. Verity, though terrified, cared more for her research than her own life, and fearing that the person behind her was from the government, she moved her hand quickly from her head and pulled the padscreen from her chest in a desperate attempt to encrypt her data before she was arrested again. If they found out about the failsafe, she would be sentenced to death for treason if she wasn't killed right then and there. Deliberately disobeying orders, she moved quickly, her hand moving over the images on the screen as quickly as she could, hoping against hope, she could encrypt the data before she was killed.

SHe wasn't complying, but then, she wasn't attacking either. She seemed to be trying something on her pad, but for all he knew that pad was tied to the ship adn she was trying to vent the atmosphere. It wouldn't slow down his main team, but the rest of the crew on board would have an issue with that.
"3! Pulse her!" One of the shorter members of the squad moved up, and raised her left arm. A small point on it pulsed with light, firing a small device that landed on the woman's shoulder. It lit up again, sending a shock pulse through her. It wasn't made to do damage, but it would scramble the brain up, stun them, leave them reeling. The captain waved them forward, teh squad sweeping up to see what the room had been. One member pried the pad out of her hand.

The captain frowned at the room. It looked like a panic room. There was nothing out of the ordinary in it, just a secure place to hide someone in. He opened a link.
"All units report in!" He ordered.
"All targets down, we have the ship." A calm voice answered.
"Good. Engines still working?"
"Aye sir."
"Pull us away from this singularity. Get me a manifest, and then start getting a detail together to strip this thing for anything worth having. We have a guest for the moment, I'll see what I can get from them." He closed the link, and looked around. "Bring her inside." He sat down at the table within the room, and took his helmet off. If he was goign to talk to someone, then it would probably help for them to be able to look him in the eye, and not just a grinning skull. The pulse was wearing off by now, so he spoke to her directly.

"I think you and I should have a chat. Why don't you sit down?" He said calmly, waving tot he empty chair as the squad took up position outside the room. He had his rifle leaning on the table close at hand, but he didn't make any moves for it.

Verity ignored the voices behind her as she typed as quickly as she could to encrypt her research. She had just exited out of the program when she felt something attach itself to her shoulder. Turning her head slightly to look at it, she barely got a glimpse of a blinking light before a jolt was sent right through her entire body. Her muscles stiffened as she stumbled forward into the wall, her hands struggling to maintain hold on the padscreen. Her legs gave out from under her as she struggled to maintain her thought process. But her data had been saved, encrypted, and that was all that mattered. Her fingers struggled to maintain their hold on the padscreen as the group of soldiers moved past her into the safe room while the one that had fired the pulse approached. Leaning down, Verity's fingers curled around the edges of the pad as the woman reached out to grab hold of her precious data, yanking it out of her hands. Verity's breath quickened as her eyes widened in shock at having all her hard work ripped from her grasp from what appeared to be a government soldier.

Two other soldiers wrapped their hands beneath her shoulders and pulled her up to her weakened feet. Struggling to keep up as they half walked, half dragged the scientist into the room. Once inside, Verity was able to find her bearings as the pulse of electricity coursing through her veins began to run down into the floor, exiting her body through her feet as her legs strengthened enough that she could stand up straight. Straightening herself up, she looked to the soldier who began to speak about having a 'chat' with her, beckoning her to the second chair at the table. Glancing to her left and right, Verity took note of all the military in and outside the room before she took a few unsure steps forward. Sitting down gingerly at the table in the center of the room, she lifted her hands and rested them on the table in front of her, glancing around nervously at all the weapons as she tried to assert her civilian status, her unarmed being.

Not speaking, Verity lowered her gaze as one hand began to pick nervously at the cuticles of the other. Tendrils of her hair fell over her face as her foot bounced nervously on the floor. Who were these soldiers? Why would they kill their own? Was this some coverup to make it look like they had been attacked to use the weapon? Was she no longer useful to the government? The questions filled her mind as she absently bit her lip in nervousness, terrified for her life as her breath quickened in her chest.

