18+ Among The Stars

[Baneloth]

"I'm not sure what that is but I'd rather not wait around and find out. That could potentially be the thing, or things that attacked this ship. Report it to the Captain and lets just keep moving. Quieter this time I think."Derek nodded, agreeing with the other hunter. He opened a comm to the captain, and said. "Captain? Varastian here. We've almost completed our sweep of the cargo hold, when we heard someone or something, most likely hostile, scratching on the walls and ceilings. Not sure what it is, and I've got no intention of finding out the hard way. Keep your eyes open. The surviving crew might not be the only things on board" he closed the channel, and the two hunters continued on their way. Derek made sure to keep a close eye on the ventilation shafts, not wanting anything to pop out at him. His primary weapon was medium length, which meant he needed a little time to turn and fire, as opposed to a pistol. Either way, anything that came out of the vents was being shot, no questions asked.

He noticed a dim glow on one of the crates, and motioned for Marek to wait for a moment. It was a datapad. It only had about thirty percent power left, but staring at its' contents, Derek figured he could get some information off of it. It was a quartermasters log, and in Dereks experience, quartermasters tended to know much more than they should. Glancing at the first log entry, he grunted in satisfaction, and shoved the 'pad into one of his belt pouches for further perusing . Now all they had to do was finish their sweep and get the hell off this ship.

 

[Drahkma]

"Jon, I'd like to dive into this droid's memory core. I can copy the information to my datavault and watch its final hours. Maybe it'll help us learn what happened here. It'll only take about thirty seconds." Jon threw her an incredulous look. Which, of course, she couldn't see with his helmet on. 'We're in a derelict star destroyer, with who knows what on it, and she wants to play with droids!?' He silently ranted to himself. Then the more proffessional part of his mind took over, reminding him that she could possibly get info from the droids head. And intel was always good. But that didn't mean he had to like it. "Fine" he growled, turning to keep watch on the dark corridor up ahead. It was eerily quiet now. He almost wished he'd left the droid unscrapped...just so it wouldn't be so damn...spooky.

 

[TheShadedOne]

"Captain? Varastian here. We've almost completed our sweep of the cargo hold, when we heard someone or something, most likely hostile, scratching on the walls and ceilings. Not sure what it is, and I've got no intention of finding out the hard way. Keep your eyes open. The surviving crew might not be the only things on board" one of the bounty hunters was contacting her, and his news was...less than comforting. Her mind went back to the recording Marek had showed her. "Probably just parasites chewing on the wires" she said, hardly believing her own lie. "I thought bounty hunters were supposed to be tough? " she sneered. Then she opened the link to Marek as well. "If you two can get your act together, and continue your sweep, I'll make sure you each get a nice slice of the reward when we get back to Starflare station" she said. Then she turned to the Altmer assassin. "Where are we, anways?" despite brushing off the hunters concerns, she was worried, and didn't want to spend much more time on the destroyer.

 

[Baneloth]

The Khajiit woman showed him around the ship, and Kyle was suitably impressed. Like he'd said, he'd never been aboard a warship before, especially not one that wasn't teeming with Imperials or Altmer. Then she asked "So, Kyle, how is it staying with this bounty hunter guy you came aboard with? You didn't seem to happy with him earlier" Kyle felt himself blush and start grinning. It was nice to know that there was one other person on the ship that cared at least a little about him. It was a pretty big change from being stuck on Theren. "Yeah...I guess I was just being...dumb. He's not all that bad. I mean. For a bounty hunter...plus, he said he'd train me as a bounty hunter which is...better than what I was doing before, I guess" he rubbed the back of his head, avoiding eye contact with the woman. "So, uh, how'd you come to be here?"

