One-Ton, Swims-the-Black, and the little red shipboy say their goodbyes to the Morningstar nee Akamu while the rest of the platoon straps into the Body Snatcher, ready to act out their pursuit of the freighter.

It's finally time. Davis stands by outside the Morningstar's hatch and follows the last original crew to their new vessel. Luis flicks the console and the remote systems bring the Morningstar to an emergency power status. Its decoy drones are primed and in their tubes. The rest of the explosives have been wired. The trajectory is plotted and the group's own flight path has been calculated to look like they've flushed the freighter into orbit.

---

Hundreds of light-years away, Max stares at the labyrinth of maintenance corridors behind the gate control room, not knowing where to go next. He's lost, but at least the Turai and drones looking for him appear to know his position about as well as he does.

Angel wrote:

"Shittiest vacation I've ever been on."

"You and me both, specialist. I suggest we grab some shut-eye, as I suspect it's going to get worse before it gets better.'

Semo's worked hard and feeling tired. He'll slip quickly off to sleep until the next bout of shooting starts.

Davis straps himself into a crasher in the back, with most of the crew, including Dunamis. "When we're done with this, we're going to need to get to that gate ASAP, so anything you know about the gate complex, we need to know now," he says to Dunamis, then looks back to the rebels. "We need to capitalize on whatever confusion and chaos will be created, and we won't have any time to waste, so we'll probably roll out straight to the complex. Unless you guys have another gate we can use..."

"All I care about is that we have a gateway location by the time we hit orbit," Hugh says. "Two or more wouldn't hurt, though."

He turns to Swims.

"I feel it is only right that you pilot the Morningstar on her last flight, Swims-the-Black."

Swims settles into the copilot's couch, which has been rigged with an array of holo-consoles through the flitcraft's comms to the Morningstar. "I will do my best," Swims answers solemnly. "Luis, take us up in the search pattern; I will power up the General once we loop past again."

Stanhill eases the Body Snatcher up and over the expanse of wooded canyon. He's taking it slow and steady, as much to keep up the appearance of a pinpoint search as to minimize their own emissions. For the team waiting it out in the crashers, there's not much to watch. Luis has acquired a steady hand when it comes to spacecraft, and the smaller craft's impellers ride smoothly on the artificial gravity.

Swims starts engaging the Morningstar's power in a hurry, flaring the freighter to life on the Snatcher's scopes. Getting out of the hiding spot's the first challenge - the big freighter lifts off without scraping the canyon walls, shedding bits of camouflage netting like a prom dress. Swims keeps to One-Ton and Luis' flight path, arcing up and out over the rapidly-diminishing Aikoro landscape. Luis slams everyone flat in their crashers as he takes the Snatcher up in pursuit.

The vox is on fire now with Imperial chatter; Arketta and Hugh lay out the story: They were conducting a low-level search and spooked the offenders, who retreated to their ship and took off.

The picture in orbit comes into focus the two ships gain altitude. Most of the detained starships have opted to make landfall during the search, but there is still a ragged string of freighters, yachts, and couriers loitering in high orbit. The Needleship itself fairly gleams on sensors, a knife-blade hanging in the black. It's already scrambled interceptors. At least half a dozen assault ships are within full burn of the Morningstar; of those six, two of them are already firing killdrones. Swims-the-Black kicks in the cruise engines and pops the Morningstar's decoys. Five miniature suns blaze into life on the scopes. Luis plays it out; he pours out some sloppy shots from the Snatcher's beamers and hesitates like he's not sure which contact he should chase.

The Body Snatcher's interior blacks out when Luis finally fires the cruise engines. The flitcraft jumps like a rodeo clown and warning glyphs cascade through the cargo bay-turned personnel carrier. The cockpit's still got power, the cruise engines are on full burn, but Stanhill watches the aux systems crap themselves trying to keep up with the increased demand on the vessel's reactor. Interior lights are one thing, but the slapdash wiring on the retrofitted crashers is something else entirely.

Semo feels the pressure, sudden, constant and insistent. It's like Godzilla's stamping on his chest while an army of Lilliputians try to pull his hair, cheeks, ears, and eyes down through the back of the chair. Somewhere to his right one of the "new hires" screams in time with wet cracks.

The Gate is a glint in the distance. The Needleship inexorably maneuvers, trying to place itself between the freighter and its exit. It's right on cue.

"Kill the engines!" Hugh screams, hoping to overcome the droning noise of...everything. "KILL THE FUCKING ENGINES!"

Luis is already at work. He slams the cutoff controls, damn how it may look to an observer. He tries to make it look sloppy, which isn't hard, considering it's not far from the truth. He curses, then turns to Hugh. His mind is reeling as he tries to figure out how to salvage the situation. "Quick, tell them we've suffered some kind of computer failure, and we're breaking off. We think the persued vessel caused it."