Well, she'd sat down. He wasn't sure if her silence was due to fear or co-operation, or what. But it wasn't terribly important to him right now. He had to get a few answers, and he imagined that she might be forthcoming.
"My name is Matthias Roan. I'm the captain of the Independent Starship Fateless. We are in control of your ship, and the troopers on board are dead or under guard. So that leaves me with one big question. What exactly am I going to do with you? We don't often take prisoners, there's not much money in it. SO the way I see it, you can give me some information that's worth having, adn we'll leave you be, and depart once we have what we want from the ship. Or, you can give me a hard time, at which point I'm likely going to just shoot you, and then leave the ship after we've gotten what we want from it. So I'm going to leave how this goes up to you." He said clmly, frankly, no real malice or threat in his voice. It was like he was explaining what was for lunch.

Roan had to wonder how this was going to go. he had to wonder at her age, how well she knew her history. Most people who had paid even cursory attention to the news over the last few decades knew his name, knew a lot of his record. Matthias Roan had been a colonel in the military, and had served for so long most couldn't remember a time that he hadn't been a regular feature in reports from the front lines. But then he had quietly 'retired' after an apparent fall out with High Command. His 'retirement' had not been so calm, so clean, and had resulted in his closest friends in the service leaving with him, and taking up the life of the pirate to keep on the move and keep themselves alive. As it worked out, they were good at it. Rumours had circulated, and Roan had to know what side of she might be on when it came to him, or if he was in luck, and she might not have heard of him at all.

Verity's eyes rose from staring at her fingers as he began to speak to her, introducing himself to her as he began to speak of how they had commandeered the ship and had killed everyone else on board. He then went on to explain that he had no desire to keep her alive if she didn't provide some sort of information to them. She had been a prisoner on the ship for years, trapped within the research that could end up destroying worlds as she was forced to work for the intergalactic government. Something this man, wearing the government military uniform didn't seem to know as he demanded any useful information from her. And if she didn't prove useful....well, he left no question of what he thought of her.

Verity's gaze returned to her fingers as she contemplated her fate. Was this just a trick? Some ruse to see if she would give up the research she had been working on so far out in space in secret? Being a prisoner since she was eighteen years old had removed any knowledge she had of anyone outside of the prison ship so she did not recognize the man before her; merely his uniform, which was not a good sign in her eyes. Thinking through her options, Verity decided to give up some information that hopefully wouldn't incriminate her as a traitor to the government. Biting her lip, she raised her gaze once again, her voice shaking uncontrollably as she spoke.

"Don't go to Deck E," she warned quietly, her gaze matching his as she explained, "There is enough nuclear material there to obliterate every being on board and it's rigged to blow without the proper clearance."

Roan blinked as she spoke. He tapepd his ear, activating hte com there.
"All hands, clear away from Deck E, repeat, clear away. Await further instructions." He ordered. He waited the few moments before getting the acknowledgements before turning back to the woman. "You see, that? That is the kind of thing that will make sure that you live a long, healthy life. I appreciate that kind of thing." He told her honestly with a nod. But his mind was racing. Atomics weren't terribly hard to come across in most cases, but were still rare enough that it raised questions. Why was this ship packed with them? It was a tramp freighter. Sure, it was a big one, but not the kind of thing that normally called for a nuclear response. Roan leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his fingers steepled in front of his face.

"So...why exactly are there nukes on this ship? And why are they rigged for E deck?" He asked.

At the mention of E deck being rigged, one of the soldiers in the hall set off at a jog down the hall, looking for a terminal. When he found one, he ran a cable from his helmet, and plugged into it. He called up data, and closed his eyes, letting himself fall into the link. Soon he was awash in the data stream, looking for anything on E deck, but making sure that he avoided any of the security trips that might be in place. What he found was a void. The deck was completely sealed off from anything else on the ship. He felt his gut grow cold. That meant a Black Bag operation.

Verity watched in amazement as the commander ordered all his men away from E Deck. Biting her lip, still incredibly nervous about the whole situation, Verity's attention was brought back to the man as he commended her on providing him information, indicating that it had saved her life in that moment. And then more questions were raised and the interrogation resumed. Verity's legs shook beneath the table as her back hunched slightly as her gaze returned to her fidgeting fingers. It was silent in the room for a few moments as she thought about the information that she had.

"We're," she stopped for a moment as she peered behind her at the men who guarded the door and the corridors, "We're a research vessel, sponsored by the Intergalactic Government..."