******​

Derek bristled at the captains goading, but didn't say anything. The reward was, as far as he knew, it was a large sum. And honestly, he needed the credits. The Nomad wasn't quite as upgraded or well taken care of he would like it to be, and he was running low on ammo as well. Not that he'd admit that to anyone. Glancing over at Marek, he shrugged, and then nodded towards the door. Technically, it made more sense for the other bounty hunter to proceed in front of him, having his pistol already drawn and readied. However, Derek smacked the control panel, and the door opened, revealing a narrow corridor, for the most part, it was in the dark, with a few light panels operating, some just flickering on and off . It was wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side, but it would be a tight fit. "Oh, that's lovely. Just kriffing great" he muttered, tightening his grasp on his rifle, feeling a cold sweat that had noting to do with the temperature controlled armour. ​

 

[Simus]

Knits-Bones brought up the rear of her group and was constantly looking around to make sure Ria, Arcanus and Garza were safe. They checked any corners they passed but Knits-Bones checked them again, just to make sure. She had learned through hard experience that you could never be too careful when exploring an unknown ship. One of the hunters radioed in about hearing noises, which didn't make anyone feel better. This ship was clearly attacked yet it was completely empty.

"Probably just parasites chewing on the wires" Ria goaded.

"Right." Knits-Bones chuckled. "And I'm a Split-Tail from Gideon. Whatever killed this ship is still on board and it's only a matter of time before it finds us..."

Knits-Bones knew she wasn't helping but she wanted to keep everyone alert. She had seen good men die because their attention wavered.

***​

Jessica pushed a small skin tag at the base of her skull and a small hatch popped open, revealing the end of a cable. She knelt beside the droid and pulled the cable out from under her long red hair. It wouldn't get in the way since it was tied back and the cable silently unspooled from her skull as she tugged. Soon she had enough slack to work comfortably. She carefully examined the droid's head, looking for some place to plug in and start downloading. Soon she found what she was looking for.​

​

"Emergency...induction port..." She unknowingly muttered over the comms. The cable head reconstructed itself to fit the port and she plugged herself in. A green progress bar came up across her neural HUD indicating the time it would take to sync her brain with the droid's motherboard. After a few seconds they sync was complete and she had a choice of several possible entries to review. This was an important find and she needed to let the other teams know.​

​

"Captain Ria, this is Jessica. We came across a semi-functional droid here in Engineering. It's no longer functioning but it's memory core is intact. I'm going to link myself with it and try to find anything useful. I'll contact you again when I have some results."​

​

Her heavily augmented brain, combined with Adjutant's assistance, made it possible to review the entries in direct digital code. This made it possible to review minutes of audio and visual footage in mere seconds. Her brain then compressed this data into images she could recognize. Usually such tech was extremely valuable for studying large quantities of information quickly but it also could cause great harm to the user if that data was corrupted or damaged in some way.​

​

Something Jessica had forgotten to check for.​

​

The cable sparked at both ends and Jessica's mind was bombarded with vague and terrifying images. Lab tanks burst as creatures she couldn't seem to focus on burst from them. Altmer scientists were skewered by equipment and broken glass. Alarms went off as the creatures pounced on the scientists and started ripping them apart limb from limb. Blood, fear and panic overwhelmed the room and drowned Jessica's thoughts. Lockdown systems failed, security mechs didn't respond, the few marines that were on station were quickly and violently killed. Jessica could feel the terror of the scientists and doubled over next to the droid. She started groaning and held her head with both hands as if to keep it from bursting. ​

​

The creatures spread throughout the ship, taking section after section and leaving a trail of blood as they went. All of the lights and comms went dead and the crew panicked. None of their controls worked and a scratching sound was broacasted all over the ship. Section after section literally went dark and when the creatures finally reached the CIC, the captain and bridge crew were cowering under their stations. All of them died in terror. ​

​

Jessica was curled up into a ball when it was over. She was in a cold sweat. Her heart was racing and the shrieks of the crew were so vivid she hadn't realized they had become her own. "Death." She whispered. "By the Machine God death is here..."​

 

[Drahkma]

Jon barely glanced over his shoulder as the girl started working on the droid. He swore he could hear some sort of wet, raspy, breathing, coming from up ahead. Something that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up, and he found himself holding his own breath, expecting something nasty with lots of teeth and claws to leap out of the darkness at him. Something that had no need to fear blaster rifles...He almost jumped out of his skin when the girl behind him started shrieking. He turned on his heel, and it didn't take him long to spot the cable snaking from beneath her hair to the droids own skull. It didn't seem to take a genius to figure out what to do, and he couldn't have hells knew what descending on them, drawn by her. Kneeling beside the droid, he yanked the cable out, and grabbed Jessica by her shoulders.

