A/N - Concepts - I will eventually make a chapter just with concepts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Metric Equivalent = Galactic standard 1/1
cm - gsm - Galactic Standard Minutia
M - gsl - Galactic Standard Long
KM - gsd - Galactic Standard Distanc
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time Concepts
Day = da-mic (36,35 hours in a da-mic)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
With heavy footsteps Azreth walked towards the med-bay, the short Brulok halting behind her, trying to talk her out of her decision the entire time. When he finally took a hold of her arm to slow her down, she lost it. She grabbed the warthog by his throat and lifted him into the air. Whilst Brulok was gasping, she spoke in a low but threatening voice "Listen now, you must have realized that what I have is quite important no?" she asked rhetorically, Brulok could only grunt in response as his breath was bated and his blood flow limited "it would appear that my enemies have not only stolen my carrier, but it is very likely that they have already found what cannot be found!" her voice as chilling as ice. She let go of Brulok and was steps ahead before he even touched the ground.
With a decisive gait she entered the med-bay and turned off the power from the recovery slab. Although the Terran had recovered all of his limbs in full length, they were still in the process of reassembling, his blood began running from the still open wounds, when the lid opened revealing the man within, who groaned in pain at the sudden stop of recovery. She hardly flinched as she picked up the man easily with one arm and carried him along as she would bag. She passed Brulok on her way out, a single icy glance shut him up.
The hollow stares of desperation that met her as she walked towards the Terrans' cell didn't seem to bother her; she used the main key to open a hole in the transparent wall, whereas she casually threw in the Terran. When the man landed he looked more dead than alive, instantly scaring the four scientists away.
As she walked away towards the bridge, she couldn't help but feel guilty, she might be decisive, but she wasn't heartless. The Terran had been invaluable, but so had she, she owed him no more than he owed her, and she would gladly have helped him recover and returned him to his home had it not been for the tablet. Her hand clenched imperceptibly in anger, as she thought of the consequences it might have if the army got its hands on it, and actually learnt to utilize it. This was why she had to make the hard choice of re-imprisoning the Terran whilst he was still injured, because he would surely object to what she was about to do, and would have insisted on getting off first, but there was no time to pass by Terra, it was currently on opposite sides of the sixth planet. It wouldn't be a long delay, but it might be enough. Her gaze steeled as she continued onwards, one steady step at a time.
. . . .
Caspar stood in silence, originally he had envied the bodyguard, and blamed him for not returning sooner, however now he stood aghast, silence roamed the cell like thunder and guilt oozed out of everyone's pores, for they had all found Idris a common enemy, stress and pressure had let them there, in heated anger they had cursed him as he went away, disregarding the fact that him leaving might not have been a positive...
The short, bearded man finally gathered himself and began ripping his lab-coat apart, he was a medical doctor as well and although he couldn't fathom how the man in front of him was alive, at least he would do what he could to keep him that way.
The others quietly watched as he began tying the ripped pieces of his coat around the worst bleeding areas, he didn't have any tools, so what he could actually do was limited. After a while he was finished, the naked man was tied up like a mummy that had half-unravelled. With exasperation he fell back on his ass looking at the man with shocked surprise, by all means his vitals should be dropping drastically, yet somehow the man's heartbeat had been steady, and blood had kept flowing, there was no doubt that he had bled out a couple of litres since he started, but somehow the blood kept being produced. He turned his head around, facing Youjung "who the hell is this guy?!" he grunted with a complicated expression, sweat running down his face and beard.
. . . .
"The destination is the sixth planet of this solar system" Azreth spoke coldly, her hair having now been tied up in a ponytail from the neck down, a few loose hairs lightly moving in front of her face every time she moved. She looked at Brulok with a contemplative look, one which he wasn't sure he liked "You might be tempted to switch allegiance..." she spoke slowly, leaving the sentence hanging, making the small man sweat buckets "but I trust that you are informed enough about military to know that secret affairs stay secret, I'm sure that they won't even bother digging an icy grave for you if they see it fit to get rid of you." She spoke matter-of-factly, leaving the man gulping, from the Core engine's crystal melt into a sun flare he thought to himself bitterly.
He nervously patted his clothes "Don't, don't you worry about me lass" he coughed not at all confidently.
With a hard steely gaze she stared him straight in the eye before she relaxed "now lead me to the armory, there must be some gadgets we can use".
"Yes ma'am" Brulok responded unconsciously as he began leading the way.
. . . .
No more than half a da-mic later did the vessel appear at the sixth planet of the solar system. The endless darkness illumated by the sandy coloured gas planet and its large ringlets, different colours could be seen in and around the planet, auroras impossibly large, awing the mind, could be seen seemingly on the non-solid surface.