Her voice trailed off again as her hands moved from atop the table and down into her lap, her fingers trying to stop her legs from shaking. She couldn't think of any information that wouldn't land her in the electricity chamber if this truly was a test. There was nothing else she could give up without being indicted for treason. So she decided to stay silent, her breath catching up in her throat as she swallowed hard, terrified the commander would make good on his word and kill her.

Roan nodded as she spoke, runing osme number in his head. Government research explained the troopers, but nto the ship. A tramp freighter wasnt the kind of ship you wanted to run research on. Sure, it was big, and had some space in it, but it would need a massive overhaul just to have adequate internal shielding and sensors. It raised yet more questions. His com buzzed again, adn he touched it. A quick burst of words came, and he nodded.

"So, one of my people had a look at the ship systems. So E deck is sealed off, completely isolated. That's not easy to do on a ship like this. Expensive, resource intensive to maintain. And you told me government mission. That makes this a Black Bag operation, doesn't it? Whatever is going on here, they don't want people to know what's being done. So..." he leaned back in his chair. "...let's make things clear. I don't actually want to hurt you here. But I am a man of word, so if you screw with us, I'll have to make good on it. But really, let's be hoenst here. Is whatever you're doing out here really worth your life? Tell me what you're doing. Tell me what's on E deck. Help me help you. I just want to take enough to make a profit, adn then go away. And I can only imagine you want me to go as far away as possible, am I right?"

Verity lowered her gaze once again as the commander acknowledged her intel again. She didn't want to make eye contact with anyone as she almost cowered away from everyone around her. Then a beeping sound broke the silence and made an already jittery Verity jump nearly out of her skin as goosebumps appeared over her skin. Moving one of her hands up to grasp her opposite arm, she hunkered down as the man began to speak again, demanding to know her information, claiming that she wanted them away from her just as much as he wanted to leave her in one piece. Squeezing her arm, Verity lowered her hand as he spoke of helping her. Reaching into the pocket of her jumpsuit, Verity pulled out a simple white identification card. On it was a holophoto of her with a prisoner ID number above it and a ship name beneath it. Verity placed the card on the table and slid it halfway across the cold metal as she began to speak quietly.

"I am not a government contractor," she explained, "five years ago, I stumbled onto some formulas on the weaponization of dark matter when I was researching the power grid uses of it. The military found out and tried to subpoena me into creating a nuclear black hole; a destroyer of worlds. When I refused, I was arrested and tried for treason. Because of my research, the court deemed it a waste of talent to have me executed. So they put me here, forcing me to continue the research I had mistakenly discovered. So, the soldiers you killed weren't here to keep you out. They were here to keep me in. This ship is a prison vessel with one purpose; to destroy."

Roan waited, letting her do the math in her head. He'd found that most scientific folk could find the logic in cooperation faster than some. WHen she laid her ident card ont he table, and it went up, the first thing he noted was that the number on it started with a prisoner indicator. When she started talking, Roan felt himself go a little cold. There was a part of him, the military side, that knew that sometimes you needed to do what was needed to get the help you needed. It wasn't always pleasant, it was rarely well thought of, but it worked. But there was a difference between strong arming a response, and essentially intellectual slavery, and that's exactly what this was. He shook his head.

"You see, this is the exact sort of shit that made me leave the Core Worlds Alliance. Fuck sakes. So that means us leaving you here for rescue is not really doing you any favours then. And turning you loose elsewhere probably isn't much help either." He looked at the card again, making sure he saw the name there. "Right then Miss Linyl. Let's make this quick then. How close was the project to finishing? How critical is Deck E to the project going online? And did you want me to get you out of here?"

This was not how this was supposed to go. It was supposed to be a simple smash and grab, adn it was rapidly looking like it had become a resuce mission, and with another, not-paying job attached to it. This was going to be great to explain to the rest of his senior staff.

