That's when Max feels, rather than hears, his wrist restraints disengage with a subtle click. He's free and the two Imperial guards haven't seemed to notice.
Max does a double-take on the restraint release. He's seen way to many movies to know this is either well conceived trap or a too-good-to-true moment.
The Action Scientist slowly walks away from the guards, waiting for any sort of reaction to the restraint's release.
The two Turai don't seem to mind Max wandering a few paces around the pavilion. To be honest, though, they're hardly any way they could tell Max's cuffs are unlocked. They're still on his wrists, they've just become looser and ready to drop off at a moment's notice.
Max checks his minders' positions and continues to push his luck, as it were. Besides the lift, which is blocked by the Turai, Max spots a wide, arched hallway transitioning into what looks like a tiny museum. Dim lighting is punctuated by tiny relics inside casements. He figures this is the show-off entrance to the Keepers' facility on the station. There's a hatchway beyond the entrance, but Max can't discern what kind of security it has.
Max notes one of the Turai's bootsteps on the deck as he heads closer to the museum/lobby.
*Quit fucking around and wait out here,* the Imperial calls.
*Excuse me, Officer Dickwad. You could have just told me that. Who or what am I waiting for anyway? Your ship is still is broken and requires a lot of repairs which aren't getting done, as you say...while I'm fucking around.*
*The Vendetta's in drydock as we speak, Homeworlder,* the guard replies. *But that's the least of your worries. The Rav-Whetu is no doubt preparing an education matrix for you as we speaaarrgh* The Turai's helmet amps cut out with a split-second shriek of feedback. The man staggers, as does his partner, each Imperial tapping at their helmets' earpieces.
*The Vendetta's in drydock as we speak, Homeworlder,* the guard replies. *But that's the least of your worries. The Rav-Whetu is no doubt preparing an education matrix for you as we speaaarrgh* The Turai's helmet amps cut out with a split-second shriek of feedback. The man staggers, as does his partner, each Imperial tapping at their helmets' earpieces.
...and that's when I hit 'em!
Max drops his cuffs, charging toward the startled guards, slamming into one as he goes for the other's weapon.
The first Turai stumbles back when Max shoulders into him, toppling over onto the ground. Max's quicker than the remaining Imperial and snatches up the Turai's sword off the man's armored leg. A frantic stab sends the blade up into the Turai's side, and he hits the ground bloody.
The Turai are prisoner control - they have no guns hanging at their hips for easy access, just the swords. Max's stolen blade proves enough, however, as the remaining supine Turai fends off a strike only to get kicked in the helmet and decapitated by a follow-up slash.
Max looks around to see if anyone or anything witnesses his berserkerism, then, hands shaking with adrenaline, sets down to rolling the corpses for cigarettes. Whatever squelched their transmissions is still preventing their biomonitors from sending back the two dead men's vitals, but Max doesn't know how long that'll last. He pries out the vox arrays from the helmets and drags the bodies into the bushes that line the pavilion. The blood may or may not show up on the dark deckplating - depends on the angle, but Max can't do anything about that right now.
Kilgore finishes stripping the Turai as fast as he can. He figures there's no time to get their full suits into working condition, so he opts for squeezing into one of the undersuits. He grabs one of the swords and a basic multitool and heads into the Keepers' facility, looking for interesting things to loot.
Max moves into the Keepers' facility on the premise of giving no one quarter if they get in his way. That being said, he'll be keeping as quiet as he can while he does his looting.
Max slinks through the relics and displays leading into the Keeper facility. He checks the artifacts as he passes but the collection out here seems to consist of relatively harmless ancient pieces. Sure, there are ornate short swords, but Max has a fine one already, baptized in the blood of its previous owner. A centuries-old full metal pressure suit stands watch in the corner along with the exotic jelly/grease that vacuum-sealed its joints so long ago. Max spots a familiar-looking golden skullcap, secure inside an armored case. Cerebral tendrils hang down from its display stand. It's similar to the implant worn by Hethna Varos, the old Keeper still imprisoned on Earth. Three of the shapechanging chrome combat spheres are in the case as well. Trophies from the Sheen War, whatever that was, sit alone in transparent capsules. The unidentifiable jagged black debris is intriguing but doesn't help the action scientist.
Some quick and dirty work on the next access door with the multitool leads Max into a sleek hallway lined with clearly-marked hatches. Most of the doorways lead to either single hab-offices or multi-person labs or workspaces. Voxes, Imperial computer widgetry and precision tools are readily available with a little breaking and entering. One hatch has the typical red glyph of a security access door and supposedly leads to "Artifact Reclamation". A second hatch, secured like Reclamation, leads to the Keepers' local network for their current findings. A third secure room, Artifact Storage, is guarded by drone sconces as well as having a few brown-robed Keeper initiates congregating in the area.
