Target: Weather control station

[SneakyPax]

Chapter 1

Below Omni-1 a slender frame of an opifex chasing down a seemingly endless corridor. Alarm sirens and flashing lights prove that she screwed up in disabling the detection sensors within the compound.

In the midst of her full speed sprint she grabbed her hacking device out of her pockets, heading towards a huge blastdoor with a sign that reads "Maintenance - Restricted Area". She stopped right in front, gasping for air.

Next to it was a numpad patiently waiting for someone with a proper ID-code. She jerked the interface of the hacking device into the appropriate socket of the numpad, then punched in a few random numbers. The display prompted a short "Code accepted" and for a brief moment a satisfied smile hushed over her face.

"About time that at least one thing goes as planned" she mumbled while waiting for the huge blast door to open bit by bit.

She kneeled down, unwrapping her backpack. Without turning her sight away from the corridor she grabbed a mimetic coat out of her backpack, put it next to it on the ground.

"Strange, the response time of the security is a joke... I wonder." Slightly irritated about the lax security measures she was doubting this was the right way to one node of the weather controls. Was her informant a reliable source? If only she had the time to do a few background-checks. Could it be done all alone or was it plain suicidal? She grimaced at the thought of it.

A dozen flashlights appeared in the corridor, shook her out of her thoughts.

"Damnit" she muttered, hastily tugging her backpack over her shoulder, grabbed her coat and was on her feet and off through the huge blastdoor.

[SneakyPax]

Chapter 2

She took a few cautious steps inside and glanced around sporradicaly, well aware that the security troops are closing in slow but steady. Her first impression of her surroundings was that she entered one abandonned storage room. Dim lit and quiet it was, except for the sirens that echoed from the corridor through the open blast door. She slipped into her mimetic coat to get her hands free.

"Now to figure out how to keep my persuers occupied" she said to herself and pushed the the close button on the numpad. The hydraulic machinery came to life and slowly the blast door closed.

"Even though this procedure takes a while, that won't hold them back long, I better find a way how to render the numpad outside useless... real fast." she mumbled as she watched the door closing more and more. A recent conversation she had with a rather inexperienced fellow fixer flashed into her mind. She chuckled at the thought of the advice he gave her.

"Just blast it into pieces, right Duk.. you still got a lot to learn lil fixer" she thought and fondled her hacking device out of her pockets once more. In the meantime the sound of the sirens were muted at the time the door reached its closed state. Within a few clicks she gained access to the controls of the door and turned the status of the numpads to offline.

"Yay, piece o' ca.." she started to shout but didn't finish because of the odd feeling that slithered down her spine all of a sudden. She went dead in her tracks. Didn't she just hear something right behind her? She perked her ears and listened more closely. Yes, clicking sounds as if something metallic taps over solid concrete.

She held her breath, countless thoughts spun through her head of what might be moving behind her. Definately mechanical. According to the sound of it, it could be a simple automaton responsible for all the things stored in here. She breathed out and whirled around, with one hand dropping straight down to grasp her smg.

"What the hell?" she screamed as she saw a pair of red glowing eyes on a four legged creature now sprinting towards her. She raised her gun, let herself plunge onto her back at the time the creature jumped and pulled the trigger. While most of the bullets hit the ceiling, some also hit the lesser armored hind legs. The mechdogs flight ended uncontrolled, crashed right onto the numpad. Unsure whether the mechdog was still capable enough to initiate another attack she quickly rolled over onto her chest and emptied the clip at the seemingly stunned creature. She got up and glanced at the mechdog simultaneously inserted a fresh clip into her smg. She frowned at the sight of her destroyed hacking device that was still attached to the numpad obviously furious about the loss of it.

"I'm gonna get to that contraption no matter what, they shall all suffer" she muttered as she once again caught herself looking at her own arrest warrant she displayed on her datapad.

[Xhairs]

((Very nice!!))

[SneakyPax]

Chapter 3

The arrest warrant disappeared, replaced by a blueprint of the compound.

"Hmmm... according to this I am on the right way to the spot where the weather controls suppose to be but what if..." she bit her lip and refused to think about what if she has just being tricked by someone.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, this better works or I'll be either way rotting in a cell for 295 years or spending the rest of my days hiding from anyone who crosses my way, not knowing whether they are just after the bounty they put on my head" she pondered while clicking on her datapad for an alternative route, now that she lost her ability to bypass doors with the loss of her hacking device.