Verity remained still, her shoulders slouching as he began to speak of a departure from the military. It was the first time since she had seen the group of soldiers invade the ship that she had felt any sense of a fragile safety. Her legs began to slow in their tremors as she was able to press her feet into the floor beneath the table. Moving her hands back on top of the m metal surface, the scientist held the commander's gaze as he lamented the military's actions as well as her predicament. Verity knew that it wouldn't be long before the government found out about the attack from a lack of communication and they would undoubtedly come searching for her. However, she couldn't worry about that as a rescue was presenting itself in front of her.

"The project is in testing phases. The nuclear matter on Deck E is the supplies to create five beams to test on various worlds throughout the galaxy with different atmospheres and star proximities. They're scheduled to arrive tomorrow to pick up the first test beam and I'm scheduled to go with them to the testing field in the Noma system. If they come and find me still alive while everyone else is dead, I'll be sent to the electricity chamber," Verity explained, her fingers intertwining on the table as she spoke, still leaving out any mention of the failsafe to keep herself secure should the commander's speech still be a ruse.

Roan shook his head. Answers that he wasn't fond of, but ones that made sense. That they were threatening her with a shock chamber was a rare thing. They weren't used often anymore, having found far more effective methods of doing things, but there was a certain element in the governemtn that was nostalgic for the simple brutality. His contact with such groups were another reason he'd taken his leave. He stood up, lifting his helmet, tucking it under his arm.
"Well Miss, I think I've got enough for the moment. I'd like to invite you to join me back on the Fateless. But being honest, I don't advise sticking around on this ship, since I plan to shove it straight into the singularity we're near to make sure that it, and all the research on it, goes down for good. If they're planning trying to run a sigularity basesd planet killer, then I think I might have an issue witht aht. And I think I might need your help sorting this out. So...what do you say? Interested in picking up a life of interstellar piracy for a spell?" He asked her, a half grin on his face, the gesture taking a lot of the threat out of his bearing.

He was going to do this, he knew. Take on the government a little bit more directly than just taking their stuff. He was going to basically be starting his own lttle war. And that was okay. He had been born for wars, he'd found that out pretty early in his life. The military had just been a way of making a living while doing it. And if he was being hoenst, he felt good doing it. Going back to war, picking a fight taht needed to be started, and doing it for the right reasons. Not just beacuse it was convenient, or because there was money in it. Granted, he was going to have to find some money in it to get his crew to help him do this, but that was a minor detail.

Verity remained seated as the commander's expression changed at her revelation regarding her predicament and stayed there even as he rose from his chair picking up the terrifyingly painted helmet to tuck beneath his arm. Verity nodded at his offer. She most definitely did not want to stay on the ship if his intentions were to destroy it and everything on board. Standing up, she slipped off to the side of her chair and pointed towards the soldier who was still holding onto her stolen padscreen.

"My research is all located on a central server. If we are going to stop this, I need to get to the command room and download it onto my padscreen. Without that research, we have no hope of stopping it. They only need material to construct another one. With the information located on that server, I can find a way to destroy it before the testing process even begins. With the destruction of this ship, we will have time while they gather more material."

Reaching her hand out, Verity opened her fingers in an offered hand to accept his offer. "And I accept your offer of joining your crew. Thank you. And it's Verity. Miss Linyl sounds so old fashioned." The smile on his face made Verity relax a little more, the hint of a smile teasing the corners of her lips.

Roan waved for the squad to fall out, and they started moving down the halls. The weapons they carried weren't primed at the moment, they knew the ship was secure, but they weren't letting their guard down entirely either. They were headed for hte command bridge, making sure that Verity would have the opening and time she needed to get the task done. Roan smiled at her statement about her name.
"Well, maybe I'm just an old fashioned kind of guy." he said to her with a bit of a wink. He was feeling a lot looser than normal, the kind of feeling he normally used to have when on a campaign. It was soothing in some ways. Direction beyond the day to day was rare in his current line of work.

The door to the bridge hissed open, moving smoothly. The interior was not pleasant viewing.

