Commander Faust's Story

“Certainly, Miss Chambers.”

The car pulled away just slightly, and for a second Androl forgot he hadn’t always been the best driver, but quickly continued on and the limo went on through the city as they left Sol Avenue for the starport. As he settled into the seat he tried the radio for a moment, switching first between a talk show and then a series of music channels before finally turning it low on a simple news station.

“Always liked the way they did news on Terra.” Androl said to no one in particular as they passed an intersection and joined a line of waiting cars at a checkpoint: the Terran flag flying beneath the Coalition standard, Androl adjusted his seat just slightly as the convoy of vehicles passed through, and as the limo came to a rolling stop Androl reached into his coat. Avoiding the pistol he withdrew a wallet from his clothing.

Androl did not roll the window down, however and even, none of the marines -- though even if they were Aschen citizens of the Coalition looked like a poor excuse for marines -- began any activities even remotely similar to a standard Apparatus checkpoint.

From the passenger side, a lone Scatterran idly walked his way through the checkpoint and pried open the passenger door. Quickly stuffing himself in, the stench of alcohol and drugs joined them in the limo.

“Well heellooooooooo everyone! Androl, what up.” The man said curiously as he settled into his passenger seat, playfully socking the Hykan in the arm and laughing from his stomach as Androl bitterly shrugged off the blow. “Get you every fucking time, pussy -- “

He bounced in his seat and spun around to finally look at Valerie and the Replicant, the smile of a tourist piqued with an intense, almost insane, flicker. “Oh sure enough, Valerie-fuckin’-Chambers! Hey, you did something right for once.” He turned back and socked Androl again. “You’re such a good fucking boy.”

“My God, what am I doing -- I should probably explain myself, shouldn’t I? I really should, it’s proper.” He faced the windshield as the limo carried on through the checkpoint, while the man was struggling to relinquish something from the confines of his pocket.

“So, you -- “ The Scatterran pointed to Valerie as he turned back around, now the barrel of a handgun kept precariously in his other hand, with the other hefting a datapad. “Are Valeria Chambers yeah? Fuckin’ Daedalus Enterprises! Yeah, yeah it’s you.” He said as he turned the screen of the datapad to her revealing the woman’s dossier.

“Anyway, my name is Faust -- I’m in the SRL, yadda yadda but here’s the important part!” He said with a figurative gesture of his hands. “You! Are worth! A lot! Of Money!” The statement ended with a mischievous, big smile.

As soon as a strange man came into the limousine Valerie looked up from her data tablet. A confused but curious expression blossomed over her lovely face. She was unsure whether to smile or to be alarmed.

"A friend of yours, Dav-..." Andol. That wasn't the name of her driver. The smile faded from Valerie's face and she looked at Jonathan with a question in her expression.

The replicant nodded and slipped a hand into his jacket. There was a holster with a PK-90 strapped to Jonathan. He didn't withdraw the weapon but was going to wait until there was a sign that Valerie was in danger.

"What do you want with me, Mister Faust," Valerie asked the strange, quirky, man. The woman was smart. She knew what was going on because she had done it before herself. It was a kidnapping for randsom.

The best thing for Valerie to do was to not panic. They would demand money and then either release or kill her. There may be torture along the way to the grand finale as well.

Seeing as this man was part of the SRL Valerie's hopes of skipping death and torture were very slim.

"Jonathan, cancel all my appointments until further notice," the woman said as she stared into Faust's eyes with cool calmness and collectiveness.

“Now now, let’s not jump to conclusions here -- believe it or not I’m quite a fucking capable business man.” He said as the capsuleer’s gaze jumped from the replicant to the woman as the man kept driving. “Hey actually, before we get to the hole … motherfucker needs a snowcone.”

As awkwardly as he had just stated that request he turned back to Valerie and the synthetic, that softness in his face from the introductions gone and etching lines of anger across his face. “I don’t want a thing with you, Miss Chambers. I am merely investing in the propensity of your compatriots to give a fuck about you.” He explained gingerly, the weapon loose in his hands and the barrel aimlessly swinging any which way.