"All the way through this storage area... elevator.. hmmm.. 2 levels down.. ventilation shaft.. ack, that'll slow me down.. ah, a control room. Maybe I am able to retrieve some ID codes there."

Suddenly the lights within the storage area flickered for a moment. The troops outside the door seemed to look for a way to get the numpad up and running again accidently turned on the lights, therefore warned the intruder to get a move on. She pocketed her datapad and started to run, always on the lookout for more mechdogs. Past numerous crates and shelves filled with technical equipment, probably spare parts until she finally reached the elevator - inoperative.

She put both hands into the gap between the elevator doors and pushed with all her might but to no avail - her opifex physique was not meant for such tasks. The lights went on again and in the distance the familiar sound of sirens let her come to the conclusion they managed to open the blast door and about to swarm into this storage area.

"Think, M, think fast. There won't be an atrox popping out of nowhere opening up the darn doors for you." she thought while looking around. A small metal plate on the wall next the elevator doors caught her attention. She pulled at it and was removed with ease, revealing circuitry boards and an emergency switch to manually open the doors.

"Heh, very useful" she remarked and threw the switch.

In the meantime the security troops were closing in quick in closed formation.

This time she was more successful in opening up the doors, the elevator shaft looked like a pitch black abyss. She shuddered and activated her night vision goggles.

Behind her a loud and clear "Freeze!" boomed through the hall.

She jumped.

[Naefen]

(( Very exiting. Go on, go on))

[SneakyPax]

Chapter 4

She flew past the first ventilation shaft along with the elevator door. With her night vision googles she could clearly see the second shaft coming, highly concentrated not to miss the right moment. Her arms shot forward to grab the ledge. The cumbersome antimatter explosives in her backpack tugged on her almost let her lose the grip. She knew she only got a few moments before some security guard would stick his head into the elevator shaft and look for a trace of her.

Her grip tightened on the ledge and she forced herself not to make the slightest move. Chances were high that her presence remain unnoticed, as her mimetic coat provided excellent concealment in this darkness, as long as no sight enhancing gear such as infrared vision came into use. Her breath was flat and beads of sweat appeared on her face.

A ray of light from a flashlight shot down the elevator shaft slowly
wandered around the walls, partly hit her coat.

"God, please don't let em spot me.. I don't wanna go down like this, a sitting duck" she thought.

The ray vanished and she used the time to turn her head to see what the guard was up to. The muscles in her arms started to revolt and her legs desperately searched for some sort of support, but there was none.

She noticed that the silhouette of the atrox, who stood right at the elevator doors turned around, obviously talking to its squad. She took her chance and used all of her remaining strength to lift herself into the narrow ventilation shaft. Safely inside, she gave her arms a few moments to recover from the strain before she continued her way on her hands and knees. While she was crawling she pondered over what her actions may cause once she blew up the weather controls.

"Maybe some fail-safe kicks in and nothing happens... or a cataclysmic chain reaction will occur, rendering the artificial ecosphere inoperative thus leaving all beings of Rubi-Ka defenseless to the lethal radiation from the twin suns.." she refused to think about that but it was too late, her imagination already spew out images of places that were usually bustling with activities now filled with dead bodies.

She was trembling and had the urge to contact Xhairs, a soldier with great reputation and even more influence to ask him if he had some answers regarding the reasons why Omni-Tek wanted to see her behind bars all of a sudden. He offered her to spread out his feelers about that matter. She never heard a word from him since then.

"Be calm, M, everything will be be fine.. we blow this up and watch when OT blame the Clans for that. They will forget your charges at an instant and you and your hardliner attitude will be welcomed back in their ranks with open arms. Believe me." a voice in her head whispered.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" she heard herself whispering over and over again with a look that gazed into space while she crawled towards the control room.

[SneakyPax]

Chapter 5


She laughed at her own behaviour.

"Yeah, keep practice that some more and they will believe this is the work of the dust brigade" she talked to herself while the darkness that surrounded her thoroughly in the ventilation shaft was slowly replaced by light that poured in from the bright lit control room. Blinded by it she stopped crawling and deactivated her night vision googles.