Apparently, the bridge crew had put up resistance, and the boarding team had been typically merciless in their dealings. There ahd been perhaps a dozen people running the bridge, and they were in various states of death along the floor. There was no standard armament for the lower tier of boarding party, they carried whatever they brought with them, or managed to acquire in their exploits. The truly good things they found tended to be purchased from them by Roan himself, and stored in the armoury. That variety was evident here. Most of the dead had holes burned in them, clear use of laser fire. But one was all but torn to shreds, showing that someone had a needler, unloading a hailstorm of ceramic needles into their targets. It was a particularly unpleasant way to die, as far as Roan was concerned. One was just a pile of broken meat, showing the use of explosive rounds. And one of them looked to be missing. Roan sighed, having an idea of what was up, but not wanting to deal with it right now. He went to the command console, and pulled it up.
"You should be able to get what you need from here." He called to Verity, also noting that there was no corpse to interfere with her work here.

At the commander's mention of him being old fashioned sent a genuine smile to spread across the scientist's face. Verity had had very little comraderie as she was a prisoner and none of the guards had shown any interest in her outside of her research, leaving her alone and isolated much of the time. But now was not the time to lament on her years of loneliness for there was much more important actions at hand.

Moving with the squad of marauders, Verity had to nearly jog to keep up as they made their way quickly to the command center. She had not seen many more bodies en route to their destination but all that was about to change. When the door to the command center slid open, a rancid stench emanated out of the cleared room. Immediately, Verity's hand went to cover her nose and mouth as she turned away momentarily. The reek was overwhelming and she had to take a moment before she was ill from it. But the stench was the least of her problems as she entered the large room. Bodies and pieces of bodies were strewn everywhere, blood spattered across all of the bleached white surfaces. Verity couldn't take a step without her foot winding up in some sort of bodily fluid and she had to maneuver her way across the room while avoiding the horrific scene of mass murder that had been perpetuated before their arrival.

The scientist turned to retrieve her padscreen from the woman who had so ungraciously torn it from her before, while trying to hold her breath, she made her way through the masses of destroyed soldiers to the console. Reaching down, she pulled the connector cable from the screen to hook into the console itself.

"This is going to set off alarms in the principal server. It's an unauthorized download to an unauthorized device," she explained as she began typing frantically on the console screen to bypass the security measures, "Once this starts, we will have an hour, maximum, to get the information and to get off this ship," Verity explained as she made her way through the various passcodes required to enter into the server hub. Once there, she began the download, watching the lit up screens carefully, keeping an eye on any interruptions to the download that would jeopardize everyone even more.

Roan nodded at her words.
"You heard the lady, start the evac. Get everybody off this tub, and get ready to shove it into the singularity. Squad A, you'll stick close here with me and the professor. There is not a lot of room for error in this here, so let's make sure we do this right." He ordered. There was a small chorus of acknowledgements, and Roan put on his helmet for a moment, letting the HUD come up and him check the movement of his people. Everyone was tagged, he could track them, and since they'd been on the ship for awhile, he had a rough outline of hte schematic available. He could see points of light moving off from whatever they were doing, and heading for the Fateless.

But one point of light just wasn't moving.

Roan sighed, and shook his head.
"Keep working, I gotta go handle something." He told Verity, his voice carrying the mechanical edge from the vocalizer in the helmet. He left the bridge, heading into the ready room off to the left of hte main console. The door hissed shut behind him, and he could faintly make out a muffled crying. Roan rounded a corner, and found exactly what he'd known he was going to. One of the bridge crew, a younger woman, maybe mid twenties, and she was bleeding from her shoulder. There was a knife through it, pinning her to a desk. And she was mostly undressed. Roan swept his eyes over the room, finding the source of his signal, the point of light that hadn't been moving. And he saw exactly who he thought he might.

"Lijah, the fuck do you think you're doing?" Roan asked.
"P-please..." The woman gasped. Lijah looked over at her a moment, and then back to Roan, only to find that the Captain had advanced very quickly. An armoured hand caught the smaller, much mroe wiry man under the jaw, and carried him tot he wall. Lijah gasped at the impact, hard enough to crack a rib.
"Listen well here Lijah Cuu. You will get your ass back to the Fateless. And if I so much as see your weasel face for the next week, I will put a bullet in it, am I clear?" Lijah gasped, squirming in his grip, but managed a nod. Roan all but threw him across the room towards the door. Lijah pulled his pants up, and did them up, before bolting.