“This isn’t my first rodeo, so unless you want me returning you and your plug-in assistant in a fucking soup can he’ll take his hand out of his jacket.” His voice raised, a tang of anger quickly beginning to burn into something more. “Actually as a matter of factly, just give me the gun. I’ve gotten shot in the face for not doing this before, so just give me the gun.”

“Don’t be afraid though, I know you’ve probably heard a lot of bad shit. The League, well, the League is a wretched beast for sure! Some of us though … “ He said with a bit of an indication to the driver, then jokingly pantomiming Androl’s Hykan physique. Then extending an empty hand into the back seats of the car for the weapon. “Some of us just need that cash, yeah?”

“We’ll just start with idle conversation, so, Valerie, what brought you to Terra -- hey man, don’t forget about those fucking snowcones.”

So, the man Faust wanted something to do with the Federation and not just Daedalus, or maybe it was Daedalus. After all the company was a large portion of the Federation's Intergalatic military.
Valerie's eyes never deviated from Faust's eyes to the gun in his hand. Getting shot wasn't going to be pleasant but she knew that he wouldn't shoot her. It was too early in the game for that play. He needed her alive because without her there were no demands to be made.

"Yes, of course Mister Faust," Valerie said in the same cool tone she had used before. She didn't seem affected by the threats dolled out by the man. Her hand shifted to the door handle and she looked at Jonathan out of the corner of her eye. The heels Valerie wore were kicked off.

The replicant unholstered the PK-90 and shot off a burst of rounds at Faust and the driver. Valerie opened the car door and made a run for it. She was suprisingly fast for a business woman that seemed to do nothing but sit around on her derierre.

Valerie reached into her bra and activated a small beacon with a push of her finger. If she was caught at least she was able to send the distress signal first.

Faust had already steeled himself after the short, simple response from the woman. He didn’t like it when people refused him conversation. Turning back around he let a timer begin to tick away in his mind, and in the few more moments of silence before the gun was pulled Faust only thought one thing …



As the weapon came out Faust spun and shoved a hand through the air, catching the replicant’s wrist and letting the weapon spray into the roof before his own weapon came into action. Simply hefting the weapon in one hand Faust extended it past his seat and fired point blank into the replicant’s face, the semi-auto magnum producing a blast of heat and light before the slug pounded the synthetic’s brain into a mist of silicon and chips. In the proximity Faust’s hearing was deafened, and microshrapnel from the replicant had cut several knicks into his face before the car door sprung open.

The woman was too far away for a pursuit, but Faust wasn’t out of options yet. Actually, in hindsight he decided, it was probably best to leave the limo anyway.

The fact that there was another Faust wouldn’t have been a possibility though and she would have escaped, without the magic of capsuleering. The woman ran through the street and caused several onlookers to take notice, though as she neared an intersection the same, uniformed man appeared just in the alley beside her and stretched an arm out in front of the woman to clothesline her.

“Now, just where the fuck do you think you’re going? I offered snowcones!”

Valerie's air supply was cut off when she was clothes-lined and what air was left in her lungs was pushed out as she hit the concrete. The woman turned onto her side and tried to gasp for air. Her hand clasped around her throat and her eyes bulged in her head.

The surprise gave away the nature of the man. Valerie knew that he was a capsuleer. It had been a suspicion at first when Faust mentioned the SRL but now it was confirmed. He had jumped bodies.

Valerie gasped in a lungful of air and coughed. Her hand reached out for the man's leg. If she could just touch him then Valerie could alter his perception.

The scion had never tried to manipulate a capsuleer before but Vallen had been a powerful psychokinetic. She had been more than successful on him in the past.

"D-Don't... hurt me... please," Valerie choked out as she struggled to just get a small touch of flesh against her fingers.