"But there still is something I have to take care of... The dust brigade isn't into stealth, always do their actions in public and brutal... I wonder. If I successfully pull this stunt and there's no evidence that leads to the dusties, OT will surely do a full scale examination of this case, also interrogating every employee with a lil speck in their records, taking everything into consideration and not blaming them in the first place... damnit, M, what are your choices? If this goes completely wrong and whole Rubi-Ka is rendered uninhabitable because of your actions, you'll find yourself chased throughout the whole solar system, that is.. if you get that far. Or just quit, grid out and hide for the rest of your life here on Rubi-Ka or..." an image of Plavca Mano flashed her mind.

"Earth" she muttered.

"Tempting indeed, but not an option.. " she thought about Fingahz and the quick and sloppy note she left for him about dealing with an issue. The fact that she left a note caused her headaches because she knew that was a very unusual move, a reason to be worried, quite the opposite of what she intended. She grabbed her datapad to check her mailbox because she disabled her comm during the time here and she was right, there were numerous calls from her husband and none from Xhairs.

"Told you I'll only cause you trouble Josh..." a lonely tear ran down her face before it went stern again.

"No word from Mr Barchus, which means the arrest warrant isn't just a hoax, or is it? His contacts should've been able to check the genuineness of it by now. Guess there's no turning back now." she removed the current clip of standard bullets and replaced it with cluster bullets which got the nasty side effect to sprawl upon impact.

"Things gonna get real messy on the peeps that sit in the control room observing the facility, oblivious. There's no way I can spare them nerds, their death will be part of the plan.. hope they don't take it personal." she smirked and checked the camera she mounted on her shoulder earlier before, the display read "uplink established" - which told her everything was ready to broadcast.

"Guess I'm ready to spread the upcoming carnage to the public.. in 5 mins." she sighed and looked up her datapad once more for some good news.

[Xhairs]

At the same time in an office in Omni-HQ.....

Elmo "Xhairs" Barchus stared blankly at the Holo screen of his workstation. "What the frack am i missing here." The sum of all info he had, both from his official channels and from his most trusted operatives, showed that the shutdown and arrest warrant on Miss Fingus was indeed genuine. But still, there was something there that just nagged at the very edge of his perception, telling him to keep looking for that one little detail.

Cursing under his breath he picked out a fresh cigare from the walnut wood humidor on his desk. The Nano-bots in his lighter worked up the optimum temperature, and a few seconds later the burning smoke of tobaco reached his lungs. Once more he sent a greatfull thought to the miracles of Nano technology. Before the Nano-age millions of people had died from the ravages of cancer due to tobaco use, but as long as he remembered to refill his "Iron-lung Nanobots" once every month, he could enjoy his cigares as much as he wanted, and not even suffer from bad breath.

A bit of ash fell from the tip down on the Holo projector, causing a big black blob to show up on the holographic screen, completly covering up Miss Fingus photo and name. Sighing, Elmo leaned forward to brush the speck of ash away so he could continue staring himself blind searching for only the Spirits knew what.
Halfway through the motion he froze as if he had been caught in a suspended animation field. Now, with nothing giving face or name to the file, the sense of... was that similarity? What ever it was, it just upped by a factor of ten.

"Goddes Summers, show me what i am missing here." Eyes flickered back and forth, crimes, time/date stamp, sentence, back to crimes, time/date stamp....... 23:00:01 Standard RK time, on a Sunday, of an uneven week. That would be the exact time when the secondary memory core of the HQ mainframe came back online after it´s bi-weekly overhaul. But the secondary core only handled files that were three days old or more, making sure that the primary core had a backup should it fail.

On a hunch he punched up the security protocols for the downtime of the secondary core. During the downtime all incoming files were routed to a temporary station where they remained untill the secondary core came back up, and then they were transfered to the core while being checked for viruses and faulty files. So how did something get get the exact time/date stamp when the backup came back online, and why did this seem to be so important.....

"Of course!" The secondary core was was a backup, and the primary core was checked against it on regular periods, meaning that if you could sneak something into the secondary by hiding it in the temporary station then the secondary core would give it a time/date stamp that would be the exact second it got it, thinking that the transfer from the primary core had become corrupted. And when the primary core checked against the backup, it would see a seemingly legitimatly stamped file that it did not have in it´s own bank, and upload a copy, making the false document seem as legit as if it was directly from Phillip Ross hand.

"Spirits! How many...?" His fingers danced across the keyboard, issuing commands to search and list all files with the exact same time/date stamp. His workstation hummed for a few seconds, contemplating the task at hand before throwing up a list. 178 names in total. 178 warrants, all issued at on a Sunday at 23:00:01 on an uneven week. None of them had been served, and all the warrants noted the person as Missing:Presumed dead or Missing: Presumed Clan, a few even noted Missing: Presumed interplanetary esacpe. But not a single one served.