Lijah was crossing the bridge, when he caught sight of Verity at the console. He slowed his pace, sizing her up. It was very much like a predator sizing up his next meal. He almost moved towards her before he caught sight of the squad that was arrayed around her. He knew better, and took off towards the nearest airlock.

"Help...help me." The woman whispered. She looked at Roan' helmet. "Did you come for me? Are you...death? Is it over?" SHe all but begged.
"Yes. It's over." Roan said to her as soothingly as he could. He reached to the small of his back, tapping a med-kit release. He felt a syringe of painkiller drop into his hand, and came back around with it. It contained a huge dose, meant to be slowly administered to someone on the battlefield. Roan overrode the limiter, and simply dumped the entire dose into her system. Her eyes rolled up, and she passed out. She would be out cold for hours, and dead before morning. Granted, they were throwing the ship into a singularity, so she'd be gone much sooner. But there was no more mercy he could grant her now. He went back tot he bridge.

"Progress?" He asked as he came towards the console, removing his helmet again.

Verity typed frantically on the touchpad on the console as she bypassed security measure and password, one after another. The cold white screen lit up her face within the darkened room like a beacon, her eyes reflecting the light back making them even more focussed on the task at hand. She worked feverishly through the measures, the first one no doubt already set off an alarm in the central server. She didn't have much time! Looking towards the captain as he ordered her to continue while he left, elicited a nod from her as her gaze returned to the comstand and the transfer.

Working feverishly, her fingers moving like lightning across the keyboard, Verity worked her way through the server to locate the files she needed. Piling them all into one folder, she then began the download. More passcodes and security measures popped up and Verity's eyes never left the screen as she worked, never noticing the wily predator that had passed by her, narrowly avoiding disaster as he took off, leaving her alone to her work.

Verity heard footsteps behind her as she worked, but this time, her attention was never taken from the two screens before her. Even when she heard the captain's voice.

"Almost there," she said in an almost robotic calmness when the progress bar disappeared on both systems filled. Moving to exit out of the server, Verity moved to close out all the windows and comscreens to make a clean break with the system. Leaving it open would have left them vulnerable as they could track the information through the web.

"Done, lets get out of here," she said as her hand wrapped around the connector cord. When she moved to pull it out, a large flash exploded from the comstand, a white light that lit up the entire room for less than a second, followed by a waterfall of electrical sparks. Screaming in pain, Verity collapsed to the ground, gripping her hand as the smell of burned flesh began to fill the room. The electrical surge had been one final security measure that was designed to keep anyone from stealing any information from any comstand onto an unauthorized device. A security measure that had also been kept from Verity. Verity's hand had been badly burned from the electrical surge, her skin blistering almost immediately as she cradled her hand, her teeth clenched as her breath shallowed from the pain.

Roan had his rifle aimed as the sparks flew, instinct making him take aim at a possible threat. When Verity dropped, he didn't hesitrate, moving forward to get closer to her. Another member of the squad, much smaller than he was, with a white shoulder guard denoting her ass the squad medic, came closer. It was also the same member that had shot Verity with the stunning pulse. She made a quick check of Verity's hand.
"You'll be okay. Quick visit tot he med bay, we'll have you right as rain." THe member told her, the voice coming from the helmet sounding decidedly female, even through the helmet filter. Roan looked at the command console, checking one of hte surviving screens.

"Warning. Unauthorized access detected. Final solution enacted. Please input override to abort." The console announced in an irritatingly cheerful tone.
"Well fuck me. Mary, get the doc on her feet, we've a lot of ground to cover, and not much time." Roan announced. The trooper beside Verity nodded, and produced a small syringe. SHe gave Verity a quick shot, flooding her system with a hit of artificial adrenaline and pain killer. Designed to keep a soldier in a fight even on a broken limb, it would get her moving. The squad began it's hustle towards the airlock. Security doors were attempting to close, but the strafing runs fromt he gunships had damaged the deployment system, making them only close in a few sections. None of which were in the way as luck would have it.

"Warning. Failure to override security breech will result in self destruct. You now have 2 minutes to comply." The cheery computer voice announced. Roan shoved his helmet on, linking himself back to his ship.
"Get her ready to move! Retract the grapnels, and spin up the FTL!" He barked into the com.
"Sir, we're too close tot he event horizon for a safe jump!" The reply came back.
"And we are entirely too close to a few megatons of nuke to not risk it! Spin it up! Now!"
"Aye sir!" The com went dead, Roan knowing that they'd be bypasing the safety overrides, getting the ship ready to go within seconds of disconnecting from the freighter.

