Escort Service
The delivery of goods to the university on Shalimma went off without a hitch. Although this fact made Relena a little nervous, she accepted the boon and started looking for a new cargo.
Shalimma is an industrial, cosmopolitan world, with plenty of opportunities for shopping. Lance and Noumalia took advantage of this - looking for for clothes, ship parts and cyberware (on the scale from Noumalia to Lance). Lance noticed that they were being followed by a small, weedy-looking Anthropos. When confronted, the guy waxed enthusiastic over Lance's cybernetics, and said that he would be perfect for an upcoming job. He required an escort/bodyguard on a business trip into Draca space. He agreed to meet with the Captain in an hour. During that hour, Lance managed to track down and buy a Quick-Attach Razor Ball - his close combat capabilities being, in his opinion, limited. It would require time and some programming to synchronise the weapon with his existing cyberware, but he was patient. Little did he know that the need for close combat capability would come upon him sooner than expected!
He was waiting when Relena arrived. He introduced himself as "Sturgeon" Williamson, a broker of information. He required an escort to Sharak, a planet on the borders of Draca space. He was offering a considerable sum of money for passage, and an additional sum as retainer for Lance as bodyguard. Unfortunately he could only provide 20% of the total payment up front. The remainder would be paid upon the conclusion of his business.
Relena's understanding was that Sharak was more or less a warzone - a number of minor Draca clans held periodic territorial wars on its surface, but Williamsnon assured her that there was no open conflict at this time, and such a mission would be perfectly safe - inasmuch as any Anthropos mission into Draca space could be considered "safe".
Relena agreed to this and offered terms of her own. If the Shark or its crew were to come into any danger, they would leave - with or without him.
The man boarded the Shark the following day, and having loaded a cargo of medical supplies, they left for Draca space - a suitable course having been planned by the AI Euripides (Lance still hadn't told Relana about that). During dinner, Relena tried to get more information out of Williamson. It turned out that his real name was Allan, but he had adopted the nickname "Sturgeon" because he thought it made him sound tougher. He had grown up in the Free Traders' Republic, and by trade was an information broker. His mission into draca space was to transport a valuable piece of data to clan Ssa-ree, who were more or less unknown to outsiders. He wasn't very talkative - most of his work was client-confidential.
Upon crossing the border to the Holding, they were challenged by a Clan Akkmakk patrol - who demanded that they justify their existence. Having passed that test, they were again challenged on approach to Sharak. They bullied their way into a berth at the starport.
Sharak is a vast desert-and-jungle world, jurisdiction of which is shared among a number of clans - clan Kri being currently the most powerful. As Lance debarked with Williamson, a number of Kri cyberwarriors placed themselves in their way. Clan Kri are very pro-Guild in outlook, which is possibly why Lance managed to stare them down so easily. Williamson got a room at a nearby hotel and dismissed Lance until further notice. Draca do not, as a rule, indulge in alcohol, so Lance went shopping.
Noumalia (who had been forbidden from leaving the ship) had supplied him with a shopping list. He was to find out the cost of a cloaking device, a systems manual that would enable her to reconfigure the ship's scanners for internal use, and transporters. He was able to find out straight away that transporters were way outside the budget - they would in fact require considerable remodelling of a suitable area of the ship (either the spare stateroom or a section of the cargo bay), an upgrade to the ship's power plant, and a substantial cost for the transporter unit itself. He also discovered that a cloaking unit would be within their budget - after they sold their cargo and had received the full payment from "Sturgeon" Williamson.
Lance got into a tense negotiation with a shopkeeper over a draca-language manual for the Shark's sensor systems. The shopkeeper demanded far too high a price, and when the store's "employees" threatened to get violent, Lance ramped up the fear factor and intimidated them into backing off, paying a much more reasonable price.
His problems weren't over. On the way back to the ship, Lance was formally challenged by a clan Hass cyberlord. The draca sported many cybernetic weapons, and carried a drac-maul. Clan Hass are not nearly as supportive of the Guild as clan Kri, and it was obvious that Lance wasn't going to be able to intimidate his way out of this one.
Lance's initial attack did not go so well - he tried to impale the cyberlord's jaw with his combat knife, but this area was armoured with subdermal plate. In return, an autoguided cyberblade leapt from the cyberlord's shoulder and lacerated Lance's chest, exposing his own subdermal plating. Lance attacked ineffectively, and was viciously drac-mauled.