A few more keystrokes later and a chill raced down his spine. They had all been hardcore. There were Sentinels, Omni-Pol officers, NLF..... the list went on. For the first time in years he was actualy growing pale. Someone was using these warrants to drive the hardcore, the fanatical and the ruthless away from their own people, causing them to become outcasts, and then to dissapear. But for someone to actualy be able to access the Omni network to do such a thing, this was either the most skilled of hackers or highest of executives.


Hand trembling he activated his oldfasioned earbead and throat-mic Com unit, switching over to the encrypted channel he had chared with Paxcorpus earlier. "Mandi, what the heck have you gotten yourself into?"

[SneakyPax]

Chapter 6

The seconds passed away and with it image stills of events of her life flashed her mind.

Her childhood in Borealis and the reckless youth as a thief that followed.
The delicate equipment she stole from a high ranked OT officer and the attempt to link up to the military just for the fun of it.
How she got caught and her time in prison.
About the offer to work for the corporation, to do the undesirable missions nobody else wanted in order to reduce her sentence upon successful completion.
How Omni Med patched her up again after rough jobs regardless that she was a criminal at that time.
How it dawned on her that life was so much better now that she learned to respect the rules of the corporation.
How she instantly signed her contract with Omni-Tek after she served, grateful for the opportunity to do her part for the greater cause.
For a time life was good.

She put her arrest warrant back on the screen of the datapad and frowned.

"I cannot believe this warrant is real, yet it cannot be faked, there's no way to modify files like that without anyone noticing it. Highest security clearance is needed to even think of going near the mainframe that is storing that data. So the one responsible for this must be somebody high up within the coorporation, not likely Mr Ross himself as he got his lackeys that look after the expendable staff on their payroll. Is it because of my past?" her grip tightened around the grip of the smg and the stern look was replaced by a mask of pure hatred.

"Whatever it is.. I'll make sure I deserve every goddamn day of the 295 years." she growled, activated her camera and sped through the end of the ventilation shaft right into the control room.

The cover slammed noisily to the floor, she followed at an instant but without making any sound as she hit the ground. On the first look she spotted at least 10 computer terminals but only two were in use, a reduced night duty crew she was guessing. Both heads turned around from their computer terminals and peered to spot the source that caused the commotion.

"Regular computer nerds, unarmed and scared at the slightest disturbance. I sure hope they faint because of my presence, that'd make things a lot easier for me." she thought.

"Hey, who are you?" one of them started to ask but never gonna hear the answer as his torso exploded after the burst hit him. His comrade who was sitting right next to him was covered with blood and frozen with terror.

"You too going to die here Mr.." she peered at his now blood spilled ID card he attached to his shirt "..Pollock. But I'm in a generous mood tonite so I'll let you chose whether you cooperate and die quick and painless or.." she removed a set of pliers and a blowtorch out of her pockets

"..the other way round."

[SneakyPax]

Chapter 7

"C'mon, c'mon Mr Pollock, this can't be the hardest decision you had to make." she shouted while walking towards his computer terminal; past the gruesome remains of his colleague she stopped right next to him. Knowing that such a threat was quite pointless here on Rubi-Ka, where death isn't fatal when you were properly insured. So she started bluffing even though that guy was a quivering wreck already.

"I observed you for quite some time now Mr Pollock, ergo I know a heck of a lot about you. I know where you live, your wife, your kids." she concluded as she saw a photograph sticked on the upper right corner of the computer screen. Mr Pollock sunk a little deeper into his chair which told her that she was right with her assumption. Eager to break him once and for all she leaned over real close to his ear.

"How would you like if I pay your family a little visit, eh? As far as I know your kids are too young to be insured.." she whispered into his ear, audible enough so that the audience that tuned in via cam could hear it.

"W.. what do you want m.. m.. me to do?" Mr Pollock stuttered obviously close to a nervous breakdown, while she swiftly let the pliers and the blowtorch vanish in one of her pockets again, then placed her hand softly on his neck.

"Close and seal all the doors within this facility except for those that lead directly to the core, and be a good boy and disable all the security measures while you're at it." As soon as she finished her sentence Mr Pollocks fingers hushed over his keyboard and as far as she monitored all the different windows that popped up on his screen he did exactly what she demanded. Within a minute he was done with his given tasks.