"One minute until self destruct." The voice confirmed. Roan swore as they approached the airlock, and barrelled into it. He hit the closing mechaism as they charged past it. The airlock sealed, and the ship detached.
"Hang on to something! This is going to be rough!" He called, bracing hismelf against the wall. There was a blue glow assembling around the ship, and it jolted forward. ROan felt himself hammer intot he wall, the acceleration pressinng him back as the Fateless made it's escape. It was a short jump, just enough to get them out of the radius of the blast. WHen the ship halted, Roan finally breathed a sigh of relief. He popped his helmet off again, hopefully for the last time for awhile.

"You all right there doc?" He asked Verity.

Verity pulled her hand away from her chest just as her skin was turning black from the electrical burn. The blisters were a mixture of white and red as they bubbled up beneath her skin. The pain was excruciating and the scientist couldn't help but bite her lip to at least distract her from it, if only for a second. She felt the captain move down next to her as she gasped in pain, her hand shaking uncontrollably from the burn snaking over it. Her other fingers wrapped tightly around her wrist as the medic knelt down in front of her, examining the wound, finally denoting she would be fine. It didn't feel like she would be fine, dammit! But there was no time to think when another jolt of pain exploded in her neck, a syringe with a pale green liquid emptying into her blood stream. Opening her mouth, in a gasp, her wounded hand moved up to her neck and then....the pain was gone! The pain killer kicked in before the adrenaline as Verity began bending her fingers, a numb feeling expanding over her burned appendage.

Then the adrenaline started coursing! The voice over the comm system warning them of the imminent self destruct of the ship. Verity stood up, the adrenaline making her body feel invincible as she grabbed hold of the padscreen with her data and research stored within. Ripping the charred connector cord from it's berth on the side of the screen, she hugged the screen close to her chest as the squad began to run. It was now a matter of life and death! Verity kept up with the soldiers, her trench coat floating behind her as she escaped her prison of the last five years. Running behind the captain, Verity tripped and fell into the airlock just as he resealed it. Scrambling on her knees to grab hold of something, Verity found a metal pole along the edge of the tiny airlock chamber. When the ship jumped, her grip was yanked from her post, sending her tumbling to the back of the chamber next to the captain, her padscreen skittering across the floor next to her, the screen cracking in numerous places from the impact.

When the massive pressure on her body subsided, Verity fell to her knees on the floor, her burned hand still numb from the shot but the pressure of her grip on the screen and the tumbling about the airlock had caused many of the blisters to burst and blood began running down her hand. But none of that mattered to her.

"The research!" she exclaimed as she crawled frantically across the floor of the airlock, ignoring the captain's question about her wellbeing. Grabbing the padscreen, she began touching the cracked screen with her bloody digits, smearing the red liquid all over the screen. She entered the passcode into her screen, only to have it flicker and go dark. "No, no, no, no, no!" she cried out desperately pounding the screen trying to revive the device, her eyes wide in a panic at the prospect of losing all her data.

"Whoa whoa whoa! Easy there!" Roan called, getting close to Verity, gently but firmly getting ahold of her hands before she battered the screen into pieces. "Easy! Take it easy!" He told her, turnign her to look at him. "Verity. Look at me. Let us help you. We've got some options here, and you need to get your hand looked at. You bleedin' all over that pad isn't going to get you any results, okay?" He looked at the squad, they were removing their helmets. One of them nodded to Roan.

"Look, this guy here? He's a tech wizard, we call him Control. Let him take the pad, and he'll try and retrieve the data on it as best we can. Byt the time we get your hand patched up, we should have some answers for you." Roan told her. Control stepped forward. he was a wiry looking man with short black hair. He smiled at her, and set a hand on her pad.
"If I may? Give me a chance to look it over, it might not be as bad as it looks right now. I should be able to get something out of this, if not all of the data, then at least some of it. Nothing is ever completely gone, not to me." He told her with a smile, trying ot be as reassuring as possible.