Just a few more centimeters, Valerie thought to herself.

Faust reached his boot back and send a foot crushing into the woman’s side. “Ah-ah-ah! Don’t think I don’t -- “ Grunting as he reached down to grab the girl by the shoulders he hauled her onto her feet before pinning her against a wall and then sending her slamming back onto the ground with a throw.

“Fucking know what you are. Hmm?” The capsuleer cackled for a moment, before stooping low over the woman as other uniformed men were seen rushing down the alley, an Apparatus Saber parked at the other end. “Now I apologize but I shot your little walking datapad in the face. Are you happy about that? I’m not. You know what I could’ve made off of that in this shitstain? A lot. A whoooole lot.”

“And that … just rustles my fucking jimmies.” Faust angrily wrapped a hand on the back of the woman’s clothing and hefted her forward, pointing to the other troopers as they quickly arrived to cart her off.

“So now, we have to go straight to the hole … I’ll have to go out by myself and get a snowcone.” He said, bringing the woman up to her feet and stabbing the barrel of the magnum into her back. “And y’know what? When I’m out there getting my snowcone on … well, you’re not gonna’ have one!”

There was an audible pop as a rib broke in Valerie's chest. The woman screamed at the top of her lungs and stopped when the pain was unbearable. Valerie could bearly breathe. She was taking in short, ragged, breaths of air and trying to remain conscious.

The world for Valerie scrambled as she was thrown around like a rag doll. As she laid on the ground, the woman reached out her hand toward Faust again. It was an automatic response to defending herself.

Valerie wasn't able to touch him as another lance of white fire shot up her side. She screamed and curled around her injury. Faust was picking her body up off the ground before too long again and she saw black creeping into the edges of her vision.

"I think... you should... know something... first, Mister Faust," Valerie managed to breathe out in a quiet voice. She grunted as Faust shoved the barrel of a gun into her spine.

"I fucking... hate... snowcones... you bastard."

“Yeah and I hate yuppie broads.” Faust shoved the woman away, and two masked gunmen were quick to grab her by the arms before he made a simple gesture and a bag was draped over the woman’s head and the other Leaguesmen were quickly hustling her away to the idling Saber. Now, though, he had to deal with the publicity of it all.

Turning back towards the mouth of the alley the telltale whoop of sirens was already heard as Faust and one other fighter came stepping out of the alleyway to greet the WCPD officer holding back a line of civilians.

“Hey, hey you!”

“Oh … God … dammit.” Faust said shortly as he watched the Saber peel away from the alley and then turn back to the officer. “ … Yes, Terran friend?” Faust’s eyes narrowed just slightly and the other fighter had by now disappeared into the crowd somewhere.

“What the hell exactly happened here?” The officer said as he came to inspect the marine. Faust eagerly began to explain with some gestures of his hand, the magnum pistol still in his grip.

“Yeah, so … we hit a dog.”

“What? I think you’re gonna’ have to give me a better explana -- “

Faust simply hefted the magnum forward and shot the man through the chest, screams racing through the crowd as the man fell backwards and the capsuleer quickly made another doubletap before throwing the weapon away and walking back into the alley.


As Valerie was stuffed into the back of the Saber Faust pleasantly peeked his out from the other side of the passenger’s seat at the woman. “Looks like we’re making sure we lock the doors this time!” He said back to her playfully, lifting one hand up to the controls on the door and poking the lock button with one finger like a child at a keyboard. “Done!”

“I don’t like having to play games Miss Chambers, actually it’s not that I don’t like it -- I don’t like it when I’ve gotten done cutting you to pieces and can’t get any more fun out of it, that is what I don’t like.” Faust began mumbling to himself as he turned back in his seat and watched the Saber driving into the more ‘unseen’ areas of the city.

The world went black but Valerie knew that it wasn't because she had passed out. She had no idea what was going on anymore or where they were taking her.