The red haze descended, and Lance exploded in a blur of fury. Wounded, he lashed out with his combat knife, finding a soft spot, and piercing the draca to his heart. The cyberlord's life was ended, but Lance's fury was not. His hands slick with draca blood, Lance looked around for something on which to expend his rage. He attacked the cyberlord's companion, but slipped in a pool of spilled blood. His head hit the ground, knocking him out of his berserk rage. The draca he had attacked helped him to his feet. Lance had proven himself worthy of future existence, and would be accepted among the draca, many of whom had witnessed the fight.
Meanwhile, Kelda, unknown to everyone, stalked Williamson and kept watch on his doings. During the night, he slipped out of the hotel, wearing blacks, and went on a little expedition to an abandoned factory on the outskirts of town. It was hard keeping track of him - even with Kelda's keen senses, she lost him a few times when he slipped into one shadow and emerged from another. After spending about an hour in the ruin, he emerged and returned to his hotel.
The following day, Williamson called for Lance's services. He made his way to the abandoned munitions factory that Kelda had followed him to the previous night. He led Lance into the structure, along catwalks, down stairs, through tunnels, then vanished around a corner. Lance was lost in a maze of twisty passages, all alike.
He called Williamson on the comm frequency that had been allocated. Williamson replied that this situation was necessary, to follow as best he could, and he would lead Lance out of the complex in the end. Confused, Lance continued deeper into the maze. The tunnels were definitely underground now, with moist stone walls and floor making footing difficult.
Suddenly a black, worm-like creature fell upon Lance's shoulder and tried to burn him with its acidic bite. Before he could react, it was impaled by a beam of energy that struck inches from his ear - Kelda was with him. Satisfied, he moved on.
When he encountered the trail of huge black beetles, he swapped out his quick-attach forearm for the flamer. As they raised themselves on their rear legs and attacked with four sharpened claws, he released a torrent of flame. One was toasted, another zapped by the still-hidden sniper. The last was dispatched with a thrust of his knife. Another chitinous beast attacked - in shape very reminiscent of the dreadar that the team had encountered before, but considerably smaller.
As Lance and Kelda whittled away at its carapace, Williamson - who knew of these creatures from his reconnaisance of the previous night and was counting on Lance (he still didn't know about Kelda) to dispatch them - slipped past and into a deeper room. As the dreadlet died, his laugh echoed through the chamber.
"I've found it," he cried. "At last, after all this time."
Suspicious, but curious, Lance entered the room, switching out his flamer for his autocannon. Williamson had inserted himself into an arcane machine, which lowered a hood over his upper body, leaving his head free. He started to scream, and after a few seconds, his severed arms dropped into a hopper below the machine.
Relena, meanwhile, had sold their cargo of medical supplies and was now bored. Between practice sessions with her blade - throw and return, throw and return - she was doing some research. Clan Ssa-ree were not often talked about among the draca. Their reputation was sinister. They were rumoured to have had dealings with dark powers and things that were never meant to be comprehended by sentient beings. Darkness and madness featured prominently in the stories told about the clan. Most of the other clans would have been more than happy to wipe them out, but they were frightened of what dark alliance clan Ssa-ree might have forged with powers from beyond known space.
Noumalia had been on sweeping duty. Although the ship was remarkably clean of the dreaded dust, she did find a small colony of tiny insectoids under some machinery in the engine room. She collected a sample for Unity, who analysed it and determined that although it was utterly unlike the buglikes that had appeared in the dust-goo test tube, they were still a triple-helix based organism. Whatever it was that was on their ship, it was hyper-evolving into new forms.
Back in the abandoned munitions factory, Williamson emerged from the machine, gloating: "I have them. At last I have the ARMS OF SSA-REE-RA-KI!!"
The infernal machine had replaced his arms with limbs of liquid metal - cybernetics beyond any that Lance had ever seen. Kelda opened fire on the clearly maddened man, inflicting a severe laser burn. This didn't stop the lunatic from hitting Lance so hard that he was thrown several feet. Lance didn't bother getting up - he opened fire with his autocannon. That, combined with another deadly accurate shot from Kelda, downed the creature that had been Allan "Sturgeon" Williamson, Shadow Thief. Without a supporting biologial frame, the Arms of Ssa-ree-ra-Ki melted and ran like quicksilver into the floor.
Lance piled crates around the machine, put Williamson's armless form onto the pyre, and set fire to it. Nothing could be salvaged from the body except an identity card. He and Kelda were able to find their way out of the maze, with only a few encounters with worms and bugs along the way. They returned to the ship, and Relena decreed that they should get underway as soon as possible.
The AI Euripides had superlative skill at astrogation - being able to access star charts, ephemera and treaty documentation in parallel. Relena found that her planned course to Starway in the Free Traders' Republic was already implemented.
Quote of the week
Noumalia: I will claw out your eye!
Relena: You will try.
Kelda: I will laugh.
Unity: I will stitch.
