Dangerous Game

[Squee]

Orange of bursting flames and hissing white swirls of engine exhaust. Block criss-crossings and darkened silhouettes of points and rounds. Flashing lights. A belt of asteroids made by sentient hands, greased and blackened and pestering red cuts. Roaring of atmosphere entrances. Enter the enthusiastic flame tinted evil red and sinister black. Such energy and motivation by flames that form rigid fingers with clawing nails. Eager, gritty palms, bigger than she, stretching and igniting blue because of such heat surrounding it; fierce and angry blue. One pair of pupils forms in gray smoke, feathered off and scared; the second more vicious, more immovable than stone itself.

None of it made sense. Although, since when did her dreams make sense? They didn’t. She found them meaningless and senseless, but the dreams were bone-chilling and enticed screams of terror. Echo was not afraid of much in her conscious world. The deep imagination in her mind was crafted differently from her real world. Her mind held darkness, but Echo was not afraid of the dark. Darkness could not breed terror just by itself. To fear the dark, one had to be afraid of the unknown as well. Darkness is lonely blankness of a dark tint. Dark, for the mind, meant clouded and unseeing, which was reason behind requesting lights in the dark. Blank. Unseeing. Unknown.

Was she afraid of the unknown? Echo would admit there was much unknown about her. Her extreme abilities were not taught and honed overnight. Her capabilities on those abilities would not be extreme if she had not practiced with them over and over and over again. Her reactive instincts of now did not compare with what she recalled as her reactions on Dxun. Her healed scars. Her distinctive clothing. That little bouncing ball that she practiced speed drills with. When had those claw marks healed up and where had she managed to obtain those tools?

And Dxun felt empty. The emptiness gnawed at her. There was a giant hole within her. It caved down on her brain and felt like someone had scooped a handful out of her head. It was the unknown. And it was dark. But could they be the conjurers of her nightmares?

Whatever created the dreams, Echo always found herself breathless, sweaty, and trying hard to control a panic attack. Several times the control Echo knew she had failed, and she found that she didn’t like that. Each time Delta found her, Echo couldn’t help but blush. She didn’t like the blush either, and that little known fact made her blush even more. Embarrassment was such a cruel little cycle.

At least this time Echo had managed to wake up in a relatively normal fashion. Her breathing was labored and her hands were twitchy, but at least she was shrieking down the halls of the ship. There was another body on board. Echo did not want the mind of that body to belittle her in any way. What was that called?

“Commenor,” was her only statement when she entered to cockpit in a tank top and loose fitting trousers. “Going to Commenor. Commenor is orange, right?” She stepped into the copilots seat and crouched down. Her toes curled over the edge of the cushion. She rested her arms around her legs and propped a wrist against her knee. She stared out the viewport, finger and thumb carefully tugging at her bottom lip. “Orange for fire. Orange for enthusiasm. Orange for happiness. Orange for play. Oh… what am I doing trying to understand whether or not my dream has any significance to Commenor? It’s… stupid stuff.”

Her chin rested behind her knees, eyes watching the hyperspace flash before her eyes. Her heart rate had finally slowed to normal, and her breathing was regular. Yet, if she closed her eyes, those flashes of the dream returned, and Echo had to keep her eyes open to ward off the visions.

It was some time before Echo unfurled and placed her feet on the floor with a sigh. Something dinged on the console and a second later throughout the ship. The signal they were approaching Commenor. Echo leaned forward and snuffed the alarm almost as soon as it went off. Delta and November could sleep a little while yet. Then she checked to divert the controls of the ship to her seat. She could at least just drop it out of hyperspace and let them float around the planet until the others woke up.

“We just gotta find our contact who’ll take their crates and then we’ll have a little more cash to work with,” she whispered to herself, half her world appearing surreal to her still. Those thoughts were an actual reality. They needed money for fuel. They needed money to eat. Up until now, or up until Echo could remember, the food was always provided by Green Meadows. The ships were likely always fueled, Echo would assume since she had no clear memory to date. If she and Delta were to use their weapons, cartridges and magazines were going to have to be purchased. Delta told a bunch of tools to pay for their last fueling. Some way, they’d have to earn those back. And what if the ship was in need for a replacement part?

Deliverence was gently lowered from hyperspace and Echo sat back again as the ship was settled into an halt. The ship was really at a crawl; a crawl so slow it wasn’t noticeable. She lifted her legs again, toes curling the edge of the seat, and her forearms rested on top of her feet as she thought. Echo sighed and shut her eyes tight again, denying the small, tired headache that pulsed just below her hairline. This was their life now.

The only thing they could do now was live it.

Maybe we should return a simple weapon to November. She hasn’t destroyed anything being unbound. If we’re planet hopping, it might be a good idea. No poisons, though, if we do. Bleh. I’m going to try not to think. Try not to stress and worry. With that, Echo’s mind pretty much numbed as she stared at the large, orange planet.

[Dire Wolf]

As the fiery haired Echo dreamt and the blonde November did force knows what, Delta simply lie there in his bed. Sleep seemed to be lost to the tall man, as his mind was far too active to allow the body attached to drift into a slumber. Glazed over blue eyes simply gazed off into the nothingness that was the ceiling fan as it lazily whirled about, its motion causing a light breeze to flow onto his half blanketed form.

While his body may have looked inactive, his mind certainly was not. It ran at a thousand miles a minute, and it jumped from one train of thought to another like some kind of spastic cocker spaniel on death sticks. It went from that awful image of Echo's dieing breath on Nar shaddaa to the near infinite outcomes of what would happen if he simply snapped November's neck like a twig. Everything inbetween.

A hefty sigh heaved the man's chest as he tried to push the power button on the super computer that was his brain. Yet... the grey matter refused to power down and simply rest. There was simply too much to think about! Too much to process! Finally, it seemed that the brain of Delta... delta. No surname. Just... "Delta," a phrase that the military uses to communicate the letter "D." Nothing more. That wasn't a name... it was a code.

So, that begged the question... what was his name? Who were his family? Why did they give him up? Did they have a choice? Those glazed blue crystals blinked for the first time in minutes at the thought. It wasn't too long before the powerful computer installed in his skull simply stopped. The lull in brain activity didn't last long enough for the tall man to sleep, however, as it almost instantly shot him over to what November said after he gave her a second chance.

She had family, and not in the plutonic sense, either. Certainly not in the sense that the rest of the twenty six were brothers and sisters. Blood family. If she had one, did that not mean that he had one as well? What was a family, anyways? The man's mind had serious trouble actually wrapping itself around the idea of having someone related to him by blood.

Was his father a king, or a slave? Was his mother a queen, or some star struck chamber maid? Siblings. Other people born from his father and his mother. Did he have them? How many? The very notion of all this being possible over clocked the man's mind, and threatened to simply overheat the powerful components within.

Slowly, the ship lurched to what felt like a stop. It was the transit from hyperspace to real space. It threw off nearly all of his former thoughts, despite the gentle nature of the motion. Someone had to be behind the controls so that the ship didn't crash into the face of some moon.... or the planet itself.

After a long, weary sigh the man threw the warming coverings off of his form and shifted his legs over to the side of the bed. The cold durasteel plates of the deck made the man's face flash a snarl as his feet came in contact with them... and he briefly pondered the idea of finding slippers.

That brief thought was quickly discarded, however, as he rolled his weight forward and straightened his legs out. His palm soon met with his cheek, pushing the soft flesh back until his hand was absent mindedly scratching the skin behind his neck. After a long yawn, he stepped out of his room and walked up to the cockpit. What he saw, not to his surprise, was Echo sitting there, simply peering out at the orange surface of Commenor.

After a small half growl at himself, he walked into the cockpit wearing nothing more than a pair of loose fitting trousers. The rippling muscles beneath the lightly tanned skin of his chest having no clothes to cover them. "So," he let out a long, but quiet yawn, "mmm... so do you know where we're supposed to take this stuff? Or how many credits we're gonna be getting?"

Delta yawned, yet again, and found himself mildly wishing that they had a cup of coffee in his hands.

[Kella]

She laid sprawled across the cot, in a satisfyingly unceremonious manner. The bone of her rib cage spread and converged with each breath, her delicate chest rising and falling in a vulnerable way, as if inviting the bite of a blaster or the point of a blade, inviting the breaking of that fragile trust. A vein pulsed gentle beneath the thin skin of her neck, while her eyes darted two and fro underneath closed lids, tracking phantoms. Her long hair was finally free of its braid, and it sprawled across the pillow in wild streaks of brown, red and gold, tangled about the fingers of her up-stretched left hand.

Abruptly her eyes flashed open, her cheeks taught with surprise. Slowly, she looked down to see a knife through her sternum, the tip buried to the hilt as thick red blood oozed from around it. She could feel the blood begin to fill her lungs; she was drowning. A shaky quivering breath sent the red stuff in a fine spray across her lips, and hot green eyes followed the hilt to the hand to the arm, to the face.

Delta and Echo stood over her, each with a hand on the knife.

"We don't trust you, November," they said, but the voices were not theirs... they echoed and blurred as November's vision began to sink to black...

"Don't trust you... trust you.... trust you..."

We Don't trust you.


It was a great clamor that awoke her. November stared down at her hands -- she'd been dead, she'd been... been killed... could this be the after-life? Was there one? Perhaps her last moments...

But then she looked up, looked around and saw with vivid clarity something that was absolutely not possible. She was in the center of the Green Meadows cafeteria. There were White Coats, some she recognized, milling about, but most chillingly... she saw herself. Older, younger, darker, lighter, but all still copies, versions of herself.

"Who... who are you?"

"We're your family," one replied, and continued eating. Another white-coat walked by.

"Aren't you satisfied?" he demanded of November -- the real one. "We brought your family. Studies show killers grow better in nurturing environments."

No... no, this couldn't be real. That was not possible. She was... where was she... really... November couldn't remember. That frustrated her! She must have been hallucinating... Echo, Echo had drugged her, or Delta, and now she was hallucinating... Certain poisons did that, made you hallucinate, one of them had gotten into her collection, and... and drugged her...

November became aware of an odd sensation, a memory lurking beneath the surface, so close that if she just sought it, everything would make sense... November reached for it, pulled at it, even as she collapsed onto the cold tile floor...

~

November's eyes snapped open for the third time. Her right hip throbbed while sharp tremors were still echoing through her wrist. Her breathing came fast and frantic, and immediately, she looked around to find where she was, frozen warily.

Dark metal walls. A blue strip above the door. The green pulse of a sensor light. A small sink and mirror. A bundle of blankets. A low ceiling with a square, grated vent. Just to her right, a cot.

The cold metal below her hands was just as real as the sweat that gathered at the nape of her neck, and the blanket tangled constrictively around her waist. November was lucid again; she was in the Deliverance, and very much returned to reality.