At least the distress beacon had been activated. That was what was important. Her contact would receive the emergency signal and fix the situation. Valerie had hired the best capsuleer based on rumors. Now she expected the best to do her job.

"Go fuck ... a snow cone ... Mister Faust," Valerie whispered out. She let out a agonized laugh and then slouched in the backseat of the Saber. The woman had gone out cold.

It was all up to Grove now to protect one of the most important Federation assets.

A convoy of SUV's rolled steadily down the cracked stone streets of the Slums. There were ten in all, all black, all with tinted windows and all bearing the Tech Con insignia emblazened on their sides. Sleek, shiny and well-maintained, the army of trucks was remarkably out of place in the gloomy, run-down streetways of the slums.

They parked outside a particularly large, rundown meat-packing factory, the faded sign above just barely spelling out "MIKE'S MEAT HOUSE: SQUEAL EM' N DEAL EM'!" The trucks took up positions on all sides of the factory, spacing themselves apart carefully. They waited for a while, the resonation from nearly a dozen different engines filling the air with a metallic hum. Finally, a singly figure exited the lead vehicle.

He was dressed extremely well, his fine suit tailored to immaculate perfection. At his side, two U-87 cylon drones stood guard, flanking him on the left and right. With his guards in place, the young man looked apprehensively towards half-destroyed warehouse entryway, drawing a deep breath before continuing forward.

He would enter the premises and await the expected party, grumbling impatiently if they weren't there immediately. The sooner he got this 'business meeting' out of the way, the better.

Nearly a mile away, perched atop the smokestack of an abandoned factory, Kathryn watched everything go down through the high powered scope of the new Type 100A SAP. It's high powered Wide-Spectrum scope and orbital uplink gave a real time feed directly to the singular agent as she watched, clad in full black combat gear and covered by an active camouflage net.

"Alpha team, the eagle is in position, move into position." And the team promptly checked in. One of the Tech Con mercenaries moved in behind Dominic, adjacent to the U-87s. Little did the Tech Con playboy know that one of his mercenaries was an undercover agent.

"Make sure this goes down without a hitch, Miles is paying us big bucks to make sure everything runs smoothly." She said on her earpiece, adjusting her scope and zooming in on Dominic.

It had been several hours after making contact with the businessman that the ambush had been prepared. Across the slums a force of dozens of capsuleers were amongst, or had actually replaced, themselves with the population of the slum -- their contact would be walking into a prepared, enveloping ambush that could threaten to consume them before ever reaching the girl.

At the sight of the convoy, their fate had been sealed as the perimeter gate of the warehouse loomed high overhead. Corroded steel and sheet metal peeled away as the checkpoint opened on an automated system: despite the dilapidation it became obvious the Aschen were walking into a prepared situation.

“Convoy, ten -- get ready to light ‘em.” A condemned apartment building just beyond the fence of the packing house stretched over the open yards of the industrial site. Peeling away from the high powered telescope an man’s obscured face turned over to the sniper behind the window.

“Faust, this is Nightwatch, they didn’t play the fucking game.”


“Oh … nooooo.” Faust callously shook his hands, plans foiled by some pretty boy who didn’t understand the concept of following directions. “Oh heavens, what do we do now?” A single light shown on him in the basement of the warehouse: a few meters away, an access into the sewers pried open as other Leaguesmen were seen transferring crates down into small boats in the sewer.

“I’m sorry, Miss Chambers. I really should’ve gotten a better buyer, I was hoping to make your business quick -- look at me, and I said I was a competent businessman” He said, not even giving a cautionary glance to the woman sat in the corner bound to the chair. Planting his hands on the wall he contemplated for a quick second. “You’d probably like to tell him your own disagreements though, right?”

As he turned back at the woman Faust clutched a flaying knife in his gloved hand and approached Valerie until coming to a crouch in front of her and wearing a look of slight, childish regret. “Hold on a sec, just gotta’ make sure this is on.” Faust held the weapon between his legs while another hand checked at the small microphone wrapped around her neck and found a soft link blinking on and off. The Scatterran made one quick indication back to a trooper before waving off his hand.