Davis unstraps himself and runs over to the gear, digging out a frisbee. "I'm out of my crasher," he shouts up to the cockpit. "You might want to shut down a few things before hitting the cruise engines again, unless you want to turn our new guests into filet mignon." He hustles over to where the screams were coming from, looking for whoever got the worst of the jump.

With confirmation from the cockpit that the engines are off and will stay that way, Hugh climbs over to the communications console.

"This is the *cough* the Body Snatcher, we just lost engine control! Breaking off pursuit until we know what happened, over.

Hugh's vox gets picked up by a lazy-voiced officer on the Needleship. *Understood, Body Snatcher. Perfection Vendetta has the offenders. Your contribution has been noted. Stay back and watch the show.*

Swims spirals the Morningstar into an oscillating maneuver as the first wave of killdrones arc past. White bubbles of plasma glitter against the unblinking starfield. The killdrones that don't blow their charges early don't have enough fuel to turn around and play catch-up. They detonate off the freighter's tail, making the Morningstar's flight a comet trail of Tinkerbell-like sparkles.

Davis finds Bello retching blood in his crasher. The lanky man looks... crumpled somehow, saggy, but there's no external wounds. His eyes loll.

"Hold on Bello, I got you covered," Davis says, and holds up the frisbee, trying to picture what multiple internal fractures look like.

Davis runs the alien device over Bello's torso as the Body Snatcher lets the battle drift further away. The tall rebel hacks up a bloody gobbet but seems to relax somewhat. It's hard to tell how mangled he might be.

Swims sends the Morningstar into spins and arcs that would pain someone even if they were in a crasher. It's enough to slip the first few interceptors - greedy for a quick takedown, two of the Imperial fighters joust past the freighter but their weapons only manage to vape one of the drones. It doesn't look they'll have the time to pull around for a tailshot.

Perfection Vendetta figures out the freighter's not running for the Gate after its screen of assault ships, moving on what they thought was a Gateway intercept, still end up at long range, plinking away with killdrones. Swims still has enough time to dodge these shots even with the sluggish light-lag between the Body Snatcher's vox and the Morningstar. The freighter's punch-drunk and each miss gets closer and closer.

The Imperium doesn't seem to be going for the engines and stabilizers anymore now that the empty ship appears to be on a kamikaze run. The second wing of interceptors are within range now. Luis glances at Swims; the Whiirr grits his tusks and his hair shifts a nervous wheat color as he pours command after command through the slaved console.

The decoys are the first to go. The interceptors close and the Morningstar's decoys sacrifice themselves, blossoming into firey debris as they throw themselves into pulse-beams and drone warheads. The Morningstar's battered with shrapnel; a fusillade of beam fire rips into the cargo bay.

The Perfection Vendetta's visible at no magnification on Swims' readouts now. The Needleship starts firing, its beams blazing hot on thermals. Swims can't dodge everything, and his holos blank out for a second. They come back with a stream of damage readouts. The battered freighter's hulled in several places, its cruise engine containment's down, and life support's wasted. The shaggy captain allows himself a short laugh at the life support warning and flies the Morningstar through another barrage of pulse-beams. The trusty ship comes out the other side white-hot, stabilizers and armor spiraling off it as Swims jinks. The controls are near-gone, and even without the light-lag the ship won't be doing any acrobatics. Swims' hand creeps towards the "detonate" switch.

The Morningstar's hit again and this time the distant fire trail winks out. Swims steers hard towards the kilometer-long Needleship and taps the detonator with a shaking hand before the vox dies. Killdrones and point-defense beamers rip into the freighter as Luis' charges, combined with the unshielded energy of the cruise engines, blast the front third of the Morningstar towards the Perfection Vendetta. The freighter-shrapnel from the shaped blast sprays across the Needleship like a shotgun blast. The cloud of debris blocks the scope for a few moments before the Perfection Vendetta limps out of the destruction, trailing wreckage from gaping wounds across its bow. It's not dead, but it's definitely headed for some drydock time.

The interceptors begin a slow CAP as the closest assault ships keep pace with the expanding debris field. Their active sensors show up on the Snatcher's scopes as green flashlight beams in the distance.

---

Max crouches down in the cramped corridor and fishes out his IFF spoofer. His fingers fly across his Toughbook's keys, scrambling and then rebroadcasting what Max hopes is at least a confusing, if not legitimate IFF signal. His armor's not environmentally sealed anymore, but barring the left arm and various punctures in the backplate and neck the carapace is still holding up. It's holding up better than him, at any rate. Kilgore can feel the dried blood from his back wound crack slightly as he crouches; too much running and it'll start bleeding again. Then again, not enough running and old wounds aren't going to matter much.