Heaving a massive sigh, she pressed her palms flat against the cool floor and let her forehead fall against it. Her mind was clear, she hadn't been drugged. A sudden moment of panic had her running a hand along the base of her ribcage, but there was no scar, no blood. It hadn't happened.

Then, suddenly, it occurred to November that she had read about a stage in sleep where the human mind hallucinates, runs through an alternate reality while the body is paralyzed. These hallucinations were called dreams. Now that her chip was malfunctioning, her subconscious, it seemed, was causing her to dream... which meant this new development was most likely permanent. November did not think she was going to like these dreams much. Slowly, the cold of the floor sunk into her head and the sweat evaporated in the quiet hum of air through the grate. November began to shiver, and she propped herself against the edge of the cot for support, sitting up and detangling the blanket from her waist, then throwing it over herself. She searched her mind for some way, some hint as to how she might overcome these dreams... but there was nothing, no way to control them, nor tame them, nor direct them... It was enough to send a spike of fear through her otherwise calm facade.

The sounds of the Deliverance served to bring her back to reality. The engines thrummed their way through hyperspace, while there was a slight howl in the cooling system. One could hear the nav computer click periodically, distantly, while water suddenly hissed through the pipes at her feet. Light footsteps passed by in the hall, and they could belong to only Echo. No other phantom could have slipped into the ship, not while it was in hyperspace.

Electing to free herself of the sweat-damp clothes, November turned to the bag at the foot of her cot. She'd been returned only the necessities, wisely reviewed by Delta and Echo for hidden potential. Ultimately, they had deemed her clothes as simply clothes (which they were), and November found the fresh change conducive to efficiency.

November considered utilizing this time to sleep more, but the stir or her dreams had left her distinctly not-tired. With nothing else to do, November stood at the sink and watched herself in the mirror. It was something she'd never really done before, analyze herself. The plain brown shirt she wore was tailored to fit her slim build, and it stretched slightly more around her chest. Black canvas pants rested on well-balanced hips, then followed the lean contour of her leg, and ended just before her bare foot. For a moment, November exercised the freedom of her mind. She thought about her foot. About her toe. Her toe felt cold. She knew something that she didn't have to know. That satisfied her.

What did not satisfy her was the way strands of her hair insisted on falling into her face and tangling around her shoulders, requiring the necessity of very inefficient tidying every few moments. Extracting a brush and a few ties, November began to braid her hair...

Over, under. Gather this, drop that, under, over. The mathematical precision drove emotion from November's mind, easing the stress that had accumulated. She heard Delta's steps go by. Over, under. The end result was a braid that began at the left side of her forehead, curved across to the right, then came back to the left, crossing the center of her head just below the crown, and trailing down to the left. At the base of her skull, she tied the braid, and the rest of her hair laid neatly over the front of her left shoulder. With satisfaction, she remarked that not a hair was out of place.

November, therefore, felt prepared to face the disapproving eyes of Delta and Echo.

She emerged from her small room and approached the cockpit, then, finding no logical reason to delay the event, stepped inside. She remained here, at the edge, for a moment, listening. Waiting to be recognized, accepted or rejected...

[Squee]

No matter how much she thought, Echo could not tame her nightmare’s persistently reappearing images. They were ever present in her mind’s eye. She continuously caught the glimspes of the passionately explosive orange-red nails riding piggy-back with the blue-hot finger tips. The fingers grew steadily longer until the ended and then began the bulk of the hands palm. Behind the sevil stretching hands were those so harsh, so cruel eyes made of smoke. Smoke the rippled into the forms of pebbles the hotter the inferno grew and the higher the flames reached, lighting up those dreadful eyes…

It was Delta’s voice that startled her out of it. Her body involuntarily jumped at the sound of his voice, and the terrifying pictures in her eyes disappeared the instant her gaze tore off Commenor’s fiery glittering surface. As she whipped her head around, red hair spanning like a bird’s wind, her eyes quieted the excitement upon seeing his physical appearance. Echo’s eyes closed and she rested her forehead against her arm, which was now perched on the head of the chair. She sat there for a moment or several, calming her hyperventilation from the imminent fear of the reoccuring nightmare and the start Delta had given her.

Why did she do that? Why was she so easy to startle? Echo felt fear almost consistently since she left Green Meadows. Since she had escaped and fled Green Meadows, rather. It was from some little thing or another. Things that shouldn’t happen. She shouldn’t be lost in a spiraling trance that shut down her natural and trained awareness. If she should find herself losing herself and someone came upon her, that someone shouldn’t be able to strike her so close the heart. Echo hated it. The fear pulsed around her heart, attacking it, making her alert in a frightening manor. It was… paranoia. No, not quite, but something like that. Echo was beginning to dread sleeping, and she saw there a developing paranoia. She could not cure it, unfortunately, because even she needed to sleep.

If Delta, November, and she were back in Green Meadows, Echo was sure she would not be having these problems. She wanted peace of mind. She didn’t want to be scared. She longed to enjoy her sleep. As fate would have it, there was no simple return to Green Meadows to seek a solution to all these disturbances.

“Place?” Echo said, beginning to raise her head. “Yeah, we have a… um…” Her heart pulsed once in her ear, and then there was timid calm. Then another thump. It was large and strong enough to reverberate in her ribcage. She swore it was enough to make the very bones quake. Echo could feel as her blood rushed, collecting thick around her skull and pressing in her keen eyesight. Naturally produced chemicals rushed into her brain, and, like invading dictators, planted seeds of ideas into her mind. Her brain, weak-willed to these chemicals, began helping them produce believing material.

Why wasn’t he wearing a shirt? Her heart skipped a beat as her brain made this conclusion. He was simply not wearing a shirt. Echo noticed how the muscle would twist and stretch and move to accommodate any movement he made. Sharp dents and rather… lovely curves sculptured the anatomy of his arms. She could pick out the scars below his ribcage. Those scars were in the same position on him as they were on her. It was where Echo knew they were missing a rib there, according to the regular study of human anatomy. The missing rib did not deter from Echo admiring Delta’s torso.

It was in that moment that Echo became aware of a peculiar smell. It was not a bad smell, and it lingered deep within her nose. It was unique, and it stirred the pit of her stomach…

Echo suddenly flushed a brilliant red color. It had only been a brief couple seconds for her to notice these about Delta, and in an almost subconscious way. She blinked several times, quickly, in a row. The area around her cheekbones burned like flames. Her heart continued to beat deeply in the confines of her chest.

Her cheeks only seemed to grow hotter when she swiftly, silently, almost immediately and instinctively, admitted that she had liked and enjoyed whatever feeling she had just experienced. Whatever it was, likeable as it was, it was also highly embarrassing. Or something. Why did her face burn whenever she felt such a thing? It was raw. She had felt such things before, generally when Delta was nearby and one or two times when he had not been.

It was her curiosity of the electric feeling, and a handful of others also, that kept Echo from attempting to grovel her way back into Green Meadows. It was curiosity of those feelings that made her want to return that kept her from returning. It was a vicious circle that warped Echo to a point of indecision. Just a moment ago, she was wishing she could transport herself back to Green Meadows. Now she didn’t to discover and experiment with these unavoidable feelings and uncontrollable reactions to Delta.

“Um,” she stumbled, suffering less than a second more in her terrible lapse, scrambling for another word or answer. How embarrassing would it be for him to notice her stare (where had this question come from? Why did she care?)? November rescued her. The blonde woman had appeared in the doorway into the cockpit, remaining quiet. Echo’s eyes instantaneously leaped over to the new form. “Oh! Welcome to Commenor, November. It’s about midday down there.” She gestured out the forward window.

“Anyway… yeah, heading down to that… spaceport near Chasin City. We won’t have to unload the cargo or anything. The guy meeting us will bring his guys to do that. From what I understand, he should be there already. We just have to go find him. He works in some kind of complex that deals with goods being exported in and out. This is his personal delivery. Erik… something or another. My datapad’s in my room. And we’ll get whatever is double of…” Her wrist twisted and her hand churned the air for a moment, as if trying to scoop something toward her. “… whatever we received. I don’t remember the number.”

Echo turned her head to stare at Commenor. Again, she saw burning flames. She turned her head away once more, looking kind of sheepish. “Sorry. I… didn’t rest well.”

[Dire Wolf]

Echo's reaction to his simple question was... surprising. All that it seemed that the tall man could do was watch as his partner practically flew out of her skin and whipped her head around, that angry red hair flying outwards like some kind of firestorm about her head. Delta's mind found that his flesh was still stunned at her reaction as it watched her rest her head against her forearm through those glittering blue eyes. Briefly, the man wondered what was wrong with his partner, as she was rarely one to be spooked so easily. It didn't take long for him to realize that she was lost within the cavernous halls of her own mind, and his voice thrust her out of it. It was the only logical explanation, after all.

Her next reaction, however, was far from anything logical. Instead of replying to his query, the woman simply peered out as his topless form. To say that he wasn't entirely sure how to react to her gawking. What was the proper thing to do? What was she thinking? Did she like what she saw? "Woah there, Delta. Woah there. Where did that thought come from," his brain questioned its thoughts as it tried to puzzle out just what action was proper in this situation. A mild blush subtly shifted the hue of his skin from light tan to a slight pink. How could he think such a thing?

Then, oddly enough, a blush that dwarfed his own ignited and burned within Echo's cheeks. The fire that had stoked within them seemed to spread as he gazed out at them, almost as if his blue gaze was a powerful wind. With the shake of his head, he simply slipped into the co-pilot's seat and afforded one more glance towards Echo as she began to reply once again. Oddly enough, the woman seemed to spring up once November slunk in behind them.

What was stranger to the man, however, was that the woman managed to recover herself so easily. He wasn't familiar with the more basic of human reactions and anatomy, such as blushing... or even what a smile truly meant. However what the man did know the ins and outs of vital areas on the human body. And myriads of other alien races. If he shot or cut a man just above the armpit he'd rupture the brachial artery and would cause death by bleeding within a minute. It would also sever the nerve, which lies dangerously close to the artery... and that arm would be rendered useless for the reminder of his short life.

After she spoke her peace, Delta looked over at her and spoke in a curious tone, "Echo? Why were your cheeks red earlier? Are you alright?" Surely, having a sub-par sleep didn't necessarily mean that the blood would rush into her face. Either way, he'd find out if it was linked to her previous gawking or her less-than-good sleep soon enough. With that said, the man shifted his arm well above his head to begin and the fingers attached began to flip switches, initiating the entry to atmosphere.

The ship's engines slowly powered up, causing the hulk of steel and and air to lurch forward... its own weight protesting the move. This would also give the two other people within the cockpit time to sit down and buckle up. Soon enough, the engines flared to life and shot the ship forwards. It wasn't terribly long until the occupants of the Deliverance could see a lightshow of reds and oranges of atmospheric entry as Delta angled the nose of the ship up to make better use of the heat shielding there. In but a few moments they'd surely find themselves in the Commenor's wild blue yonder, searching for the port where they'd land.