“I guess go tell Weald to break the convoy open. Hey - hey - hey! Remember the plan, you only bring me Hagan! Everyone else, gut ‘em open.” Turning back to Valerie he planted his hands together with the knife standing upright. “I think you’re pretty disappointed he didn’t follow directions too, are you? Good Miss Chambers, because I want you to tell him just that right now.”

Faust took the knife and slammed it into the woman’s kneecap, carving ligament and bone and twisting until the connection with the microphone came to life as dozens of speakers all throughout the factory winked to life and broadcast a deafening, painful scream.

A few meters in front of one of the parked cars a pole stuck from the ground with an attached telephone, and one of the previously mentioned speakers above it. As the silence and eerie quiet of the factory peeled away, searchlights sprang to life flooding the entire factory floor and its nearby locations in harsh light.

A woman dressed in black leather that stood outside the warehouse was revealed when the flood lights snapped on. She unclasped her hands from behind her back and pushed up a pair of sunglasses further onto her nose. Her hands were clasped behind her back as she stepped toward Dominic Hagan with even and precise footsteps through the veritable junkyard of the warehouse.

The last note of Valerie Chamber’s scream died away.

There were scraps of scattered debris laying around. Most of it was torn up concrete from other bombings and attacks on Wing City. And beneath every pile of misplaced rumble was an IED powerful enough to rip the limbs off of a body.

There must have been at least thirty piles.

The capsuleer smiled after she stopped at a precise five foot distance between her and Dominic Hagan. The two drones with the man were not an issue, nor did she seem upset about the breach of agreement. All the woman did was lift an eyebrow in curiosity. Her incredible and inhuman mind began to pick away at the drones’ inner systems.

It was nothing for the capsuleer to hack into the brains of a machine for she was a greater machine than what could ever be created without flesh and blood. There was no AI that could withstand the onslaught of something like a Shadow. It would be all over in nanoseconds and the capsuleer would have absolute control over the drones protecting Dominic Hagan.

“Welcome, Dominic Hagan of Tech Con Industries,” Sara Weald said to the man standing before her. “You have failed to listen to instruction and I am sorry but The League is very disappointed in this decision you have made. And since you have made it, Mister Hagan, you will have to accept the consequences along with that decision.”

Valerie Chambers desperate cries for help echoed out over the otherwise silent concrete yard of the warehouse.

All the vehicles had parked over an improvised explosive device that had been placed by Sara Weald. The Tech Con insignia was painted all over the SUVs. Fission explosions were going to be a glorious and wondrous sight to see once Sara Weald activated the bombs.

“Now with that being said… The League is always up for renegotiation. I am sure we can come up with a new deal between you and me, Mister Hagan,” said Sara Weald.

The black-clad capsuleer lifted her empty hand and pushed up the sunglasses on her nose by the corner of the frame. High pitched whines screamed from beneath the Tech Con SUVs as they activated and detonated in synchronized explosions.

Whisper was waiting in the back of the lead SUV at Dominic's request as he himself had exited the vehicle. It had taken a bit of pushing for him to relent to her being present at all, but she didn't much care to report back to Mollem that she had simply decided to take the evening off. She was uneasy with this place though and had obliged Dominic on the matter of her remaining in the car.

Was it instinct or perhaps her empathy that had her on edge? It was hard to say, but her senses swept their surroundings picking up on the hostility and adrenaline that permeated the area, and with each passing moment her instincts told her that something was going down. Something that neither she nor Dominic wanted to be here for.

Against the abrupt objection of the men still in the vehicle with her, Whisper pulled the door of the SUV open and stepped out.

"Domin-"

A woman's scream cut her off and she paled.

The frail woman didn't look like much as she stood there beside the open door of the SUV with uncertainty and unease painted all over her expression.