"Hey, come on back, kid." He shook her, and she quited down, before whispering something that he almost didn't catch. "Death." She whispered. "By the Machine God death is here..." For a moment, Jons' blood ran cold. Then he shook it off. 'Concentrate! You're a professional, damn it!' He scolded himself. "Yeah, well, I didn't exactly think the crew would turn out the power for the fun of it" he replied dryly. He opened a channel to the merc sergeant that had lead another squad. Janx, or something, Jon thought his name was. "Sergeant, one of my group has had a mental break of some sort. You mind sending a few of your boys over to take her to the hangar bay?" Silence. Not just static, dead, ominous silence.He checked to make sure he was transmitting, and that the sergeants helmet was receiving. "Sergeant? Janx, respond, will you?" Still nothing, and now Jon was starting to get seriously annoyed.

He turned to the the others, intending to get one of them to try. "Can any of you-" he stopped dead. There had once been four following him. Now there were three. The thief that had been bringing up the rear of the group was gone. He stared at the two engineers, "Where the hell did he go?"

 

[Simus]

Jessica's eyes were rolling up towards the back of her head as she shrieked and spoke her last ominous line. Her mind had joined the droid's memories and she had lost all awareness of where she was. However, Jon's decisive choice to disconnect her from the droid end of her cable shook her back into reality.

Jessica sat on the floor and rubbed the back of her head, slowly gaining awareness of what happened. Her cable was disconnected but still spooled out from her head. Jon was talking with one of the other teams over the comm asking them to bring Jessica back to the hanger and that she had some kind of mental break, but she didn't. She was on the floor for some reason and couldn't recall the last couple of minutes and had a bad headache but other than that she felt fine. She looked up to Jon, confused.

"Jon? she asked groggily. "Why am I sitting here on the floor? It looks like we're still on the destroyer so why are we just standing around? Did something happen? God I've got a headache, where did that come from?"

She noticed her cable was out and unspooled a generous length. "What the hell? Why is my interface cable out? I have a cable spooled in my skull which I can access from a little skin tag at the base of my skull. It lets me interface with almost any machine and transfer or upload data....but you probably know that already. What's going on?

 

[Andre Marek]

Aden followed Darek down the narrow corridor in silence. He was keeping an eye on the map displayed on his HUD, wary of making a wrong turn somewhere. This ship was massive. If they made a wrong turn, they could easily wind up lost. When they came to a junction in the corridor, he reached out and tapped Dareks shoulder and pointed to the left. They were done with their sweep of the cargo hold and it was time to head back to the hangar.

As the two of them crept down the deserted hallway, Aden noticed an immediate change in atmosphere. While the cargo hold itself had been eerily quiet to the point of being unnerving, it hadn't been quite like this. Here there was absolutely no sound at all besides the muffled thuds of their footfalls on the deck. Even his own breathing inside the confines of his helmet sounded amplified more than usual. If it wasn't for the environmental sensors in his suit telling him otherwise, Aden would have sworn they had stepped into a vacuum. And what little light there had been in the cargo hold was gone as well, the only exceptions being a few sparks spitting from wires that had been ripped from the odd panel along the walls. Who, or what had ripped the wires out of their housing, Aden didn't know.

After about ten minutes of walking, Aden happened to glance at his 360 degree video feed. A shadow darted across the hall behind him. He stopped dead, turning his head slowly as he activated every sensor he had available. Nothing. He held his pistol at waist height, still wary. Behind him, Darek had stopped and was looking over his shoulder. "I don't think we're alone Varastian." He muttered, just in time for the sound of scratching to sound above them once again, making him snap his gaze to the ceiling. "Damn... It followed us." He said on their helmet-to-helmet comlink. Now that he thought about it, he'd only used the comlink. Whatever was in the ceiling must have tracked them using something other than sound. He turned to Darek and nodded down the hall as they both started moving again. Before too long they found themselves back at the hanger. They were the first ones to arrive.