The vessel drifted close to the large ringlet, and in particular one of the largest moons within. Azreth was nervously watching from the cockpit, she now wore a dark black oily looking suit that went all the way up her neck her purple bomber jacket was worn on top. A utility belt was tied crookedly around her waist hanging low on her left hip, a gun-belt hanging crookedly and low on her right hip, a black worn blaster hanging there. She wore a smooth metallic glove on each hand. Slung over her back was a large heavy blaster. She wore simple black shoes that barely covered her ankles, which were flat and without adornment.
Sitting in front of her sat Brulok, he was now covered in utility belts and gadgets of all types, a long black rusty cross on each of his arms, he was determined not to die, now that he had finally succeeded in his revenge. He couldn't help but inwardly curse the Devishian for dragging him into trouble.
"Control prepare for landing, and prepare the heat halos" She spoke authoritatively through gritted teeth, there was a good chance that this was a trap, but she was put in a situation where she had no choice but to go.
"Affirmative!" replied Brulok loudly, trying to cover the sound of his heavily beating heart.
The vessel began entering the heavy atmosphere of the yellow moon, large rocks and huge bodies of frozen water could be seen adorning it in the darkness, the vessel spat out three large spears, each penetrating the icy ocean, cracks appeared as the spears went in, exploding rocks of ice and mist billowed out. The spears were about 1gld apart from one another, forming a triangle. They each released a circular transparent ring, the beams covering up everything in-between, and half a gld in circumference outwards.
The vessel landed on the frozen ocean, Azreth hadn't even bothered scanning the surface, as there was no way that the pirate's ship would've been able to detect an intelligence vessel from the Devishian army.
The area covered by the rings had the temperature increased significantly, and for a Devishian the cold that was left was barely an inconvenience. It even felt nice to let her blood run free as she exited, the air escaping her mouth, thin and black, a constant steam was emitting from her warm body, her every step leaving a slight melted footprint. Brulok on the other hand was cold, and the heavier atmosphere was not something he could handle so he stayed within the hangar of the ship.
. . . .
A chilly wind passed over the barren frozen lake, as Azreth walked along carefully, she was holding an electronic stick that had unfolded and revealed a display in-between, currently it was showing coordinates and topography. She didn't have to go many Galactic Standard Distances before she reached her desired coordinates. She breathed heavily as she saw that the location was left untouched. Without a moment of hesitation, she jumped forward, the large weapon on her back swung to the front and into her grip, she landed on her feet, and slid backwards as she aimed the arm-cannon, but nothing was there. Her heartbeat sped up as the steam emitting form her body increased. The area around her horns becoming blurry from heat. Her eyes darted back and forth, but none was to be seen. Had they not followed her then? With careful steps she began moving back to the makeshift cargo-ship.
It was then an intimidating shadow appeared, blocking out what little light was being illuminated from the gas planet. She could see the sheer size of the vessel, even from the distance of the edge of the moon's atmosphere, it wasn't a Devishian intelligence vessel, but an Angelukian Battle-class vessel, its white golden wing-shape barely visible from the shadow which it cast. She gulped as she glanced over at Brulok and their own cargo-vessel, his expression mirrored hers as she lost the strength in her body.
Even though she knew that there was naught to be done, she still went listlessly over to Brulok's side, they didn't even discuss escaping, but simply stood there in silence as a carrier traveller descended from the larger vessel. Although it wasn't the size of the cargo-ship, no less than one eight the size, it was clear that it was worth more than the cargo-ship, it was definitely someone with a high rank who had appeared.
The carrier traveller was circular, with smooth golden sides, and ivory white on the bottom and the top. It didn't land, but simply hovered above the heat halos some tens of gsl above. A hatch opened up, and a bright blue light shone down on the glaciered ocean, within the light four figures were outlined.
When they touched the ground the blue light dispersed. The most noticeable person was a large stout Devishian woman with shoulder-length maroon hair and a large scar across her nose, as well as a broken horn, where a thin flow of black boiling blood was dripping from. She was wearing jet black pants, stuffed into a pair of smooth combat boots, she wore a dark grey tank top stuffed into the waist high pants. Her Pink pupils had a defeated look in them as she gazed hatefully at Azreth.
Her apparent captors had ivory white skin, tall and thin of frame. Two of them had a slightly transparent golden halo hovering above their heads and a pair of small slightly transparent wings hovering behind their backs. They appeared very humanoid, but much more effeminate and beautiful, their hair shades of gold and silver. The ones with the halos were clearly in charge, a male and a female, the one behind them had no halo, nor wings and wore a less conspicuous sky-blue uniforms, whereas the two in front had mint-blue coloured pants and waist length blazers zipped up all the way to the neck with cream-coloured edges on the uniform.