Mary put her hands on Verity's shoulders. She'd removed her helmet, hooked it onto her belt. She had long red hair tied back in a tight tail.
"Come on miss. I'll get you set right." She promised, helping Verity to her feet.

Verity slammed her hands down on the flickering, cracked screen just as the captain came up behind her, grabbing her wrists to pull her away from her panic and anger. Her breath catching heavily in her throat, the scientist stopped just as he turned her body towards him by her hands. Dropping her head slightly as he ordered her to look up at him. Verity lifted her gaze, her green eyes glistening in the bright lights of the airlock as he brought her back down to reality and logic. Nodding her head, she took a deep breath to calm her nerves as he motioned to one of the crew that had already removed his helmet.

Verity turned to look at the wily man as the captain explained his specialty and expertise. He was an information technician who would retrieve her research, recover her failsafe. Watching his hand move down over the broken glass screen, Verity looked unsure for a moment but ultimately knew that she did not have the knowledge to recover the data herself. Allowing the pad to be removed from her grasp, Verity's hands shook uncontrollably. Her nerves were shot and the adrenaline pumping through her veins was making it worse.

Then Verity felt someone else lay their hands gently on her shoulders, explaining that she would be patched up and her hand tended. Verity looked over her shoulder slowly and shakily stood up, her hands still trembling from the entire ordeal. Nodding her head, she walked with the red headed medic, her eyes returning back to the captain and his information technician, taking one last look at the broken screen he held, all her research for the past five years...before the airlock door hissed open, unsealing the rest of the ship as the medic led her away from the rest of the crew, blood dripping on the floor every few feet from her injured hand.

Roan tapped the com ont he wall.
"Get the clean up units down here, we got blood on the floor. And...prep stateroom two for the doc, she's going to need a place to crash when all of this is over with." He ordered. He got the acknowledgement, and then set off after Verity and Mary. There was still a part of him that was concerned about how this might go. The encounter with Lijah back on the freighter had him on edsge. Lijah was a fucking menace, but good at what he did. And what he did was usually useful in boarding actions. So Roan tolerated his presence for now, on the strict condition that he kept his stupidity away fromt eh other crew. But Verity didn't know to avoid him at this point, and that made her vulnerable.

Mary got them into the medbay, getting Verity into a seat. A moment later she was back with a few tools. With the pain killer running, she knew she could afford to be a bit more aggressive with her treatment than normal. The remaining blisters were lanced, drained, and cleaned. A moment later she was running a device over the wounded limb, blue light pouring from it. The skin started to seal itself closed, weeks of healing happening before their eyes.
"Good work on that Mary." Roan said idly.
"Dermal regenerator is hell on wheels for this kind of thing. If it had been deeper than it might have been a bigger problem, but she'll be fine from here." Mary answered. She looked at Verity. "It's going to be tender for awhile, so be careful with the hand for a few more days, okay? Otherwise, you should be fine."

Control was finished cleaning the pad off, the blood scraped clean. The cracks were bad, but not impossible. He'd carefully pried off the screen to get to the machinery below. Top of the line stuff, all solid state crystal storage drives, which meant taht it was going to be a pain to reconstruct data from them if they were cracked. He extracted the drives, and set them aside. Six drives. He started going over them. Most of the drives were intact, and that was hopeful. his hopes were dashed shortly after. The drives weren't independent. They were a linked circuit, which while increased the storage capability by a large amount, meant that failure on any one drive meant failure on the whole circuit. He arranged them in his system, pushing a faint current through them to try adn bring them into some semblance of life. It took him the better part of an hour to get everything as well arranged as he could, but he recovered a good amount of the data. Thre were holes in it however, and he sighed. Hopefully Verity could fill in hte blanks herself, since whatever she was doing was well past his own ability to comprehend. High end equation and math. He compied the new data onto a new pad. It was an older model, a field model actually, heavy metal casing and the like, isolating the delicate machinery from shocks. He'd bludgeoned a man unconcious with a pad like this without any appreciable data loss. It should suit her needs a bit better.

"Sir?" Control asked from the entrance to the med bay. "If our new guest is feeling up to it, I have what data I could retrieve for her here."