 

[Drahkma]

(OOC: Might as well switch Jons' dialogue to red to avoid confusion with Marek)

The girl sounded confused, groggy, almost as if she'd had too much to drink and passed out, rather than connected by a wire to a droid. " You had the bright idea to connect yourself to the droid, to try and find out what's going on the ship. Meanwhile, our thief friend has vanished, and we've only got a couple of hours to get to the engine room and retrieve what we came for"

He reached down and pulled her to her feet. "Come on. I'll be happy to play twenty questions with you after we're back on the Talon. Until then, all I care about is getting to the engine room and then getting out of here" he waved for the others to follow him once more, taking point again, and keeping his eyes wide open. There was, strangely enough, no signs of the crew, besides the demented droid they'd come across.

Another half hour of walking and the four of them arrived at the engine room. The doors, usually closed, were wide open, and it looked like someone had blasted the control panel. Trying not to think on why someone would shoot control panels, he motioned the three engineers forwards. "Hurry up and get to work " he muttered.

 

[Baneloth]

Derek breathed a quiet sigh of relief when Marek signalled they'd finished their sweep of the cargo area. It wasn't that he was afraid of anything inside the destroyer. He just hated tight spaces, with a passion. Something moved behind them, and Derek stopped to look over his shoulder. He didn't see anything, but he had the sense that something was there.

Just waiting for him to look away again, so it could- do what exactly? Shoot them? Any sniper worthy of the title would have been able to take out both of them from across the hangar bay. Both hunters armours could withstand conventional laser and projectile fire for some time. If the whatever it was wanted to attack physically, well, Derek couldn't speak for his companion, but his gauntlets were designed for close combat. The small spikes on them could break bone and shred organic material easily. That wasn't counting his built in flame thrower, either.

Despite those facts, he was still uneasy. It was probably the eerie atmosphere of the destroyer. Limited power, no crew, not even a droid...it was all very strange. "I don't think we're alone Varastian." Marek said, just as the same scratching that they'd heard earlier erupted from above them. Both of them directed their gazes to the ceiling, "Damn... It followed us." That was obvious. But how it had followed them was a mystery. They'd been moving fairly quietly, and only spoken on the helmet to helmet comms. "The sooner we're out of here, the happier I'll be" he said, keeping a wary eye on the ceiling.

 

[Madrar]

Arcanus lead the group deeper, ignoring the captain assuring the two bounty hunters that the noise they'd heard was a simple parasite, and the Argonians response. He was focused on his mission, and he knew he was about to complete it. The others were ignorant of this area of the ship. The Dominion kept the interior layout of its' destroyers a close guarded secret. They were near the forward crew quarters of the destroyer, where engineers and refueling crew slept and ate.

Arcanus would have liked to go farther into the destroyer, but doubted he'd have time. The captain would grow suspicious if he insisted on remaining on the destroyer, and, honestly, he had no real wish to stay on the derelict ship. Besides, it wasn't like the mercenaries would ever find out what was happening on the destroyer. All he had to do was eliminate the crew that his group came across. He needn't worry about the engineering group or the bounty hunters. No one seemed to trust the hunters, and Arcanus was already planning on either recruiting or neutralizing the girl.

A noise to his left had him turning, hefting his rifle as he did so. The door that lead to the quarters opened, and a tunic wearing crewman, with a tear on one of his forearms, stumbled towards the group "Thanks the stars! You're not-" Whatever the man had been about to say was cut off as Arcanus lifted his rifle, and fired point blank into the Altmer crewmans chest. It left a fist sized hole, right where his heart had been, seconds before. The crewman eyes widened, and he collapsed forwards, onto his face, quite dead. Calmly, the Altmer assassin turned to the mercenaries, and waited for them to make their next move.

 

[TheShadedOne]

Ria turned to glare at Knits Bone for her sarcastic comment, but turned back when she heard a door slide open.That this section of the ship still had power surprised her, but not as much as what happened next. An Altmer crewman in a tattered uniform nearly ran into the Altmer assassin, and said, his voice clearly relieved, "Thank the stars!You're not-" the black armoured assassin blew a fist sized chest clean through the man, and he collapsed to the deckplates, probably dead. Garza reacted first, crashing into the Altmer, knocking his weapon out of his hands. "Are you insanse!?" Ria snarled. She opened a channel to the others, and said "Attention. Get what you need, and get back to the hangar bay. We're leaving." She turned towards the bay, and Garza shoved the Altmer forwards, tossing the elfs rifle to Knits-Bones as he did so.