Azreth cursed silently in her mind, Angelukians were a breed of arrogant snotty and highly dangerous race, her race had been at war with them ever since they discovered that they were part of the same solar system. The Devishians planet had been incredibly warm and dense and as such the species and plant-life evolved in a very specific way. Whereas the Angelukians came from a similarly dense planet, theirs was relatively easy to live on, had it not been for the planet passing through a meteor belt, creating regularly occurring havoc of smaller meteors that would devastate the landscape, this had resulted in the Angelukians becoming very set on war whenever a kingdom fell to the meteors, eventually some of them, like the two in front developed a set of very specific psionic abilities that could protect them against the meteors. The race however had become very focused on survival of the fittest, and they had begun mating with the strongest most beautiful people, over time the race had achieved a breed of tall strong high-cheek-boned athletically thin race that had a major superiority complex.
Half looking at her former superior she couldn't help but feel that Devishians were better as far as that was concerned, unfortunately they shared the same desire for conquest, and there had never been a lasting armistice, she half shook her head as she stood her ground, awaiting the four.
. . . .
The two in charge looked eerily similar, more so than the regular Angelukians, and when they began speaking it became clear why.
The male lifted his hand up in an unnaturally fluid motion "No need, the intelligence captain has already revealed what should not have, she even planned to ambush you"
The female continued almost in a song "but then we ambushed them, isn't it funny how that works out?"
"And now we have the prize, no need to try and resist, come along" the male finished, with a smirk, his clear golden eyes confidently watching the warthog man and Devishian with contempt.
Azreth's mind raced, and she came to one daunting gamble! "Wait, wait!" she dropped her weapons, gesturing to Brulok to do the same "There are a couple of Terrans aboard, the pirate's kidnapped them against United Federation policies".
The two twins looked at each other with amusement "Well we could always need some souvenirs for home" The male spoke calmly.
"Markeith, gather up the Terrans" the female continued with a sparkle in her eye. The man behind them saluted by slapping both his palms together in a horizontal line while he spoke out in agreement.
Azreth couldn't even afford to gulp as she began the gamble "I think you should send some extra guards" she spoke softly, with a hint of derision, she didn't want to anger them, but she did need to make it believable.
"Now why"
"Is that?"
The twins spoke in symphony.
"One of the Terrans proved quite formidable and it took a lot of effort for the pirates to subdue him, he might very well overpower your guard there" she snorted, looking down on Markeith who was now caught in the middle.
The twins laughed beautifully "Those gullible apes? Did you forget our nations history?" they spoke in unison. Azreth frowned, genuinely not knowing what they spoke about, there was simply too much history! The male Angelukian leaned on the Devisian prisoner's shoulder as he leisurely explained "it must've been some 1700 Dacras ago when our planets made a bet, and used Terra as a chess-piece, Devishia lost of course, in the end Terra considered you the evil and made religious texts about you, whereas us Angelukians were viewed as benevolent gods!"
"And you want us to believe that one such primate is capable of subduing Markeith?" the female spoke coldly.
Yeap their planets were the worst, as she thought of what had just been said, no wonder that Devishia and Angelukia weren't technically allowed in the solar system, this was why! "well send your man along then, the Terran might be too heavily injured anyhow now that I think about it" she responded in a similarly cold tone, challenging the female twin "but if he was fully recovered, I'll bet you he could easily wipe out Markeith here". She spoke as if her words didn't have much meaning, but she knew they did, because these twins were somewhat famous.
"A bet?"
"A bet sister, why what are the stakes?" he asked Azreth amusedly.
This was what she was waiting for! "A bet, what do you mean?" she asked with feigned ignorance and confusion.
"Just stake your demands!" the female spoke annoyed.
"Full pardon for us and the Terrans! And if he loses I'll willingly reveal all the military secrets that I know of in a mind-probe" she spoke candidly as she gestured to Brulok with her hand.
"Done!" the twins replied in unison "We'll arrange this match in a couple of da-mic".
Azreth knew that the twins would never keep their promise if the Terran won, but they would for sure keep half the promise, this was a lifeline!
. . . .
Half a da-mic later Azreth and Brulok were sitting in a small prison aboard the battle vessel, it wasn't pretty and obviously the worst cell available, with several bunks build into the walls and ceiling, a shower and other necessities at the bottom wall, and a large square table in the front where their meals would appear. The broken-horned Devishian and her three surviving subordinates were glaring at the two, but none made a move.
Brulok spoke up nervously after a while "Do you think they'll catch on lass?"
"With what?" Azreth spoke with an ugly grin.
"That ye set them up with a trap!" he asked incredulously a wide smile across his thick lips.
The other Devishians in the room couldn't help but widen their eyes as they heard what had been said, they had of course heard of the foolish wager and believed that Azreth had set herself up for failure, because if she lost the bet she would surely suffer.