[Kella]

“Oh! Welcome to Commenor, November. It’s about midday down there.” In curiosity, November peered out the window where Echo had gestured. Her intent was to judge the climate of the planet, perhaps pick up on any possible weather patterns.

Her intent mattered little as she spied the sphere. The ocean was blue, the clouds broad and white, the land predictably varying shades of tan and green. She had seen things like this before.

But the ocean wasn’t just blue, it was brilliant blue, and the clouds weren’t just white, they were pure, frothy white, and the land didn’t just vary between shades, it rolled and danced between them. Some unfathomable reaction in her body caused November’s breath to be still, as all else faded from her field of vision. Something about the complex pattern in the appearance of the planet had tweaked a nerve in her mind, stirring within her the strangest feeling. It was like something… something wonderful, but something she couldn’t quite place her mind on… Normally, discovering something so untouchable would have frustrated the assassin, but something… some instinct that must have been engrained deeply within her neural pattern compelled her to simply enjoy this feeling.

Echo suddenly gestured some sort of scooping motion, as if she were trying to gather something to herself. November realized she was attempting to gather a thought, and since such things lurked within the brain, and had no existence outside, she found the motion to be a somewhat inefficient use of energy. However, she checked her criticism upon remembering that Humans did tend to extensively use their hands as forms of non-verbal communication. Maybe those habits were beginning to return as their emotions did…

In any event, November rewound her mental record, and managed to extract the meaning of Echo’s speech from her distracted memories. Staring at a planet had cost her efficiency. However, that dissatisfaction couldn’t quite triumph, for the lingering… the lingering whatever it was that had been brought about by the planet stayed with her, playing against that disappointment, even as it soothed her frustration at not having a name for it.

November yanked her mind back to center just in time to hear Echo’s apology for not sleeping well. November thought that if one was fatigued, then an apology would be unnecessary, by terms of logic. Then again, she had never felt remorse, which was the basis for apology. Taking a moment to examine Echo’s face, November concluded that the only sort of remorse Echo was feeling had to be embarrassment, or perhaps shame, but the reason for these emotions, November could only begin to guess at.

Stepping back from the window, she regarded Echo’s red cheeks and Delta’s bare skin with perfect objectivity. It was with a mathematical mind that she noted Delta’s build was up to Green Meadow’s standards. There was no emotion to accompany this revelation – November’s RELIC had not yet degraded to that point, which left her with nothing more than a completely lack of empathy for Echo’s situation.

November would not be understanding the two of them anytime soon, and so she resigned to do something useful with her time, taking a seat near the computer panels in the back of the cockpit. As her hands began to move across the levers and buttons, she was struck with a curious thought – would she one day be like Echo and Delta? Would her chip degrade to be like theirs, useless? Would she be like them, doing illogical things for unfathomable reasons? As of yet, it seemed that her pattern was quite different than their pattern could be, so November could only conclude that the more beneficial outcome was also the more probable—that her pattern was indeed different, and that fact implied that her eventual outcome would be quite different.

Those thoughts were getting nowhere, were therefore inefficient, and subsequently set aside while November continued on to more useful things. As it turned out, the ship was a well-crafted make, and much of the processes were internalized. In fact, all most all of its functions were covered by the Pilot and Copilot checklists, leaving November nothing to do but run maintenance diagnostics. Everything was operating at nominal status.

The Deliverance was a ship November had flown in before, and so she was familiar with its set-up. Which is why, as she was scanning the instrument panel, she noticed something that did not belong. Exploring was a more efficient activity than re-doing the diagnostics, was it not? And November’s curiosity was needling her to examine the object.

She plucked it from the instrument panel. It was a palm-sized disk, surprisingly heavy for its size, and no thicker than three or four millimeters. Centered within the disk was a small display, similar in structure to a holo-projection. Intrigued, November thumbed a small switch, and as the display leaped to life, it confirmed her suspicions of a power control. Small blue letters and numbers materialized in the air, revealing that the display was some sort of simplistic holo-projector. As November read the display, her curiosity deepened. ’Blue (Da Ba Dee) [1:23/3:20] Eiffrel 56 – Muropop.’ November thumbed another button, and suddenly, the first set of numbers began to count forward, one a second… she realized it must be some sort of clock, but signifying what?

November noticed a slight sound coming from a device attached to the edge of the disk, and pulled out the small, bud-shaped piece. She could feel the vibrations in her fingertips, and November raised the bud to her ear.

The collection of noises that met her brain was unlike any November had ever heard before. In the background, a steady thudding noise pounded out an even beat, like the wump of engines or the tick of a hyperdrive. A smooth, steady humming was barely audible, stepping up and down through different octaves. A soft sound, like the vibrating of several metal chords in unison, shifted up and down, moving along with the thudding beat but with more frequency, the pattern definitely recognizable, but varying. Suddenly, the same pattern was picked up by another whooshing instrument. November’s eyes widened in surprise as she continued to listen. Suddenly, she heard a voice, distorted by some sort of means to sound a bit like the whooshing instrument. ”Da-ba-di, da-ba-die, da-ba-di, da-ba-die,” The words were nonsense, but the beat utterly and wholly transfixing.

Slowly, November sat down again in the chair, her eyes staring off into the distance, unseeing, so caught up was she in that small device. The sounds seemed to move throughout her whole body, and she didn’t even notice the way her foot began to twitch in time.

Never… never had she heard sounds put together in such a way… sounds that made her, made her want to move, made her want to move her voice in the same way… made her want to… want to… just want to listen, and maybe something else she didn’t have name for… The sounds faded out, and November looked at the device oddly, noticing the first and second numbers had become the same…

Suddenly, the text changed, and November’s eyes widened as new sounds began to play. This one had a lighter beat, that alternated between a slight thud, and a sort of… chht! Several different instruments created a kind of steady fluctuating noise in the background, while a growlier noise-maker moved through different pitches in the foreground… and the voice, it was definitely male but it was not speaking, it was… it was moving through the octaves – that was the best way she could describe it – in a way that the mathematical pattern of the harmony, it was… it was… satisfying. Somehow, this noise, this sound satisfied her. A sound. Just a sound, had somehow evoked this response from her, and it stirred within November a great and ravenous curiosity. This… this is a topic she would come back to.

It then dawned upon her that multiple perspectives often helped reach a common goal, and she looked up at Delta and Echo, about to ask if they wanted to listen to the strange sounds too.

No words escaped her lips, for a shudder of the ship announced entrance into the atmosphere. Unprepared for the jolt, November braced herself just enough to avoid flying across the cockpit, and instead rammed her shoulder into the corner of a control panel, managing to haul herself into her seat just as the ship steadied. With a grim mood inspired by the pain in her shoulder, November realized that if she were going to survive, she’d have to do something about these distractions.

Pain. November scrunched her nose in communication of the thought. Why did her body have to tell her it was hurt, when she already knew full well? But November found ways to distract herself from the pain, because if this was only part of the slope of the pattern, similar injuries would cause her a lot more disruption in the future. She might as well learn to deal with it now.

Distractions were good. Distractions, just like she had used to move her thoughts away from the empty feeling that had wandered, unexplained and unwelcomed, into her bosom at the events of the day previous, the encounter with her ‘family’.

And now you’ve just reminded yourself!

However, it was with sudden surprise that November found a new song coming onto the small device, this one with more of the many-metal-stringed instrument, with such a pleasing arrangement, and a complex pattern, that November could become lost in it. Yes, yes, this would be a most satisfactory distraction…