Dominic frowned at the woman. It took every ounce of his not inconsiderable willpower to refrain from flat-out snarling at her. The screaming echoed in his ears long after it'd died from the speakers.

"I see the League doesn't follow directions very well either," the aristocrat smirked at Sara, nonchalantly removing his gloves from his hands, "I said I wanted her alive and unharmed. Now, unless that scream is the sound of your companion wailing about how much money he may have just lost from this deal, I'd say that we're both in an economically unfavorable position." He offered Sara a sarcastic grin. "Needless to say, I believe that we both can benefit from a bit of 'renegotiation' at this point."

Hagan turned swiftly as he heard Whisper's voice. "Get back in the car, Jacquelyn." He spoke very sternly. Perhaps, for a brief moment, the facade of elegant pomp and businessman monotone fell from his handsome visage. Perhaps, for a moment as he looked back at Whisper, he allowed himself to appear every bit as afraid as he probably felt.

But then he turned back to Sara and everything was normal. Cool. Calm. Collected. Certainly a bit annoyed. There was nothing about his mannerisms that betrayed the fact that he was bartering with terrorists.

"Now," he straightened his jacket, "perhaps we can discuss this after I've seen-"

And then everything went boom.

The trucks. The explosions. The noise. The fire. It all happened at once. Dominic was nearly thrown off his feet on to the ground as the whole earth seemed to quake. Spinning swiftly on his heels, he watched nearly every one of his convoy trucks go up in a ball of flame. Those lucky few that were spaced out far enough from the blast-zone still suffered significant debris damage. Most of the drivers had been controlled by an AI, but he still had nearly half a dozen men in total loaded up in those cars. He looked fearfully over to the lead vehicle, splintered with debris. At least Whisper had gotten out on time...

Smoke billowed into the air. Plasmic fires raged and cackled. Dominic's hands curled into ball-knuckled fists. He turned slowly to Sara, his teeth grit.

"That is not how this is going to go down."

Whisper hesitated as Dominic told her to get back in the car, and for a moment it seemed she might. That is before the high pitched whine of the bombs drew her attention. It was the only warning offered before the detonation but it was all the warning needed. Her mind snapped to focus and zeroed in on the device, but already the chemical reactions had begun.

What seemed to happen in but a moment to the rest of the onlookers had taken on a surreal sluggishness to Whisper; It was as if she had all the time in the world to assess the situation and react.

The lead vehicle sat just beyond the worst of the damage, but for the woman standing outside in the open, the fragments of the other vehicles would kill her just the same.

The heat and flaming bits of debris overtook her, but none of the deadly shrapnel seemed to find its mark. Save for a few small tears in her clothes, and a scrape along her upper arm the woman appeared largely unharmed.

When she reopened her eyes the unease from earlier was gone, replaced by something harder. When Dominic looked to her, she met his gaze and for a moment one might have thought there a crimson hue to her eyes - a trick of the lighting and the flames.

She said nothing though, nor moved as Dominic turned back to Sara.

While Dominic spoke, Whisper threw out a telekinetic web to draw up an image of their surroundings within her minds eye that was unhindered by physical barriers and obstacles that might bar her vision.

A single, chilling cry seemed to echo off the tail-end of Valerie's agonizing screech. Whereas the unfortunate Scion's scream had been tormented and pained, what followed resonated with an entirely different tone: rage. Unrequited anger. It was as if Faust's cruelty was being witnessed by some undisclosed watcher. He roared out in bestial protest against Valerie's pain, his vengeful, inhuman yell like a rolling bass-line of spiteful thunder...

But of course, it was the trucks outside. The echo off the hallways. The distant weather. Of course, it was nothing so terrible that reason could not explain it.

The lone LDA Agent flinched as the explosions rocked the slums, ripping through the buildings and causing the rooftop to shudder while Kathryn watched the events unfold through the scope of her rifle.