 

[Drahkma]

Jon stood with his back to the engine room, hoping that if something did happen to the engineers, he'd hear about it and have time to turn and take it out. If it could be taken out. They still had no clue what had happened to the crew, but he was way past having 'just a bad feeling'. Something had happened here, and not knowing what was making him paranoid, and less than friendly feeling. He was about to ask her what was taking so damn long, when Rias' voice came over the helmet comm. "Attention. Get what you need, and get back to the hangar bay. We're leaving." The captain sounded angry, which probably meant they'd run into some kind of problem. Jon wasn't about to argue, especially since he was sure he'd heard something coming from the hallway to his right. Something dragging, almost...he shook his head, and glared at the two remaining engineers. 'Two engineers?' There had been three a moment ago....deciding it wasn't important, he snapped "Alright, you two. Wrap it up and let's go. Captain says we're leaving"

 

[TheShadedOne]

While the boy spoke, he was careful to avoid Milas' eyes. From what the bounty hunter had said, and what he was telling her, Kyle had lead a pretty bad life before being caught by the hunter. It was rare that someones' life actually improved after being caught by a bounty hunters. "So, uh, how'd you come to be here?" Kyle asked. Mila smiled at him, and replied "I'm the captains sister. When she first left our homeworld to go make some money, I stayed. I was studying to become a doctor at the time, and didn't want to waste my time as a mercenary. Then, a couple of years ago..." her hand strayed to her stomach. "Something happened. My only option was to join up with the Sabres. So really, we're not that different, you and I" she smiled at the boy, hoping she'd put him somewhat at ease. She wondered what the situation on the destroyer was. They hadn't heard anything from them since the group had gone over and landed.

 

[Baneloth]

"I'm the captains sister. When she first left our homeworld to go make some money, I stayed. I was studying to become a doctor at the time, and didn't want to waste my time as a mercenary. Then, a couple of years ago..." The doctors hand strayed to her stomach.


"Something happened. My only option was to join up with the Sabres. So really, we're not that different, you and I" Kyle did his best to look her in the eyes, this time. Apparently, people were more likely to trust him, if he made eye contact.

"I guess not. Well, thanks for showing me around. I should probably get back to Dereks ship. I'm sure he'll be back any minute now" he really did appreciate Mila showing him around. His mom had promised to take him to a different planet, once, but then she'd had to 'work' and he'd never seen her again.

 

[Madrar]

Arcanus didn't bother resisting as the hulking Argonian tackled him to the ground. It would have done little more than get him killed, and he still had work to do. He still wasn't sure exactly why his orders were to kill every crewman he'd come across. It didn't look like they were deserters, and it certainly didn't look like they were a danger to Dominion interests, but Arcanus had learned long ago, it was better to keep his mouth shut and carry out his orders rather than question them.

Out loud, anyways. Even as the captains group marched him towards the hangar bay, he closed off all external audio feed and output, and opened the heavily encrypted channel he used to contact his superiors. His handler took a little longer than usual to answer, and that set off little alarm bells in the back of his head. "Morne? What's your status?"

"I may have been compromised" he ground out, embarrassed to even admit to the fact he hadn't been as good as he could have been.
"Imperials?"
"Mercenaries. Red Sabres." There was what sounded like a sigh of relief on the other end of the link. "That's better than having the Empire in the system...Morne, listen, my superiors decided that...they decided that one asset wasn't enough to get the job done. The Eviscerator is en route, with a company of Thalmor shock troops. Estimate four days before their arrival." Arcanus didn't need to ask if the Thalmor were coming to get him out.

Thalmor didn't do extractions. If they saw him, he was as good as dead. He knew the exact procedure for this scenario. As soon as the Eviscerator dropped out of hyperspace, it would neutralize any weapons emplacements the sensors picked up. Then the Thalmor shock troopers would board, and attempt to secure the ships. If they failed, the destroyer would eliminate both the Dragons Talon and the Glory. "Understood, sir" the link was quiet for a moment, before his handler spoke again. "Should you manage to escape captivity, your orders still stand. For the mercenaries as well" then the link went dead.