The blazing red fire of atmospheric entry engulfed the ship, undulating to the bizarre and haunting memory that now played, over and over, in November’s mind.


~~~



Commenor. November rose from her seat and stood between Delta and Echo, one hand on the back of each seat, attempting to find some reason to dispel the suspicion that she was more useless to the duo than a fin was to a Bantha. The land raced by below, and November did what she could to commit the landscape to memory. It was a habit. A habit that November could not remember developing… yet, it was not a pattern she would have picked up on her own. She used her expression to convey a thoughtful mood.

“Do you find yourself scanning the landscape?” She asked, “Mapping out routes? I am doing that right now,” she said, “But I don’t know why. I don’t remember learning it… do you?” Her tone was one of bewilderment, but she had no word for this sort of unrequited curiosity.

“I think….” She continued after a moment, her tone becoming somewhat more somber, “That we have done a great many things we don’t remember…”

The spaceport began to loom larger and larger in November’s perspective, details becoming clearer and clearer to her enhanced eyes. Everything – the planet, the port – everything, was so wide, so huge… It stirred a sense of dissatisfaction within her.

The universe should not be so big, because then I would not have to feel so small.

[Squee]

((I didn't proofread. I'll do that tomorrow. Grammar and spelling errors of numbers may be found. I'll fix those tomorrow, when I'm actually awake and not falling asleep, lol.))

There had been a certain relief at November’s appearance. She had regurgitated her tongue, or at least most of it, and she had been able to properly answer Delta’s question, with a few details vacant. It was utterly embarrassing. Why did she feel she hadn’t a right to react the way she had? What had spurred on everything that had happened in that painfully slow moment?

There’s a lot more flesh present…

No, that couldn’t be it. She could recall many times being beside or around Delta when he was without… without a shirt. Echo found herself swallowing hard.

It’s the shirtless factor.

No! No, it wasn’t! It couldn’t be, could it? Or could it? But who did that? Who started going funky-wunky over someone without a shirt on? How did it make a difference with when a shirt was on? Why were these questions even coming up? What in stars and galaxies WAS all this?

You liked it.

Sure she liked it. For what reason and why, Echo was finding she was scrambling for an answer that was out there, but she didn’t know it existed. Well, she kinda did. There had to be an answer, and explanation, but everything felt so alien, so like a thick mist. She was finding she had plenty of questions and not enough answers, especially for the erratic swings of what she had to assume were feelings, if she had read and understood correctly.

Echo had a vague outline of what a feeling was, what an emotion is. Interrogating knowledge said she exploit these things and use them against a prisoner to coax the information out of them. This included such things as friends, family, objects, anything and everything the person could be attracted to. Fear was a powerful tool. While a person may love (whatever that was) something or someone, once whatever object of love was determined and threatened, fear entered in. No one wanted to lose what they loved.

Which meant, that if what she had were feelings, Delta or November could use her feelings against her if she had them strong enough for a certain thing or person. Did she have strong feelings? Echo couldn’t answer that question because she didn’t have a constant to compare with. She sure did have an almost uncontrollable reaction to Delta being shirtless, however. Could that be used against her? It seemed all rather silly when she thought about it that way. What were they going to do? Put a shirt on him?

One thing was for certain: she avoided looking at Delta again like a fearful plague. There was no further reason to tempt herself with the ill. She would only contract more symptoms as her current ones flourished. She found herself wanting to keep distance and resist any eye contact. Her cheeks were still a hot pink from the disease, and Echo shook at her hair, creating a shielding mask to protect herself from the bug. This act was nerving for Echo, who could not tell if Delta was looking at her. Oh Gods, what if he was?

Who cares? another, different inner voice hissed ferociously. Who did care?

But he COULD be sitting there, COULD be looking at her right now. She wouldn’t know it, with her head turned slightly away and hair acting the role of a privacy drape. She pretended to busy herself with a couple of blinking readouts that would make her face away from Delta. Her hand rested on the controls panels, finger pressing a button as she scrolled through what the ship had to say to her. Which told her nothing was in need of attention. She couldn’t sit there poking at the button much longer. There had to be something else she could do, something that would help her take her mind off Delta.

If he had noticed anything, what did he think of her? Was he offended? Was he flattered?

Where were all of these questions coming from?!

Perhaps he hadn’t noticed. Echo felt her tense muscles relax some at that possible conclusion. If he hadn’t noticed, he wouldn’t think anything of it. If he didn’t think anything of it, it meant he couldn’t ask her about her actions. If her actions weren’t questioned, she felt so much better about not having a concrete reply.

"Echo? Why were your cheeks red earlier? Are you alright?"

Echo nearly cried out in pure horror. He had realized! Oh Force! Oh Force! He had noticed! Her heart sped up again, jumping up into her throat and filling her airway. For those next moments, Echo wasn’t sure if she was breathing or not. He had noticed! Oh Force, he had! She felt so exposed, put on the spot, so horrible, like her greatest secret had been uncovered. Her cheeks flushed as the brief flash of memory swept across her front mind. It was fresh, it was clear cut, and picture perfect, nothing missing out of the image of Delta. How she hated her brain then and there, and despised her troublesome and acute photographic memory. This was so embarrassing!

“I-I-I-I…” she stammered at first, nose angled downward and hair sheltering her face. Stuttering! Of all things! Her cheeks stung, and she was so certain her face was brilliantly painted in molten colors. This was terrible! “I… don’t… know.”

A fleeting thought entered her head : Was he interrogating her? After a second’s digestion, Echo immediately leapt to whole other conclusion: he was exposing her current greatest weakness while asking her questions. He wanted an answer, and he was going to do that by plying at her feelings. Her feelings so new to her she did not understand them. The other thing was, he didn’t either. The sneaky git!

Echo found her voice, and her beating heart slowly turned sluggish as she found a quickly becoming familiar emotion. Anger. Her hand snapped up and pushed her hair behind her ear. Whether the blush was gone or not, Echo wasn’t all quite sure. Hot coldness reached her vocal cords, warming and cooling them while she prepared to speak.

“I’m fine. Why don’t you just mind your own business?” Her words were not kind. Echo then simply sat in her seat, simmering beneath the surface, and with steel in her eyes.

~_~_~_~_~

“We learned to do that on obstacle courses with the other people like us,” Echo responded to November in a calculating tone. “Those exercises we were sent on with maps and were made to retrieve something. When we practiced building infiltrations, especially deep ones. We were to study blueprints and have ideas of how to escape in mind. Often times the trainers would make sure all but one of the escape routes were useless. We piloted ships and learned to seek out landmarks. To make plans if things go horribly wrong. We are trained to expect the worst, I gather. I think.

“I recall the training. I recall chunks of events, such as Dxun. It’s all there. It just seems… flat. Static characters. Nothing is rounded or three- dimensional. There seems to be no reason, either. All I know is that we can do things, and we can do things semi-consciously. Some better than others. What I don’t have an answer to is why, November. Not when, but why. Why would Green Meadows go through the effort of teaching us these things when all we do is hang out on the base? At least… I do think we hung out at the base. It’s all mumble jumbled and almost none of it makes sense. I can’t put a time to it all. ”

Echo stared at the front, watching as the grounds of Commenor passed beneath the belly of the ship. The muscles around her jaw tightened and uncoiled as she gritted her teeth. “You know what I think? I think that’s where the real missing pieces are, but I can’t be sure. Look at us now. How old were we on Dxun?” Echo looked back at November. “I’m not sure if you noticed or remember, those days around the Dxun time, when we were sent into the forest. We were younger then. How young, I’m unsure. If Dxun was recent…” she trailed off to hook her finger over the collar of her shirt and pull it down far enough to see the claw scars on her chest. “… If Dxun were recent, November, these would not be healed as they are. There is a difference. Even Delta is different from when he was wandering that forest and saving my butt from becoming creature dinner.

“So, I suppose we should just go along with what seems right. If it doesn’t seem right, don’t do it. Planning escapes… I think that is one of the right things, especially knowing there’s our brothers and sisters coming after us.”

[Dire Wolf]

((meh. Probably advanced a little too fast, but eh. I think that it hopefully makes up for my lack of postiness. >.>))

Confusion coiled its curly tendrils around the man's mind and ensared it like a hunter's trap would a beast. The harder it struggled, or he thought, the more the cords tightened around his mind. Echo's sudden, if not illogical, response acted as the spring to the trap that had been layed out by the fates themselves. The man's voice, previously plagued with concern, was replaced by one that was full of more hurt than anything else, "I... see. I will, Echo." he barely managed to stammer out before looking over to November, who seemed to be wrapped up in some odd device. A brief flare of curiousity was quickly squelched by the overwhelming urge to escape the now blurred cockpit. "I... need to get equipped. Will be... in the armory," his voice was stammered so that he'd avoid the sudden and overwhelming urge to simply burst into tears. Though it seemed like every "emotion" was extreme in his own mind, be it emotional pain or that emotion that forced a giant smile across his face.

Without any further ado, Delta sped from the cockpit like a bat out of Chaos with one question in his mind: what caused that sudden, angry reaction from Echo? His min d struggled veinly against the trap that those thick tendrils of confusion that had been strung around it, searching for anything that would allow him to escape the terrible sinking pit that he'd fallen into. Why? Was it the tone of his voice when he asked? Did she think him toying with her? Why would she think that? He'd always been sure to make it obvious when he was simply playing with her. Hours seemed to pass before he'd finally made it to the armory, and with it... the reason for his fiery haired companion's radical reaction. Though, unbeknownst to him, it was just as much of an illogical jump as her own reaction: any show of concern made her act cold towards him, or enraged.

He didn't want her to act like that, especially towards him. With a heavy sigh, the man walked over to his suit of jet black armor and began to slip the undermesh over his form. This not only served protection against cutting weapons, but it would also ensured that his flesh wouldn't be cut by the very same plates of armor that protected it. Delta then remembered the few times that he'd seen her blush before, which was generally just after she had one of her night terrors, and he'd followed her halfway across the ship to comfort her as she simply cried in a little ball-o-Echo. Was she scared? That must have been it... she was scared. But of what? What was there to be scared of? The man shook his head in response to those thoughts, nothing that he could think of. The man soon returned to his previous answer: shows of concern enraged her.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Delta was sure to stay inside of the armory, or well away from Echo (should she have deigned to visit the place), for the rest of the descent into the planet's atmosphere, and the smooth landing at the designated space port. The Deliverance had only just touched down before Delta was at the controls of the cargo ramp, and watching the hunk of durasteel slowly descend into the duracrete. He was quickly greeted by the crawling horizon of skyscrapers that was Commenor, and more than a few people at the bottom of the ramp. "you the people that Ec-my associate told me about?"

The four men glanced back and forth amongst each other briefly, obviously surprised that a fairly muscular and armored (not to mention armed) man greeted them rather than the pretty young red head. "Uhh... yeah. You wanna talk to Silva. She's just down the way, through that alley there," Delta's gaze traced the line that the man's arm created. It was a ways away, all the way across the spaceport, and its darkness was like an impenetrable curtain. The whole situation came up on his mental alert radar as a whaladon, and not a single fiber of his being enjoyed it being so. But he needed the credits, and if there was trouble... it was best if Echo wasn't involved. Her safety was paramount in his mind.