Max continues down the access corridor, unsure of where he's going. The ambient noise increases to a roar and the corridor definitely has a slight curve to it. Max doubles back a bit and slides through another hatch. This one opens up onto a narrow catwalk ringing a wide dark tube. Massive tracks line the walls, which plummet down a few hundred feet. Skyward, though... well, Max looks up and can't see the top of the shaft he's in. He remembers the offical signs and glyphs emblazoned on the entry section when he stumbled out of the portal. Something about a space elevator.

A hatch cycles a level below him and three Turai sweep out onto their own catwalk. One of them quickly spots Max and raises his weapon... to no effect. At least Max's IFF is back up for the moment.

Davis watches Bello for a second, making sure he doesn't start puking up blood again. "Hey, Semo," he says, "could you get a few painkillers from Luis' bag and give them to Bello here?"

He then walks over to where Onas, Brinai and Jon are strapped in. "So, about those foot traffic gates. Tell me you guys have one that isn't in the middle of the Imperial spaceport, or at least have some way of getting us in there without being noticed."

admiralducksauce wrote:

A hatch cycles a level below him and three Turai sweep out onto their own catwalk. One of them quickly spots Max and raises his weapon... to no effect. At least Max's IFF is back up for the moment.

At least I have the higher ground.

Max unslings his jailbroken Beamer rifle and fires down, taking cover where he can.

Max steps up to the edge of the catwalk and fires down at the impotent Turai. The pulse-beam detonates the man's chest and sends him screaming down into the shaft. Kilgore steps back into the cover of the access hatch as the remaining Turai do the same one level down.

---

Brinai shakes her head sadly. "No, Davis. The three Gateports have the only footgates we know of here."

Onas chimes in. "We use them to gate to an official but backwater destination, cut the connection between Gate and whatever dialers they have in place once we get there, and manually dial in your Gateship code or Atea directly."

"Well, that's two more than we knew about before, so it's a start. Do you have any covert method of getting through those gates, like a contact, an inside man or someone we can bribe, or do we have to do this the hard way? Worst case scenario, we have to scout out the gates, pick a complex and con our way through."

admiralducksauce wrote:

Max steps up to the edge of the catwalk and fires down at the impotent Turai. The pulse-beam detonates the man's chest and sends him screaming down into the shaft. Kilgore steps back into the cover of the access hatch as the remaining Turai do the same one level down.

"Alright, already! I'm coming out." says Max, hoping to lure the remaining two out.

And that's when I shot 'em both.

"Communication would have been too dangerous while the planet was on this lockdown," Brinai says, "but I may have a contact still within the Huim gateport. Head for the southern hemisphere, sector 34 on the overlay. We can vox him from the ground."

---

Max's ploy doesn't work - these Turai don't seem to be too big on taking him alive. What he does see, however, is the frantic dismantling of beam rifles. Max pops a shot off but the two Imperials are too far back. Finally one of the Turai swings his guncam around the doorway and pulls the trigger. The weapon pops and comes aflame amidst a flash. Sloppy jury-rigging. Max actually manages to slag the hand holding the useless weapon. One of the Turai spins back behind full cover with a yelp as the second tries his weapon. This one works - the hatchway next to Max's head glows white, metal droplets spattering across the catwalk.

To top it off, Max hears footsteps coming from somewhere behind him. They're not on top of him yet but it might be a matter of seconds.

Luis takes the Body Snatcher back down out of the black. The little craft shakes under reentry, but the mainline inertial dampers handle the worst of the turbulence. You're soon coasting over a verdant coastline near the seaside settlement of Huim. The Gateport seems to be built along some sort of template - much like you can find your way around any Wal-Mart, Imperial Gateports of a similar size don't differ that much.

There's a lot of ship traffic; a glut of outbound vessels crowds the skies above Huim. The blockade must have just been lifted.

Brinai, with permission, sends out a probing vox. There's enough chatter from the chaos that the old woman decides to continue.

"Trillix-mite 337. Trillix-mite 337. Travel plans for the sea, require guidance."

Brinai's strange code is answered by a coded vox after half a minute or so. She unscrambles the message with some quick console adjustments.

*Feared the worst, but I have good news if you're looking for travel.*

"We are."

*I got bumped to the control room during the rush.*

"You're kidding! Hmmm... stand by." Brinai turns to the rest of the group with a wrinkled grin. "I would prefer a plan that doesn't squander my man's life, but we may simply be able to walk in."

Onas frowns. "It's not been that simple so far."

Hugh nods grimly, looking at the malfunctioning crasher.

"I've had better days," he says.