Arcanus was too well trained to freeze up, but he did nearly miss a step. Not because he cared what happened to the Red Sabres. They were nothing but a means to an end for him. He was worried because if the orders carried over to the Sabres, on board an entirely seperate ship, it meant that whatever was wrong with the crew had just transferred over to the mercenaries. 'Airborne toxin then. Or some disease that can get through breath filters' he ran a quick diagnostic with his own helmet, the complex in built scanning equipment searching for signs of disease or toxins. It came up negative, and the assassin breathed out a sigh of relief. Now all he had to do was figure a way off the Talon before the Thalmor showed up.

 

[Simus]

Jessica was concerned about her apparent blackout. She was an expert in interfacing with machines, computers and droids of most, if not all, types. She knew how to look for, spot and work around just about any technical issue and could piece together data from the smallest fragments. She could even reconstruct corrupted data with a good chance of success without a backup. Even if she did get careless, she had enough redundant systems and firewalls to handle any virus or malware. Yet all the evidence pointed to her interfacing with that droid and blacking out, apparently after some sort of episode from Jon's tone of voice. Something had gone very wrong and she needed to find out what, but for now it would have to wait. She and Griffith had a job to do.

The group's remaining trip to the engine room was uneventful and they three engineers started getting to work. For all the bloodstained gloom of this place the engines were surprisingly intact. Everything was where it should be and once the main computer terminals were charged with batteries the group brought with them they saw that all systems were intact. That wasn't the problem. The problem was the very fact that the computers needed charging. The engines and reactors were completely unpowered. This never, ever happened aboard a starship under any normal circumstances. Even derelict ships centuries old still had life in their reactors, even if that life couldn't be accessed. Someone had simply drained the ship dry. The only reason any systems worked at all in here is because most ships had small, auxiliary generators at regular points in the hull structure to ease the burden on the main reactors and ensure power coverage in case of main reactor failure.

The engineering team had to jury rig a few systems and utilize all the batteries they brought but managed to get enough light to work. After that, the recovery operation was fairly simple. Griffith had made a good list and Jessica's V.I Adjutant was able to coordinate the salvage efforts, making things go much faster than normal. Within twenty minutes, almost everything was stripped and placed in a storage bin with wheels Jessica had sodered onto makeshift axles. She was just getting the last few parts when she realized a tool she needed was out of reach.

"Hey Griffith, could you hand me the..." She looked up and realized that Griffith was no longer there. Just her, Jon and the engineer she hadn't gotten the name of. "Griffith?" She called again, her echo sending a chill up her spine. She tried her communicator. "Griffith? it's Jessica. Do you copy?" There was nothing but dead air on the other end. "Griffith, this is Jessica. Please respond." Still nothing. She was about to walk out and tell Jon they had a big problem but he got to them first.

"Alright, you two. Wrap it up and let's go. Captain says we're leaving"

"Sure, okay." Jessica said, now thoroughly worried. "We're about done anyway. We've got enough to head back. Maybe Griffith got lost checking out one of the system corridors. Or he could just have a bad transmitter. I'm sure he'll meet up with us at the rendezvous point. Ready whenever you guys are."

Meanwhile, back at the Captain's group near the docking bay, Knits-Bone had to try very hard to not shoot the Altmer assassin in cold blood. She really, really wanted to. The only difference between an assassin and a thug was in who they killed and in killing a soldier of his own military, this mer had crossed that line. Knits-Bone wasn't stupid. She knew what kind of people it took to murder possibly innocent people in cold blood. She just didn't like it. She had grown up on Nioxius. The Argonian tribes still trained Shadowscales to kill their enemies and there were plenty of them. She had left Nioxius and joined the Empire to get away from that sort of thing. It wasn't a fair way to kill. That's why she joined the Legion.

She gladly took the elf's gun and slug it over her back while keeping her own shotgun trained on Arcanus. Her white eyes stared daggers into the mer's back, her pupils turning to slits. As if daring him to shoot anyone else. She hated the Dominion and the Thalmor who ruled them with all her heart and she would take any reason to kill on. She decided to break the tension by speaking up and to rattle Arcanus a little.

"Hmm...I'm not sure why, but I'm suddenly thinking of the number of Thalmor agents I've killed over the past thirty years. Lost track around fifty."