"Okay," he almost began to walk, "but I swear to the Force: If anything happens to the two women inside during my absense, or the people in that alley," he made a slight motion towards the alley, "try a single gorram thing... I will end you. Slowly. Now offload the cargo and be on your merry way." Without another word, the former assassin strode down the ramp and towards the alley. His black armor gleamed in the sunlight during the brief walk over to the designated location, it also served to make the man slightly out of place. Most mercenaries and bounty hunters didn't use a black that was of a comparable hue to the darkest hour of the night. It was suitable for use during dark situations, and dark situations alone... though most avoided a stark, unending black simply because they wanted to add their own artistic flair to the armor.

The large man drew a combat knife from its scabbard on his belt and flipped the blade around so that it pointed towards his elbow. This way, when his rifle was drawn, enemies that attempted to disarm him were greeted with a knife to the arm, leg, or neck. He may not have been tremendously skilled with a blade, though he did know that a knife was better suited to cut at the arms and legs. As opposed to the gun who's goal was to send its projectile into the assailant's chest.

He barely rounded the corner before he happened to notice that there was far more than a simple man with a credit chit. As he surmised. There was about ten fully armed and armored men, each one with an blaster set to "stun" pointing right at him. Oh joy. Without a moment's hesitation, the man unleashed a few controlled bursts into the ten men, killing one or two, before a volley of stun bolts flew into his armor. Delta crumpled to the ground without so much as a grunt... his view of the sky narrowing to nothing... until the darkness took him.

With a glance amongst themselves, the men dragged the corpse of their friends, and the thought-to-be-corpse of the merc around another corner... and into a dumpster. They had that hot piece of tail to grab, after all.

[Squee]

Echo didn’t say anything at Delta’s response. There wasn’t anything she could say. He was still trying to play with her, to put that tremble in his voice to further exploit her inner feelings. He had that ability. He had to have. Didn’t he? Yes! No… Yes! No, no, no, the answer was yes! She ground her molars together, making them ache, reaching forward and taking a hold of the ship’s controls. If he was going to leave, he could. He could go sulk in his failed attempt to get at her. Her grip was rather tight on the ship’s control as the Deliverance approached the nearest spaceport. Equipped. Sure he was going to go get equipped. He always did so. After every failure, she thought and found a kind of resolution at the thought that he was always trying to get at her.

Then again, after each time he said so, he did come out in his armor. His rifle was professionally cleaned and loaded, prepared to face whatever unknown adversary they might meet. He only ever went back to the armory whenever he sounded… His cracked voice. The harsh struggle to cough out his words without that wavering stammer. His quick leave and his never return.

It was all a game! Or so she was trying to convince herself. However, the horrible inner Korriban within her was slowly fading away. It’s hot and burning desert sandstorms were leaving, baring the dunes they had formed, spread in longs lines across her insides. The red sands were itchy. She was irritated; so very, very irritated. Of what? That Delta was going equipping his armor and weapon. She didn’t understand the meaning behind it. What was the point of donning armor when all they were doing was delivering a bunch of Force forsaken crates? What did he want to do? Scare the living daylights out of them? What if they had another job to offer? They needed the credits they were promised to receive, and they could also do with a way to earn more if the opportunity so presented. Was he such an idiot?

Echo, what are you doing?

“I don’t know anymore!” Echo snarled loudly before realizing it. She did the moment after the words had tumbled. Her face flashed once at November, just enough to warn the other woman not to say anything.

Why are you so angry?

Hell if I know, she thought, I don’t know anymore.

What’s the point?

“I don’t know,” Echo mumbled. Those words were followed by a sigh. What was she doing? What was she so upset about? It didn’t do anything. What had she gotten so angry about? She suddenly couldn’t remember. All this rage and gaseous fires of hate for nothing. She wanted to hit something. She compacted everything down and shoved it into a box too small. If she could transfer all this energy through her fist into a wall or a bag or something, it would be gone. She wouldn’t have to hold onto it. The passing of energy. Like when a plant fed off of the sun, and the animal ate the plants, and then another animal ate the animal that ate the plants. No energy stopped. The wall was bound to dent or the bag to swing.

It’s all so silly, Echo, to be so outraged like that.

It is, Echo admitted to herself. The voice was so right. Who was the voice? Herself? It must be a deeper side of her, likely the collected and rational side that argued against her illogical conclusions and spontaneous thoughts. The side Echo sometimes forgot about. Whatever or whoever the voice was, it was completely correct. Her choking grip on the ship’s controls relaxed. The bundled muscles in her forearms visibly loosened, liquefying beneath her skin. Her jaw softened and her shoulders went slack as she let out a very slow breath. She could even feel her change in temperament in her eyes in the way her furrowed brows lifted. The pressure came off of her forehead and the red haze she had been staring through dissipated.

“Sorry, November.” An apology. She’d heard the word “sorry” before. Except, that word had only been used sarcastically by her martial arts instructors of the past. To Echo, the word seemed like it should have more meaning than for just mere sarcasm. It did not sound like the correct term to make so casual and so light. Echo believed that the word should carry a deep, sincere meaning. Isn’t that what an apology was? An apology was an admission to guilt. One could say, “I apologize for that” by also saying, “I’m sorry about that”, which was what her former instructors used to say in a degrading tone. It certainly had to have the same meaning. The word “sorry” was a common substitute after all.

She hoped. Because she was going to tell Delta she was sorry. How could she have gotten angry over nothing about him?

Though perturbed as she was, Echo concentrated on flying the ship to the designated landing pad. Checking once with her datapad that she had the right destination, she applied and prepared for the landing. As the Deliverance settled onto its struts, Echo unbuckled herself from her seat and twisted back. There was a faint rumble that made her pause and cock her head, listening. The ramp. Was Delta going out? Of course he was, who else was on the ship if she and November were in the cockpit?

“Stay on the ship, Nov. And play with… whatever that thingymahjigger is. This shouldn’t take very long.”

Delta was leaving and she wasn’t even dressed! What was this all about? Echo ran lightly through the ship’s uncomplicated corners, bouncing on her toes to put spring in her step. In less than a second, Echo deemed her current clothing as halfway dress, what with the pants and the top. Quickly, she scooped up her sleeveless coat, hastily pulling it on and clipping her belt around her waist. From under her pillow, she pulled out her pistols and shoved them into the appropriate holsters. Feet were shoved into boots and laced efficiently. Echo did the motions absentmindedly. Delta was probably just going to talk to the main guy and get their credits. She would make sure the cargo was unloaded. She lifted the white hood of her jacket and left with her door open, hurrying to the ramp just to see Delta walking off in the distance.

Four scrawny looking men stood down at the bottom, talking amongst themselves and looking at the steadily growing smaller back of Delta. Such a thing struck Echo as odd, but one of them turned toward the ramp, placing a foot on it as to go up, but stopped when he looked upward to see her. The man smiled. “Good afternoon! Your friend there gave us a fright coming down in his armor like that. He expect something?”

Echo merely shrugged, “I suppose. Comon’. I’ll help you guys with the cargo.”

One of the other men glanced over his shoulder once again. “Ma’am, your friend isn’t going to be able to get his credits for you. The boss kinda likes it when those who agreed to transportation and the transaction go pick up the credits. That way she knows for certain she’s not being cheated.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. We were told by him to get the cargo. But you need to go with your partner to get the credits.”

Echo looked down at each of the four men, making them meet her eye. They all looked so very nice, yet an alarm jangled loudly at the base of her skull. Her mind jumped to the man she met on Ruusan. He had also been a very kindly man. Why wouldn’t his associates be any less kindly? Why was it striking her as odd and making her skin prickle with a sense of uneasiness? It had to be her lack of understanding of the galaxy, since Echo knew she was lacking a sufficient amount despite her knowing plenty. A significant gap was her misunderstanding of other sentient behavior and feelings. Delta was a prime example. Echo didn’t have the ability to understand the emotion being the action. In fact, she hardly understood emotion at all. And so, Echo did not know to look for false emotions because she didn’t comprehend true emotion.

That was why she nodded and agreed to the men to shadow Delta after she was done helping them unload the cargo. Minutes later, when the cargo was removed and Echo had expected Delta back after figuring out he wasn’t the proper person to collect the credits, Echo set off with a quick “Be-Right-Back” to November. One of the men said he would accompany her, and he turned out to be quite the chatter box. Echo wasn’t sure how to talk to the man as she crossed toward the alley he had pointed out, saying how it was the fastest way to reach his boss. She half listened to the man ramble, while the other half mulled over situations or things that could have prevented Delta from returning to the ship or contacting her. As she reached the mouth of the alley, her right hand rested on the same-side pistol.

A man stood alone at the end of the alley. Behind him was the looming figure of a tall building, marking there was no street at that end. The street she stood on now was rather deserted but a couple of figures heading for their personal destinations. Echo shot a glance toward her escort as she took two steps forward, into the alleyway: “I thought you said the boss was a woman.”

“Hm… So I did, ehe. Maybe she sent one of her lieutenants out in her place.”

“Then where is my… friend…” Echo paused as she saw the movement on the shadow, halting four steps at the mouth of the way. Her foot planted firmly and her hand struck like a viper, closing an iron clamp on her temporary companion’s forearm. He instantly shrieked, “She knows! She knows! She knows!”

Bodies emerged from the sides of the alley, the closest three steps away. Echo saw the blasters rise up and jerked on the hysterical scrawny man’s arm. In a slow motion camera, Echo bunched herself behind the man just as the first bolts left. Her meat shield’s body rocked with spasms. Echo was pivoting around, extending her legs in a powerful leap, turning three steps into one bound. With a full body twist, Echo dove around the corner, noticing the direction of the sun as she did so. She straightened, her shadow cast behind her and away from the alley’s opening. If she had chosen the other side, her shadow would have been partially in the alley, giving her newfound adversaries an advantage of her position. Now,as she remained stock still with low, controlled breathing, her opponents would not know she was there unless they came around that corner to look for her. When that happened, Echo’s coiled body would spring into action.

Where was Delta? Could these people have captured him? A flash of Delta raced across her current processing: the large and powerfully built image of a man who held his rifle like he knew how to use it. And Delta did. No, they couldn’t have been able to take him down. Unless they killed him. Echo felt her heart jerk. Delta? Dead? She couldn’t see it; whether she actually knew it untrue or refused to accept it as an option. At the same time, she could feel her blood grow hot and sticky. There was her old friend Anger. He had come again in this situation and he was not leaving until every one of those men had received their doom.

The first head popped around the corner. Unwise. The weapon always came first. Not only that, but he should be looking from the other corner. Echo’s leg snapped forward immediately, knee up first, body twisting, and then her blurred foot caught the side of the man’s head. Roundhouse kick. Her enemies head violently steered into the wall, caught between her explosive foot and the wall. There was a dreadful crack and the man’s body slumped. More movement. Echo was already in a spinning motion. Two hundred and seventy degrees later, Echo’s spearhead hand was jabbing out a throat, leaving the man choking as she shifted back and burst out with a sidekick. Her foot sank against his body, shoving him into a row of empty containers.

Someone leveled a weapon just twenty degrees off from where her second victim had once stood. Echo went lunged forward, startling him just long enough for her to reached for his arm. There were others off to her left. She needed to put the third opponent between her and them. She crossed her arms and then sank fingers into his wrist. She spun, setting her back against his chest while crushing his toes with her heel, which caused him to release a strangled croak. When she had spun, her arms untwisted, and his forearm now pointed downward. With a sharp jerk, Echo broke his elbow against her shoulder. Bone punctured through muscle and bone, and the man instantly howled.