"I... I done everything y.. you wanted me to do. Please don't hurt my family, I beg you..." Mr Pollocks whimpering almost convinced her he won't do any trouble if she let him alive.

"Public and brutal" she remembered unsure whether the audience swallowed the show as the work of the dust brigade so far, she released the grip from his neck and slowly moved it to the grip of her smg while she typed something onto screen with her left hand.

"Let's do a short walk Mr Pollock" she said and pressed the freeze button on her cam at the time she was confident it was aiming directly at the computer screen, leaving nothing but a still image of the screen with the message "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust" and audio for the viewer.

Footsteps

"Kneel down Mr Pollock"

A scream that was drowned by the roar of weapons fire

[Xhairs]

At the same time in Omni-HQ...

General Barchus hammered away at the keyboard, writing up a security update to be sent to, well just about everyone with a security clerance at and above Alpha Red 1.

"Come on Mandi, this ain´t the time to play hard to get." he growled into the throat mic of his Com unit. Still the signal came back as unrecived. "Damnit!" He opened another aplication on his work station, one normaly used only to send written orders to troops and agents in the field using a pulse transmission that would land straight in the recipients Com unit and raise a visual flag on the users HUD. This time it would serve another purpose. As long as Mandi was awake and actualy in touch with her Com unit, she would get the message. His fingers flew across the keyboard.

To: Mandi "Paxcorpus" Fingus
Com Code S47-044/R (Encrypted)
From: General Elmo "Xhairs" Barchus
Order Priority: Alpha Orange 1
Security Level: Top Secret: Operatives eyes only

Order Specification: Miss Fingus, i think i am on to something, and you were right there is something foul about what happened to your detatchment, and the warrant for your arrest is a fake. It is an extremely well made one, so it might take me a few days to get it through Admin that it is indeed a fake so i recomend staying low untill then. And for Spirits sake, find a deep hole to hide in, i think some one is coming after you personaly if this pattern i have found is correct. I´m also sending a file with what i have found so far. Maybe you with your computer skills may get more out of it than i have.

File Attatchment: Qz146 Document
File Size: 450 Mega Pulses
Encryption: Delta Pi 2056 Gamma

Xhairs hit send, confirmed the order and reached for another cigare in the same movement. This was going to be a long day.

[SneakyPax]

Chapter 8

The core

Four levels below the control room was a gigantic hall that stretched over three stories. In its center were the weather controls, the machinery that kept the population of Rubi-Ka safe from the hazardous conditions that would normally be present on the planet. Without it, Rubi-Ka would change back to the barren it once was.

She took a few cautious steps toward it, partly stunned at the tremendous appearance of it, the deep humming sound it emanated and the soft lights that pulsed with monotonous regularity. The Slayerdroids that used to guard this place stood around motionless spoiled the picture of pure functionality.

"Finally, the pillars the whole ecology and economy is resting on.. after all them centuries are they still aware that Rubi-Ka is a planet with hostile environment? Soon they'll stop taking everything for granted." she pondered while walking straight up to it. After she reached what looked like the main power line, she took off her mimetic coat and let it fall to the ground, knowing she won't need it anymore.

"They can't do this to me, use me like that for their interest and then change rules and hunt me down cause of actions I done FOR them. Guess they want to polish up their image or whatever... .. but I won't give up this easily, there's no way stopping this fight and throwing the towel, not after an eight count." she mumbled even though she had the urge to scream it out loud, well aware that the cam on her shoulder was still broadcasting.

The anger and the upcoming event made her whole body tremble so she squatted down and unwrapped the backpack, placed it right in front of her. Both of her hands clenched and opened a few times to get rid of the tremor, slowly lifted the antimatter bomb out of the bag and to the carapace of the weather controls. For a split second she felt the drag of the magnets. The low metallic sound that followed told her the bomb was securely attached. She checked the time and tried to imagine how close the OTAF response team was already. The thought of OT and her ablility to seriously harm them now that the bomb was deployed made her stomach to convulse. She slowly pressed the "1" and the "0" digit on the panel of the bomb and hit "activate".

"Ten minutes to annihilation" she forced herself to sound calm as she said it loud, for the audience. After that she removed the cam from her shoulder and placed it in front of the timer so that everyone that was tuned in could watch.

09:40
Suddenly her comm beeped even though she muted it and redirected all incoming calls to her datapad. Instinctively her hand shot down to grab the datapad for long awaited news but there was nothing. She froze in terror as she realized her datapad was still in the ventilation shaft.