Max flips open his stolen multitool and set to work on the network hatch's access panel. The hologlyphs wink out immediately as he cuts through the outer panel. Max whispers curses as he reroutes the fibrous workings. All it'd take is one of those Keepers to need to check their email or something and it'd be all over-
Success! The door gives a quiet snap as it dilates. The security lock's completely ruined - the door won't close again, never mind lock - but Max is in.
The soft machine hum of a storage hive assails Max as he enters quickly. There's a woman in a brown tunic with Keeper insignia turning in her chair and getting to her feet. She's flanked by an array of sleek servers and a myriad of displays ranging from physical monitors to holoprojectors.
"How did you get in here!?" she exclaims, reaching for her vox.
One of the storage modules is making a strange buzzing sound from when the dead woman took it down with her during Max's assault, but the rest of the machines are fine, if a mite blood-sprayed. Max starts to drag the body behind some cover, notices the blood pooling, and gives it up.
Whether it's real or manufactured by Greene or some other outside force, Max's luck holds out again; the Keeper woman was currently logged into the system. Max skins and then wears the woman's digital face, passing unnoticed into a virtual mulling crowd and slipping quietly into the shadows around a black security monolith. He fashions tools from his experience with Turai networks, sharpens them with the woman's credentials, and manages to scrape, chisel, and finally crack a hole into the inner network.
Max skims the data headers, looking for plainly obvious things first. He's got a map of the openly-available areas of the orbital fortress, which he stores to the dead woman's vox. More access would require more hacking attempts and possibly more chances for discovery. The Akwhela's Eye apparently has its own inner personal Gateway, used for authorized military traffic only. The Keepers' records of their more useful loot is here as well. There's a maintenance call for the pavilion Max left; the call references a surveillance malfunction, not a multiple homicide, but Max figures it's only a matter of time before someone stumbles across his mischief.
It takes a bit of doing to sidestep his way from the Keepers' network into the fortress' central cortex, but Max eventually crawls up and bursts through a caked-on layer of security into a giant virtual lobby. He grabs the registry and starts looking for some way to contact Greene.
He finally finds Greene heading for a blackout room in the cortex, a chrome dog padding after some other avatars Max doesn't recognize. The action scientist loops in a feedback snake to hold off anyone listening in and tries Greene's vox.
It takes a bit of doing to sidestep his way from the Keepers' network into the fortress' central cortex, but Max eventually crawls up and bursts through a caked-on layer of security into a giant virtual lobby. He grabs the registry and starts looking for some way to contact Greene.
He finally finds Greene heading for a blackout room in the cortex, a chrome dog padding after some other avatars Max doesn't recognize. The action scientist loops in a feedback snake to hold off anyone listening in and tries Greene's vox.
*Doc?*
Max breathes a slight sigh of relief upon reaching Greene.
*Greene. I'm in the Keeper's area minus one Keeper. I have the door into this place secured, but a repair team is due any minute now. What's the plan before I have to stab more people?*
*Kilgore, you're about the last thing on their minds. Something big's going down at Boranai - the fortress is scrambling reinforcements. I'm about to head into comms-black. You need to get the dial code and authorization for the JGH361 Gateship. Get there any way you can and take it out.*
Greene's chrome hound avatar lifts its leg on the virtual landscape and piddles an access code for Max.
*That should get you into the barracks, the armories, it's standard military. You're on your own for the rest. I don't even have the Gateship codes, but if they've got 'em anywhere they've got 'em in the system here.*
*Kilgore, you're about the last thing on their minds. Something big's going down at Boranai - the fortress is scrambling reinforcements. I'm about to head into comms-black. You need to get the dial code and authorization for the JGH361 Gateship. Get there any way you can and take it out.*
Greene's chrome hound avatar lifts its leg on the virtual landscape and piddles an access code for Max.
*That should get you into the barracks, the armories, it's standard military. You're on your own for the rest. I don't even have the Gateship codes, but if they've got 'em anywhere they've got 'em in the system here.*
*Woah, woah, woah!...For the studio audience just joining in...Which part of us...more importantly ME escaping, involves me taking out a Gateship?!*
*Dammit, Doc, I told you this back on the Vendetta when we didn't have to worry about snoopin'. They launched a Gateship towards Earth already. It's my fault; they tortured me; thanks for bringin' that up again. I've been ordered to Boranai, so that leaves YOU as the only person who can do anything about it. Find the codes to that Gateship - JGH-361 - and take it the fuck out. That IS your escape, Doc. Get to that ship, use its Gate, and if you blow it up real good the Gate you left from'll be vaporized behind you.*
Dieter
Admiral Duck Sauce