Echo let go and reached for her left holstered pistol. She had just pulled it out and begun to raise it when a well timed, well aimed palm push sent it skittering from her grasp. That hand caught her wrist and pulled her. Echo’s eyes bulged with surprise. She dropped her chin, knowing she was going to end up against the man, and he was likely going to try to choke her out. Her hypothesis was instantly proven as an arm came up to wrap around her chin and mouth, meant to meet her neck. While one of her own arms was twisted behind her, the other was free and snuck behind and between her and the man's body. Echo wiggled her chin some and managed to sink her teeth into the man’s hairy arm. Her free hand smacked against his crotch and her fingers bit into his trousers. She heard a wheeze. Both fingers and teeth sunk in deeper. It was as Echo managed to ruthlessly pull sharply that he let her go and stumbled back away, cursing, and with blood streaming on his forearm.

Two of his buddies had begun to start forward when they realized victim four was being nutted. They were just too slow, and when Echo was free, she crouched slightly and then jumped vertically. Both of her feet connected beneath their chins, sending their heads backwards and their limbs flailing with weapons scattering. Echo’s hand brought up her right pistol, which she had pulled out the moment her feet touched the ground. Quickly, she fired two shots, one each for the gut of those two men.

Then she heard feet. Echo planted her heels and turned enough to see a man charging for her. As she swung her pistol hand around, she didn’t register the real danger was to the other side until too late. The pistol discharged, but Echo missed her target as twisted her neck to regard the sense of someone to her side. This person swung in low, wrapping powerful arms around her waist and the backs of her knees. He took her feet from under her just as her distraction person (the one the slug had missed) grasped her clothes between the shoulders and yanked and released. Echo, by both her feet taken out and her accelerated fall, crunched into the ground with a vicious call: “DELTA!” Pain exploded from her back and forced its way through the front of her chest. She gasped for air and saw stars. Her takedown opponent was scrambling over her as his partner disarmed her.

“Someone get the sedative in that woman! We gotta get outta here!”

Air roiled into Echo’s lungs as she squirmed: weak at first, but her slipperiness was rising quickly, making her an increasingly difficult fish to capture. One pair of hands turned into two. Echo felt her panic flare. There was weight on each of her arms, a hand each, and one man had half his body wrapped around her legs. She snarled and sensed another man coming up beside the other around her head. Echo reared from underneath the man’s hands, roaring, “DELTA!”

The call felt so natural. Wasn’t he always there to get her out of trouble? Whenever she found herself in a horrible situation such as this, he was supposed to be there firing his weapon, choosing which heads he wanted to watch explode into a showering brain confetti. They were supposed to be a team! Where was he?

He’s not there… These men did something to him…

Echo surged in heated rage and hatred. With Delta not there, these men were going to get her. As the hands lifted up to make room for a third set, Echo rolled up and over trying to dislodge her legs. Echo lifted her hand and grasped her white hood tightly before applying her strength to rip it off. Her arms were caught and she was shoved back down against the cold duracrete. “DELTA!” A fourth man appeared, carrying a needle. Echo continued to squirm, useless as it was with her breath driven from her the second time. She managed a snarl as the needle was all but jammed into her soft underarm. The contents were squeezed in too fast and the needle was pulled back. Echo felt a near instant buzz. Her hearing and vision suddenly became a mash of a mess and her body became too heavy to lift. Her last conscious memory was being lifted over a shoulder.

The white scrap of hood floated past her limp fingers and settled onto the ground.

~_~_~_~_~_~_~

“This ship, right?

“Yes, yes, definitely. Both did say something about another woman on board. Well, the big male guy did, but Ms. Hot-Head-With-The-Cute-Butt said something about a partner. It’s a hunch, but I doubt the target’s male companion would lie about another girl.

“Lucky bastard’s got it cool. His girlfriends don’t mind sharing. There was a shared chuckle as the two men strode up the ramp, bringing weapons, set to stun, to bear. “Let’s find this woman if she exists. Boss says to snatch her, too, if we can. She’s a woman, for goodness, how hard can it be?

“Apparently the red-head gave the boss some difficulties. A mighty struggle, he did say.”

“Ha! I’m sure! They all claw just a little bit when they recognize what’s finally happening…

[Kella]

November watched Delta leave, and observed Echo's reactions. There seeded within her a feeling that was wholly familiar, and yet entirely foreign. It was dissatisfaction... or close to it, anyway. But it wasn't the intense frustration she was used to. This was simply the sensation that she was missing something... that something was not right. Or that there was some piece of information that she needed desperately, but did not have. But this sensation didn't take the forefront of her mind... no, it was more like... like hunger. Hunger was a physical feeling, but it wasn't dominant -- you could focus on a great many other inputs, even when you were hungry. But still... it never went away.

Evoked by her thoughts, November's body drew a great breath of air into her lungs, and then she let her chest fall and collapse, hissing a bit in her throat, as if maybe it could catch the hunger and make it go away...

She blinked. What was it that she'd just done?... sigh. She had just sighed. She knew the scientists to have done it a few times... but there seemed to be so many different meanings to it. Frustration, happiness, boredom... concepts that had once been only words and facial expressions to November, but now... now they were beginning to have actual meaning. So what had her sigh meant? Considering the fact that it was absolutely unnecessary to preserving homeostasis in the human organism, it probably indicated that it was compelled by one of those illogical emotions.

"I don't know anymore!" Echo suddenly yelled.

November jumped at the sudden sound. She never jumped. Years of training (and probably more that she couldn't remember) should have turned that reflex from a startle, to a snap to action. But she had jumped, she had let something as simple as a noise catch her off guard... Oh, this was not good. If this were the beginning of a pattern of skill loss--

"I don't know..." This time, echo mumbled and November didn't have to worry about being startled again. When she paused a moment to consider the words... November understood. That was an odd concept. Taking the mindset and circumstances of someone else, and realizing that you would respond similarly, if in their same hypothetical situation. November decided to express this line of thought, probably because it was logical, because understanding among team members made that team perform better. At least, that's what she told herself. But maybe it was more because Echo had just screamed to the world, the frustration that November had been feeling all along.

"I... I don't either. And I should, and I want to, but I don't..." November's words were quiet, whispers, and in retrospect, she would not be surprised if Echo's emotional distraction prevented her from hearing all of them.

"Sorry November," Echo said. November processed that word. The scientists had used it towards each other when they had done something that they did not intend to do, or when they had allowed something to happen that should not have happened, like spilling a cafeteria tray on someone else, or entering a wrong line of code into the computers. This meant that Echo had done something she had not intended to do, and November inferred that she must have not meant to speak her frustration aloud.

By the time November had processed all this, Echo had moved on. Therefore, it became inefficient to bring up an old topic, especially one that seemed so emotionally distracting to Echo. The sound of the ramp announced Delta's departure, no doubt to tend to the cargo. Of course, Echo would be accompanying him; it was only logical -- missions were safer in pairs.
Wait, how did she know that? She'd never been on a mission, save for the one to Dxun, and that had been solo--
Or, rather, she couldn't remember being on any mission. But she must have been; hadn't she already reached this conclusion? And of course, the next logical progression of things would be for November to come along, because --

“Stay on the ship, Nov."

... would be for November to stay behind. Right.

"And play with… whatever that thingymahjigger is. This shouldn’t take very long.”

November stared at the thing in her hand. It wasn't a thingymahjigger, it was a... '4DX AudioX Ntertainment Player', according to the etched label. Whatever that wa-- oh. Echo had been using a place-holder. Right.

It was still taking November a while to get used to all these casual expressions; she'd never been required to use them with the scientists. Communication then had been all about precision and efficiency... Apparantly, there were other things that were important to Echo and Delta...

November sighed again--

Again with the sighing! Ugh, a pang of real frustration this time.

November's thoughts were diverted by the sound of the closing hatch. She was entirely alone.

Her dark green eyes centered on the hatch balefully, and the hunger that wasn't for nutrition became a little stronger. November could not know it, for she had never been a Kath hound, nor had she ever owned one, but if she had, she would understand that this was exactly the sort of feeling one of those felt when it was left outside with the sand-speeder, when its master went into the Cantina to have a good time.

All alone with nothing to do.

Well, maybe that wasn't entirely true. Anything was more efficient than doing nothing. An odd thought came to November's mind. Maybe she could figure out what this odd hunger was. If it wasn't purely emotional, and it was for some sort of nutrition... well, that would make sense; Previously, all her nutrition needs had been met by the scientists. Now, maybe there was something she didn't know about. That, in and of itself, would be frustration, but it also possessed a remedy.

Settling in at a keyboard, November's fingers clicked across the keys, as she tapped her way into the Galactic Database.

-- In an untraceable manner, of course.

~-~-~-~-~-~

She finally had a word for the hunger.

Loneliness.

And it was not a physical need. It was emotional. Which therefore made it illogical, which meant that getting rid of it was going to be illogical, and November did not like doing illogical things!

Oh, this was so frustrating!

Why--

Cling, Clung, Clang, Cling...

November knew that echoing, metallic ring... heavy boots on the ship's ramp. Not Delta's footsteps, not Echo's footsteps... And the cargo was already taken care of; she had heard them finish when she was in the database...

Red flags began flaring up in November's mind, and she dashed to the door, every sense highly alert, thoughts of the loneliness forgotten, at least for the moment.

“This ship, right?", a surly voice said. It was muffled by the heavy metal door, but since there was no reason to engage the air-tight seal while in a hangar, bits of vibration still managed to work their way to November's ears.

“Yes, yes, definitely." There was a second. November only heard two sets of footsteps... so perhaps there were only two... "Both did say something about another woman on board. Well, the big male guy did, but Ms. Hot-Head-With-The-Cute-Butt said something about a partner. It’s a hunch, but I doubt the target’s male companion would lie about another girl."

The target?... November's eyes narrowed. 'Big male guy' must be Delta... there was no other possibility, which meant Echo... was the target.

“Lucky bastard’s got it cool. His girlfriends don’t mind sharing." November did not know what exactly he meant by that (it must have only made sense in the context of some emotion) but she knew that she did not like it -- that chuckle meant they were satisfied with themselves, and if they had... targeted Echo, November knew there was a high probability that their satisfaction was not productive to her intentions. “Let’s find this woman if she exists. Boss says to snatch her, too, if we can. She’s a woman, for goodness, how hard can it be?"
November's jaw tightened. There was going to be confrontation. She was not offended by the comment about women. Being upset by their attitude would be illogical -- their misconceptions gave her an advantage.

“Apparently the red-head gave the boss some difficulties. A mighty struggle, he did say.”
That satisfied November, to an extent. It was good to know Echo had fought competently -- that spoke to the strength of the woman, and therefore, the tactical advantage of the team -- if the three of them ever joined forces again.

“Ha! I’m sure! They all claw just a little bit when they recognize what’s finally happening…"

The footsteps were loudest, now, and then they stopped. The men must be right outside the door...

~-~-~

With a hiisssssssssssss, the door slid aside. The two men were met with an empty hallway. All the ambient lights were shut off, indication that the dark, cavernous hall was unoccupied. The first gave the second a skeptical look, before stepping cautiously inside...

Suddenly, a hand flashed out of the darkness, a zombie claw from the river Styx. The hand connected with the base of the man's skull, surprising and disorienting him, while the foot that soon followed caught him across the back of the shoulders, sending him harshly into the wall of the hallway, his gun clattering to the floor. November's whole body emerged into the light as she dove for the weapon, the second man now wise to her presence. The howl of a blaster echoed through the metal walls as a bolt narrowly missed November's spine, instead grazing her hip; the electrical energy sending her whole leg tingling.