09:35
"This better be good news, don't wanna let the bomb unattended for some spam mail that accidently reached my comm" she thought as she sped to the stairs.

09:00
Knowing that the bomb was ticking she took 4 steps at a time, her heart was pounding quickly, supplied every living cell with adrenaline that coursed in her bloodstream in abundance. Past a corridor, into the control room she almost slipped over the blood of Mr Pollock. Somewhere above her she could clearly hear the beeping sound of her datapad. With one jump onto one of the computer terminals and another towards the ventilation shaft she managed to get a grip and pulled herself up.

07:50
Inside the quiet narrow shaft she realized she was hyperventilating but didn't even bother to force herself to stay calm, quickly grabbed her datapad and read her new messages as soon as she was back in the control room.

07:25
The news from Xhairs hit her like a punch in the face, she staggered backwards. With every line she read it dawned on her she has been lured into a well laid trap. The thoughts inside her head were spinning but she was unable to make up her mind of what to do now. She squatted down and facepalmed as she realized the seriousness of her actions.

06:00
A flashing window on the terminal where Mr Pollock used to work at caught her attention. She jumped to her feet and to the terminal, clicked a few buttons. A surveillance cam outside the blast doors around the weather controls sent its signals directly to the terminal, which told her that the response team was trying to breach the outer rim of the hall where the weather controls were located.

05:30
"They'll never make it to the bomb in time, and it's all my fault.. there's still time to undo the mistakes I made.. I don't wanna end up in the history books as an unknown lunatic bomber that spreaded genocide over Rubi-Ka" she muttered and ran off to the weather controls.

[SneakyPax]

Final Chapter

04:00
Totally out of breath and weary after all the adrenaline that coursed her body began to ebb away she walked right to the bomb, quite relieved with the fact that she still had plenty of time to deactivate the bomb, even though she never saw a bomb like that before. To tired to listen to her instincts to take safety precautions she decided to take the easiest of all choices, she pushed the "Cancel" button on the panel. An instant pain that followed made her pull her arm away but it was too late.

02:59
Her NCU registered a hostile program that shut down all currently running applications and executed a couple of nano programs she never heard of before. A numb feeling spread from her hand up trough her arm and to the rest of her body, made her slump to the ground. She was doomed to watch the seconds of the timer tick away.

02:34
A hologram of a member of the Dust Brigade rose up in front of the bomb. "Salutations and Congratulations. I bet you got a heck of a lot of questions of what's happening to you - but time is short so I must be brief. You are one out of 178 in total we observed that fit into the psychological profile we're after. Our results show that once exposed to extreme stress you are susceptible to paranoia and turn into a loose cannon. Pity, you chose to be turned into atoms with the bomb we provided for you. If things were different you'd be a nice addition within our ranks now that we ended your carreer within the company by closing down your detachment and set up an arrest warrant, heh. Guess what, we knew you won't ask for a proper investigation of the case because of your past, it's pathetic how predictable you are. And don't think the stasis field you are in wear off before the bomb goes boom. So enjoy the show - nice front row seat, fabulous." The hologram flickered and died.

01:01
If she had the chance to move a muscle she would have smiled at the thought that the message was also witnessed by someone who watched the live feed from the cam. She passed out while the bomb was still ticking.



00:05
She woke up and watched the timer, it stopped five seconds before detonation. Also she realized there was a part missing and a note attached to it she couldn't read because of her blurry vision from all the tears that kept running down her face. Her limbs felt stiff but she was able to move them, slowly crawled closer to the note.

"You owe me" it said. She looked puzzled, wiped off her tears and peered around the hall but there was no one to be seen.

"I better get the hell out of here" she said to herself and escaped into grid.

[Kertain]

((Very good, hope to hear more interesting drama from you and Xhairs thumbs up! ))

[SneakyPax]

Epilogue

Stret West Bank, On the rooftop of Reets Retreat

Paxcorpus, dressed in her black oriental suit, pondered over her future while watching the stars above. The resignation letter in triplicate together with her token board enclosed in an envelope lay next to her. An especially bright star caught her attention.