She paused for a moment, assuming that she was getting on the Captain's nerves and being okay with that. If she was pissed at Knits-Bone, she wasn't focused on the spooky ship they were in. She wasn't afraid. She could focus better, and help her crew focus better.

"This ship sure is dark. Be a shame if any one of us tripped and fell down a fit. Yep. Terrible shame."

 

[TheShadedOne]

Ria ignored the Argonian. She was too busy thinking about the information Marek had presented he with before they'd left. The noises the two hunters had reported, and the crewman had said 'you're not' right before the elf had shot him. The four of them reached the hangar bay, where the tow bounty hunters were already waiting. Jon and two engineers had shown up as well, which was worrying. Half of his group was gone, and she decided to ask him about it once they were safely back on the ship.

"We're ready for pickup." she said, after opening a link to the gunship pilots. They acknowledged, and a few minutes later, the gunship arrived in the hangar. She waited for the others to board, before heading for the ship herself, when someone behind her called "Hey, hold up!" She turned to see sergeant Miruvor Janx striding towards the gunship. She froze, realizing that none of the eight sabres that had been in his squad were currently with him.

"Sergeant...where are your men?" The sergeant looked over his shoulder, and she could have sworn that he started trembling, but when he replied, his voice was steady. "Lost 'em. I spent the last hour looking for them, but..." he shook his head. Ria frowned at that. If his men had all gone missing, he should have called it in, but he hadn't. At least not to her. But an abandoned hangar bay was not the place to have such a discussion. Alright, let's get out of here" she said, and the two of them boarded the ship. The gunship fired its' engines, making the trip from the derelict destroyer to the Drgons' Talon in record time. Garza shoved the assassin ahead of him, "I'll take him to the brig" the Argonian said, motioning for Knits-Bone to follow.

 

[Baneloth]

The assault ship brought them back to the mercenary cruiser, minus ten people. 'So I guess whatever me and Marek heard wasn't exactly friendly.' The one sergeant that had returned from the merc squad was acting suspicious. To Derek, anyways, but nobody seemed to be paying much attention to the man. Probably because of the Altmer assassin who was now, apparently, the mercenaries prisoner.

He would have asked what was going on, but really, he didn't give a damn. As long as he got paid at the end of the job, he was happy. 'Speaking of getting paid...' he followed the captain, who was watching the large Argonian haul the elf off to the brig. "Hey, captain. We did your little scouting mission. Time to pay up" he nodded towards the other hunter. He also noticed Kyle watching from near the Nomads' boarding ramp. He discreetly motioned for the kid to stay where he was, not wanting him to get caught up in anything if the captain decided to play nasty.

 

[Madrar]

Arcanus didn't rise to the threat in the female Argonians voice. Trying to escape on board the destroyer was stupid, and besides, he was fairly certain she'd shoot before he got two steps away. So he simply ignored her. Enduring physical and psychological torture had been part of his training. He didn't fear anything the Sabres or the Argonian could do to him.

The worst that would happen was he'd be turned over to the Empire. Then quietly disappear, either eliminated by Thalmor operatives, or incarcerated by the Empire on one of their secret prison colonies. He didn't struggle or speak when loaded onto the assault ship, or even when the Argonian shoved him off of it, towards the brig.

What he did do was activate a fail-safe in his helmets systems. Anyone other than him attempting to access the information stored inside it would snap a virtual tripwire, which would send the information to a hardrive located in a safehouse on Starflare station, before erasing all traces of it on his helmet. There was no no information on or near him that would implicate the Dominion. His failure wouldn't cost anyone else. At the brig, they confiscated his helmet, gauntlets, including the blades attached to them,rifle, and equipment belt.

He needed none of those to be able to kill, but they hampered him significantly. Especially because of the Red Sabres that were watching him from a distance. Wary enough that if Arcanus made any sudden moves, he'd probably be shot. Multiple times. The Argonian shoved him inside one of the holding cells, the durasteel cell door sliding shut behind him. He examined his surroundings, noting the pair of chairs, bolted to the deck, small, stainless steel table, and a small, plain bunk.

(OOC: Hope you don't mind me having Arcanus thrown in the brig right away, Shaded. Just let me know if you want anything changed.)