As if that would slow her down. She drew herself into a kneeling position, gathering the first man's weapon in her hands. The second man was too close to miss, and November hardly had to aim before pulling the trigger one, two, three times -- just in case.

A fist suddenly connected with the side of her head, and November struck the ground, her vision momentarily starred. Pain throbbed through her head... Pain... she usually didn't have to deal with it, this hammer pounding at her skull... but it was just another challenge, another challenge to overcome. The first man had recovered from his shock, and was now scrambling to retrieve his weapon. November rolled onto her back, and spying him still in a crouch, lashed out with her feet, catching him across the chest. He tumbled backwards, and November grabbed for the gun, only to find that he had two hands already upon it.

The tug-of-war lasted only a moment, the life of each at stake. He pulled, she pulled, until suddenly, November shoved the gun forward, and the man unwittingly helped yank the gun into his own skull, where it stopped with a sickening crack.

The noises of the struggle echoed through the empty metal hull, fading softer and softer until they disappeared into silence.

November claimed the gun, examining its settings. Stun. Kill.

Her fingers hovered over the dial. She knew what it was to stun things... to knock them temporarily from their consciousnesses. It was what one did with unarmed moves to disable an opponent. Kill... to kill was a concept that November understood. It was what she'd done to the Zakkeg, on Dxun. Killing was like stunning, but permanent. It was damaging the body so far, that consciousness could not be regained. November had never really considered it anything more.

And, as for the moment, it didn't seem as if she'd consider it as anything else than a tactical move. In this case, allowing the two men to go back and report to their superior would be unwise. Obviously, whoever had ordered the hit on Echo didn't know for sure that she existed... Why give them concrete proof? If the men didn't talk again, then their superior would have to wonder what had happened to them -- if they had been intercepted on their way, if they had run into trouble, if they were simply deserting...

Yes, this would be more advantageous.

Then again...

Perhaps they had information she could use... it would no doubt take coercion to extract... But if Echo had been taken, and Delta might have been -- time was a crucial player. Was spending a lot of it on two men that might talk, really worth it?

No.

November twisted the dial to 'Kill'.

~-~-~-~-~-~

An already-heavy pack slung over her shoulder, November moved swiftly through the armory. She was now laden with the loot she'd lifted from the thugs -- two datapads (Password encrypted ones, at that. It was a mild annoyance; she'd be able to crack the code later) a flash-bang and a frag grenade, and one of the weapons -- it was somewhere between a large pistol and a small rifle.

Of course, entering the armory had meant hot-wiring the keypad, but certain things had to be done. Earning Echo's trust wouldn't matter if Echo were dead, and she would be an idiot not to go after her armor. She'd just tugged the last gauntlet into place, her plainclothes tucked in the bottom of her pack, just-in-case. A rescue mission could quickly turn into a improvised escape, and with the knowledge that their identities might be compromised, November wanted to be prepared.

What she could not get to, frustratingly, was her dart-gun, and its respective collection of chemicals and poisons. Perhaps predicting November's skills with hotwiring, Echo and Delta had hidden that particular gem behind a much more complicated security panel, one that November probably could have cracked eventually ... given a week or two. As it were, she had mere minutes, and her poisons would stay. She would make due with the blaster. Her knowledge of the origin of deadly substances would have to serve her until she somehow earned her dart gun back.

As of right now, there was not even any guarantee she would return to the ship -- ever. Something foul was afoot, and November was going to figure out what.

November cinched her pack shut, satisfied with its contents. She stepped out of the armory, tapping the two exposed wires that shut the door again. She replaced the panel, making it at least look as if the keypad lock were still intact.

The ship was all in order, and November had gathered what passes, codes and key-cards she would need to re-enter. They had not been all that hard to find.

The hall to the hangar door was empty now -- if anyone came searching for the two men, they would not have such an easy time of finding them. Bidding the door to open, November emerged onto the ramp, sealing the ship behind her. Echo seemed to have been conclusively captured, but Delta... something had implied that for him, it wasn't quite the case.

And so, as her first matter of business, November was going to find Delta.


~-~-~-~-~-~


November might have asked around as to the wherabouts of Delta -- who surely would not have left the ship without his distinctive black armor -- but there was no way of telling who was informing the one behind this plot. She was not going to alert anyone of her intentions.

And so, she had resorted to poking in and out of the various nooks and crannies of the hangar. A particular alleyway caught her attention rather quickly -- it was on the other side of the hangar, away from where most of the activity was going on. It was ill-lit, and led right to a blind corner -- the tactically perfect place to stage an ambush.

Upon approaching the spot, it appeared to November that just such an event had occurred. A film of exhaust had settled on the seldom-used alley after the approach and departure of ship after ship... the film was disturbed, with at least a half-dozen different sets of footprints, probably more. It looked like there had been a struggle -- various bits of trash around the place were recently disturbed...

Most interestingly, November remarked streaks of dark-green on the rough pavement, as if something hard and heavy had been drug across the ground -- probably some sort of paint or plastic coating... it could easily have been from combat armor. It was not Delta's, but any thing she could find could help her to fulfill her mission.

The skid-marks stopped in front of a large dumpster. That certainly seemed logical, especially if the body that bore the armor that made them was no longer alive. November approached the giant metal box, leaping up and catching her hands over the edge. The rust would have cut deep into her palms, if not for the tough pads on her gloves. As-it-were, she'd just have to be cautious.

She called upon all her upper-body strength, hoisting herself up to perch on the edge of the dumpster, nimble as a spider. Sure enough, she saw a human arm below, exposed among the shadows and partially buried in trash.

"Delta?" she called, peering into the shadows. It would take her enhanced eyes a moment to adjust, but once they did, they would serve to answer her questions: How many bodies were in the dumpster, and more importantly...

Was one of them Delta's?



ooc// Delta may or may not still be in the dumpster, but I expect he's nearby. X)

Aaaaaaaaaaand, this was a really long post. I feel accomplished.

So I think it's your turn, Dire!
But I may be wrong.
's happened a lot lately. X)

[Dire Wolf]

One of the bodies within that dumpster was, indeed, owned by Delta. His mind had long since departed to the dark, cavernous confines behind its cold walls. This retreat was brought on by the salvo of less than lethal stun bolts. Only faintly did he hear November calling his name, the noise sounding as if it was from a great distance away... or behind a wall. It was the latter, in a manner of speaking.

A pair of blue orbs flashed open to reveal the world around him, which was nothing but black. The first sense to be assaulted was that of smell; his world smelt like blood. Lots of blood. It had seeped down from tangled bodies and collected at the bottom of the dumpster, or the top of the trash. He wasn't entirely sure what was the case. It didn't take long for the assassin's mind to remember just the fetor of blood, as his first memory before the "escape" was his training on Dxun. During that time he'd cleaned a boma with his combat knife so it could be properly eaten by Echo and himself.

Fear. It washed over his heart and his mind like a wave of freezing water, casting it from its state of semi-awareness and into a state of pure and unadulterated terror. Vaguely, and from a great distance, Delta heard a scream not unlike the muted sound of his name while he was unconscious. Delta relied on nothing more than his instincts, which were fueled by terror, as his powerful arms ripped the carnage of the dead mean off of his form. Adrenaline turned his already formidable muscles into powerful machines, allowing him to throw the hundreds of pounds off of his body.

Light.

Delta's pupils rapidly contracted to compensate for the overbearing brightness. At first the light hurt his vision, and his eyes, but soon enough the pain in his surgically altered eyes dulled and dissipated. It wasn't long until he'd managed to crawl out of the dumpster, out of the overwhelming smell of blood mixed with death, and into the light. His armored back slammed into the rough duracrete with a heavy thud that seemed to suck the air from his lungs. Is breathing became shallow, which didn't help considering the fact that his first instinct was to throw himself up and run as far and fast away from the bodies as possible. He resisted that urge.

After getting his wind back, and taking a little breather to calm the hell down, he looked up at November. Del said nothing, but his mind worked feverishly behind those misted blue eyes. It began to piece the events together, and eventually his intelligent mind came to but one conclusion: they were after one of the females. Terror washed over him again, only this time it wasn't borne of a survival instinct... but of worry for his partner. "N-november...? I-is... is Echo...?"

His question was more of a statement. A white hot fury mingled with the cold wash of fear as he assumed that Echo was stolen from him. They'd pay. They'd all pay. Delta practically flew up from his prone position and slammed an armored fist into the duracrete wall. He needed some way to vent the blistering heat that had grown in the hearth of his chest. The duracrete cracked and spiderwebbed as his armored fist slammed into the wall, and an almost feral snarl ripped from his vocal chords. Someone would pay. Someone close.

Just then, the animal that was Delta heard what resembled a groan from within the dumpster. His head snapped over towards the steel box and rushed over in an angry wall of black armor and powerful muscle. Quickly finding the source of the moan, a slightly moving man at the top of the pile of bodies, Delta sharply grabbed onto the man and practically threw him out of the dumpster's confines.

"Where is she," his voice deep, cold, and sharp. Delta's face was flushed red with anger, and the veins pulsing in his neck and forehead made it plainly obvious that he was angry. At least outwardly. Inwardly, his heart feared that the answer he assumed to be true was, in fact, true. Before the man had a chance to answer an armored fist found the wound, a bullet hole to the gut, and slammed into it with all of his adrenaline and anger fueled might. Delta found that his voice was now booming, and filled with fury, "WHERE! DID! YOU! TAKE! HER!" Of course, he punctuated the end of each word with another clenched fist into the gaping bullet hole of his wound. Delta's body was filled with adrenaline, and his mind was an odd coupling of furious and terrified.

All of his punches were at one hundred percent strength.

[Deceit *Drinker of Jawa-Juice*]

Those bastards left me to die! Zaeger Morphin thought to himself, squinting his eyes at the light that now filtered into the dumpster, and trying hard not to gag from the fetid odor of bodies that would soon be rotting and things that were already rotten that harassed his nose. Pain shot up and down his stomach, too, which served as an unwelcome distraction from the smell. With a groan he craned his squinting eyes to his belly and reached his fingers down, touching blood and finding a bullet hole. And suddenly he remembered what had happened. That bitch shot me!

He remembered passing out from shock and pain, and then his fellow slavers must have thought him dead, or didn't care to spend the money and time on medical resources. The thought infuriated him! Nine years of service and they had just left me to die! He despaired.

His newfound grief, coupled with the nauseating smell and the pain in his belly, caused him to groan loudly. He'd heard noises just outside of the dump his bodies were thrown in, but they probably weren't a threat to him so he didn't care if whatever was making those noises heard him. They'd probably come and help him, too, if they happened to be-

All hope for rescue was immediately gone as he heard the approach, turned, and saw the hulking mass of rage walking toward him. The fire inside this one's eyes was umistakable, craved for vengence, it craved to vent, but most of all, it was all centered on Zaeger right now. There was a new scent in the dumpster as Zaeger's greaves and pants became wet with his own urine.

Delta's hands grabbed Zaeger and tore him from the dumpster, Zaeger whimpering in fear.

His whimper quickly drew up into a scream as the fist slammed against his wound, Where is she? The question made sense, or it would have, if every single nerve in Zaeger's brain weren't being jangled and wretched and bludgeoned into feeling pain because of the fist in his belly. After the first scream the pain took his breath away, WHERE! Another jam, he found his breath and began screaming again. DID! Another jabbing fist, interupting his last scream and turning into a gasping wreck, YOU! Why? Why did the fists keep coming, obviously this man was asking a question, but not allowing an answer. Zaeger would surely love to explain every iota of information if only to keep this man from punching again! TAKE! Zaeger whimpered and cried now, tears froming, his throat coughing and spluttering, unable to scream, HER! Finally, as he choked on more screams, it clicked in him and he realized what he was asking. He wanted to know where that blasted woman who'd shot him in the damn belly was! Why, it didn't really matter. But the thought didn't even cross Zaeger's mind to lie to this man. In fact, he just wanted the punching to stop, right now.