"So this is it, the end of the rope. It's time to make a choice, to have the guts to make a proper report of what happened there and face the consequences that go along with it - turn in the resignation and preserve at least a tiny speck of dignity or just go on as if nothing happened, telling no one that there is an affiliation with that terroristic act. But there is still the fella who saved Omni-1 if not whole Rubi-Ka from harm by disarming the bomb 5 seconds before it would have gone off. How much does he or she know? Will my saviour run me in if I refuse to return the favor once he or she asks me for something?" she muttered to herself and watched the blue moon rising on the cloudless horizon.

"Nemo sine vitio est" she thought and a self-satisfied smirk appeared on her face.

[Crackshot]

(As Crackshot)

As she walks through the vacant allys of Stret West Bank she sees the glint off of something metallic atop Reet's.

"What in the world is that?" She aims her rifle to where the glint came from. "So who is following me now..." She looks down the scope to see a yonger aged Opifex woman sitting looking at the stars.

"Who are you?" she asks herself. She moves around the outer wall and takes up a better postition where she can see the mysterious woman's face.... !

"Paxcorpus?! What are you doing here this late at night?"

She pulls out her modified datapad and looks up the comm code for Paxcorpus in her personel directory... She then punches in the following message:

To: Mandi "Paxcorpus" Fingus
Com Code S47-044/R (Encrypted)
From: Agent Natalya "Crackshot" Andreyovich
Order Priority: Alpha Green 10
Security Level: None

Message: Mandi? It's me Natalya, from Borialis. Are you alright? You look kind of sad. I read the report about your... adventure and I must say I'm quite impressed... Is it alright for me to come up there with you? And don't worry, I'm not with Omni-Pol, they's like my head on a platter probably more than they'd like yours... Could we talk? I have an offer for you...

She sends the message with a faint beep and a confermation message that says the message was sent sucessfully.

"I'll just hang here till she calls me back." Crackshot slides down, back against a building and awaits a message back from Paxcorpus. "Please call back..." she says hopefully.

[SneakyPax]

"Nemo sine vitio est... Yeah, no one's without faults. Really should've stayed low and wait until things got sorted out the slow but steady bureaucratic way, but no, I hesitated and pulled that stunt that made everything worse. What a bloody vicious circle. What might Omni-Pol got in their hands against me?" she whispers while the blue moon seems to have her hypnotized.

"There's my crushed hacking device for one, probably with my fingerprints on it.
Mr. Pollock? Nah, he just saw a vague silhouette of me and after all the threats I tossed towards him and his family, I bet he already applied for another job somewhere off-planet.
As for my shadow that followed me down there.. guess he rather likes to see me able to be of his service instead behind bars.
The only thing causing me headaches is the mimetic coat I left behind sure got enough material for a DNA trace, I wonder... did it vanish along with the detonator? Most likely, or else I won't be able to sit around like this. Still there are way too many loose ends that lead directly to my file, there must be a way to erase my tracks. And this time I better fill a few people in on the situation, people I fully.." her thoughts scatter abruptly as her comm signals an incoming message. Mighty furious about the fact somebody dares to disturb her in her place of peace and solitude she jerk her datapad out and starts reading. She frowns at the sender of the message.

"Hmmm.. Crackshot, that name sounds familiar.." she punch a few commands in her datapad and a short bio of Crackshot appears on the display "yes, it's that insolent minx wanted by Omni-Pol. I'd love to run her in myself if times were different... maybe I do once I found a way how to wipe my slate clean." she thinks with a malicious smile simultaneously typing a response message into her datapad.

It reads:
Thanks for your interest in my well-being Miss Andreyovich. I can assure you I'm doing fine, just admiring the stars above. Isn't it amazing that the light from those stars took millions of years to reach Rubi-Ka? Oh, bet you're not interested in the astrology mumbo jumbo, no one seems to be. As for the offer, guess it has to wait some as my schedule is quite tight at the moment. But I promise you'll get my full attention asap.

~Pax

She sends the message, pockets her datapad as well as the envelope with her resignation letter and vanishes into the grid.

[Crackshot]

(( still Crackshot ))

Natalya looks down at her beeping datapad. She sees a blinking marker next to Pax's name in the comm list. She pulls up the message and reads it.

"Well Pax," she says to herself, "Looks like your on your own.. Nothin' but the sneak-theif my reports made you out to be..."

Natalya gets up and steals away, hiding in the shadows, back to the woompah and catches a lift back to Borialis.

"You coulda been useful Pax... Oh well, it's your choice"

Natalya walks back down to the old ratty tent atop the Emporium Guns & Ammo she uses as a little peice of shelter while she is on Rubi-Ka and awaits her next opertunity.