Zaeger gathered all of the strength he could muster and squirmed, screaming in a hoarse, shrill voice, "Slavers! Slave trade! There's more, just stop hitting me dammit!"

[Kella]

"N-november...? I-is... is Echo...?"

November looked down on the dazed Delta, and she watched silently from her perch as he climbed out of the dumpster, quite conscious, and quite functioning. There was a strange relaxation in her muscles, a slight dulling of her senses... it was weird, this feeling, and she could name it only as 'relief'. Part of her objective had been realized, the odds were better, and -- now, only upon experiencing the opposite emotion, could she realize that earlier she had been... worried. This sapped the satisfaction of the moment, for worry was one of, if not the most useless and worthless emotion November had ever come across.

"N-november...? I-is... is Echo...?" Delta said, after adjusting a moment to the light.

November leapt down from her perch, crouching to absorb the shock, but still feeling it stiffly in her knees. She waited for delta to finish his question, but it seemed that he had no intent to. How foolish it was, to ask someone something, but not give them enough information, so that they knew what you were asking! November regarded it very foolish, as the point of asking a question was expecting an answer, and how could Delta expect an answer from her, if he didn't give her a proper question?

But then her mind regrouped, because it didn't seem he wanted an answer after all. Instead, he threw his fist at the Duracrete wall. November watched in silence. There were a great many things that had been happening that she did not understand, and this was one of them. There were a great many people she did not understand, and Delta was also one of them. Both blades cut into her psyche at equal speed and temper, and she was filled with the dissatisfaction of simply not knowing.

Her next relief came in the form of a low moan; an anomoly that required full application of her analytical logic. She knew that Delta had heard the sound as well, for his eyes flashed towards the dumpster like those of feral beast. She had not known many predators, but she had known some on Dxun, and she'd only ever seen that expression on one beast -- a frothing, rabid animal, mind too infected to put forth any semblance of rational thought.

A moment ago, he had struggled to simply scale the dumpster wall. Now, Delta practically flew over it, unearthing from it a limp humanoid figure. If it was not already dead, it might as well have been -- Delta showed no sign of any intent to relent.

"Where is she," he screamed. "WHERE! DID! YOU! TAKE! HER!"

Every word brought another fist into the man. November watched. She watched the way the man's body folded and crumpled, she could hear the bones and joints, groaning and snapping even over the feverish huff of Delta's breath.

Eyes enhanced to see far into the distance, could bring every detail of this close event, in vivid color. Blood rushed to the surface of the man's skin as the vessels popped and exploded, and his head and bones bent in ways that they had never been intended to bend.

He screamed for a few moments, and then he could scream no more. November could year the choking, gasping whimpers, she could she the blood-flecked spittle. And yet, she did nothing.

Nothing.

She did nothing because she had no authority. She had no authority in the world of humans because she was no human. She was altered, she was estranged, she was different, she was separated. And yet, every day she grew closer and closer to this world, to this place where bodies could be tortured for no reason, where minds did things without a speck of sense, where souls were raised to pedestals higher than a god, but others were diminished to less worth than dirt.

November knew that if she accepted this, she would become damaged. Her efficiency would be compromised. Therefore, it was in her best interest to avoid this state, to avoid this place of existence.

And yet... part of her did not want to become a part of it. It was not science, it was not probability, it was... want. Part of her did not want to feel fists in her own wounds, be they physical or immaterial, from Delta, or from any other. She did not want, because she did not like the pain, or the idea of the pain.

This concept of want was something new, and strange, and foreign. But it had been denied to her, denied by Green Meadows. Seeds of curiosity sprung up, curiosity as to this want, and she could not bring herself to squelch it out, not yet.

And if she was going to have to fight for her own want, then this man could fight for his own want. It was of no advantage to her to help him, or to cease his punishment. All punishment had to be consequence for past action. That was the only logical answer, wasn't it? November's mind still could not comprehend injustice, and so she stood in silence. Stood with no qualms.

Until, that is, she heard the man's voice, hoarse and cracking, barely audible beyond the inhuman roars of Delta's rage.

"Slavers! Slave trade! There's more, just stop hitting me dammit!"

November blinked, her eyes focusing sharply on the man. He had information they needed. There was something November did not know, and he could make it so she knew. November could not deny any opportunity to know, because the desire to know was the one thing rooted most deeply into her being -- and it had been all along. Not even Green Meadows could tame that desire, not with all their technology, not with all their training.

"Stop!" She said, forcing a full breath of air out with her diaphragm, making the words loud and strong, commanding and even.

"Slavers!" She demanded of the man, who was surely on the precipice of death, "What do you mean, 'slavers'?"

Her voice commanded, but she did not dare physically interfere with Delta. That would have been suicide.

[Dire Wolf]

((ugh. Sorry for the delay, and length. Hopefully the quality is good. Didn't have much to work with, givin' the circumstances. >.< will do better next time.))

A special kind of bestial fury coursed through the former assassin's blood at that very moment. It pervaded his senses, and perhaps even his sanity. That righteous fury was what blinded him, deafened him, and what made him slam his powerful fist into one of the man's wounds. The blood that squished forth from the wound and onto his hand, making it feel wet and hot across the stretched-thin skin of his knuckles. His partner's safety was all that mattered to him. Besides that, he didn't care. The universe be damned, he didn't care.

Especially when the word "slavers" met his ears.

Slave. A person who is the property of and wholly the subject to another; a bond servant. Slaves had been outlawed in the Republic, but have been known to be used since man had enough intelligence to dominate another. There were many types of slaves. Work slaves. Slaves of "Pleasure". Even slaves who were meant for little more than childish amusement. Besides that, a gallery of images flashed through his mind's eye. Each one were of slavery of one type or another. He didn't care how he knew it so well. This man would suffer. He'd draw it out weeks if he could. He'd give the man a blood transfusion to keep him alive if need be.

Blue eyes burned furiously down at the captured slaver, the one who was partly responsible for his partner's kidnapping. Delta's hand swiped down to the man's neck and roughly grasped his esophogus without warning, and well before peeped a thing. "Get. Up." He pressed the tips of his fingers around the man's windpipe just a little harder as he began to pull him up, though he was sure to allow air to get through. He wasn't of any use to him dead. Yet. Slowly, he half pulled the man up and half allowed him to get up himself. Suddenly, harshly, he pushed him against the wall. Again, the man was controlling his strength so it would stun him at best. Delta sure as hell wasn't about to be gentle with this scum bag.

"Stop! Slavers! What do you mean, 'slavers'?"

"Answer her. After that," his voice was deadly cold and stony, despite his odd urge to scream the words at the man, "the amount of time and pain you have before you die is directly associated with the amount of information you give me about the whereabouts of that woman." A half snarl crunched at the side of the man's nose as he pulled his face agonizingly close to the wounded man's. Those blue eyes could have bored a hole through steel with the intensity of their gaze, and the fury behind them. "You picked the wrong woman to take."

[Deceit *Drinker of Jawa-Juice*]

Zaeger winced as his body slammed into the wall. Delta, a mass of angry, hulking muscles and fury, leaned forward. It was enough to make him scream out all of his secrets since he was 12 years old.

"Answer her. After that, the amount of time and pain you have before you die is directly associated with the amount of information you give me about the whereabouts of that woman." Delta leaned forward, and Zaeger could swear he could feel the heat off of the man's cheeks and hear feral snarl. "You picked the wrong woman to take."

Zaeger felt his own fury rise within him. This bastard! That hurt, hurt like nothing he'd ever felt before. If Zaeger survived, he would take pleasure in guttin' this boy. Of course, that was a really big if, all things considered. When Zaeger looked into Delta's eye, all signs of defiance and rage melted away instantly, quickly replaced by fear. Just freezing, chilling fear that made every bone in his body shiver.

"I mean to say," Zaeger replied slowly, fearfully, "That the men who...took...The woman, well, they was slavers. Um...Sex...Sex slavers." He blanched a whiter shade of pale than he was already at, hoping Delta didn't overreact to that, "They got her, and they'll be wanting to get out of here pretty quickly too. Within the next day or so they'll take their shipment of girls and leave this planet, to...to Ylesia...I can...I can direct you to a man, a mercenary, who know's the in's and out's of the slave trade, he can help you out! Just please don't kill me!"

[Kella]

This outcome was not expected. Delta was acting irrationally, and yet... November could not help but notice that it was yielding the desired outcome. By using his emotion of Anger, he was making an emotion of Fear in the man. And that Fear made the man act irrationally, because he was giving out information, where holding the information might have been more beneficial to him. So irrational behaviors could be used to produce the desired outcome. She would remember this.

Gears turned in November's computer of a mind, searching through memories and facts, until finally, she touched upon the information she needed. Slave, noun, a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant. Somewhere she had glanced upon the word, and its definition had held no significance to her until now. And that same computer of a mind could not help but make the connection. She had been a slave, the whole property of Green Meadows. She was not sure how she felt about this, and she did not want to feel anything about it, but there was an odd feeling in the pit of her stomach at it, and she resolved to share her revelation with Delta later.

Later, of course, because now she needed to gather information. Ylesia. A shipment of 'girls', no doubt more slaves. The word 'sex' threw her off, for it sparked absolutely no recognition in her mind -- she could not recall ever having learned of or heard anything of the sort. It must have been a kind of service or industry. It was at this point, that it dawned upon her mind that Green Meadows had ever controlled what she could know, the information she could have. It had not really bothered her until now, now when there were so many more questions than there had been answers. Maybe it would not have been so frustrating if they had truly taught her all there was to know... so it was their fault. Their fault for this frustration. November felt a new emotion now, and she didn't know what it was, but all she knew is that she did not like Green Meadows. It did not satisfy her. And these were the first inklings of hate, but she could not know what they truly were.

"Delta," she said, stepping closer to the wall, "I think his mind might function better if he were under less stress. Can you keep him detained without frightening him more?"

November talked about the man as she would a creature, or a box of supplies. She showed no concern for his well being, no pity, no distress at his situation, and the simple cause for this was the sheer impossibility for her to feel those emotions. They were more complicated, more delicate than satisfaction, fear, or frustration. And, as of yet, they could not break through the grip the RELIC still held on her mind. But that grip was loosening, slowly, but surely...

For the mean while, she looked at Delta. She predicted he was most likely to understand the logic of her statement -- after all, he was Green-Meadows raised as well -- and so, her gaze was one of expectation.

"You," she addressed the man now, "Take us to this mercenary. If you do not," she gave Delta's heated face an analytical glance, "My associate will kill you."

It was not a threat -- it was a simple statement of fact.


___________________________________



A fact that the slaver could not deny, for he did indeed lead the two assassins to the mercenary, and then was allowed to return to his now-miserable life. The Deliverance took to the skies once more, its destination Ylesia, in hot pursuit of the slavers. What happens next? Not even the plot-bunny knows...

Plot continued here.

{Thread Officially Concluded}