"Shit, go to contingency, now!" She hissed into her comm link, centering the cross-hairs of the scope onto the black clad capsuleer.

"ShitShitShitShit..." The Agent fussed, as she locked onto the target before her, but her placement made a shot difficult, as Dominic was too close to the target, and the heat from the shot would liquefy him along with the target.

"K, this is Command, prepare for contigency."

“This is exactly how it is going to go down, Dominic Hagan,” said Sara. She reached up and took the sunglasses off.

“You broke the agreement and now I get to change it. We would not have hurt your dear Valerie but you showed up with extra guests. Tsk tsk,” the capsuleer woman said with a wag of her index finger.

The drones that had come with Dominic Hagan stepped forward and trained their weapons on the man and Whisper. It was now obvious that someone had tampered with their AI. Sara was controlling them by the sheer willpower of her mind. And if that failed there were multiple bodies converging in on Dominic and Whisper from the shadows of the fires rolling around the warehouse.

Each of the capsuleers had a battle rifle in their hands and aimed at Dominic Hagan’s heart as well as Whisper’s. They were surrounded and the only option to stay alive was to surrender.

“If you want to live and if you want your precious Valerie to live then you will surrender. You will give yourself to The League. I’ll be sure to sell the two of you together since you seem so attached. I’m not as cruel as I may seem,” Sara said to Dominic.

“She’s been very hopeful that you would come to save her,” said Sara.

Another harrowing scream sliced the air of the warehouse. Valerie had screamed Dominic’s name.

“It’s just business.” The capsuleer smiled like a shark about to devour a school of tuna.

“Now, don’t make me ask again, Mister Hagan. Come along. It’s quite nice inside,” Sara said to the two of them. She extended a hand and beckoned for Dominic and Whisper to follow her into the warehouse. The barrels of guns hovered near their spines and ribs. Resistance was not an option with two overthrown drones and ten armed capsuleers circling around like vultures over two carcasses.

Whisper stepped closer to Dominic and slipped her arms around one of his to keep close to him. Her fingers entwined against the cloth of his suit while her eyes sought out Sara's. There was something off about the frail, white-haired girl though.

While her actions were those of a frightened woman - her eyes held no fear. There was a weight of cold neutrality behind them and one was left to wonder if she was seeking protection from Dominic, or if it was she who sought to protect him.

Meanwhile it was with calculated precision that her psyche sorted through the influx of information her telekinetic web was providing her. She was no longer seeing through her eyes, but rather the eyes of everyone else. Their adrenalin was her adrenalin, the weight of a finger against a trigger was her own.

Much like the thought process of an AI, she was sifting through numerous scenarios and possibilities, weighing and calculating the likely outcomes of each with rapid fire precision.

Her assessments kept coming back around to the same conclusion.

'This woman hadn't brought near enough men.'

She took no action though as a woman's agonized scream assaulted them once more, and her fingers tightened against Dominic's arm. Her calculations didn't account for the woman that Dominic had come for - or the chilling cry of another that had preceded Valerie's second scream. There were variables not yet accounted for.

Though the Cylons could be reprogrammed, it would be immensely hard to do so. The Capsuleer's would need access to the Tech Con security mainframe and would need the technical know-how and cybernetic strength to overpower an AI directive, all of which protected the drones from being rewired through sheer psionic force. That said, if the League was able to do all of this, the Cylons would be completely at their disposal.

Either way, things didn't look good for the young CEO. With most of his convoy destroyed in a matter of seconds, and with ten different guns scoped in on his skull (guns wielded by men and women who literally had lifetimes of training behind a trigger), Dominic was quickly realizing just how bad his situation was.

"Leave the girl," he said plainly. He tried to put himself in front of Whisper. "She's nothing to you. Taking her or killing her would only make things worse for all of us. Let her go."

After leaving the basement Faust tightened the glove around his right hand tightly, standing by like a silent observer as the combat teams sprang into action. Just a few floors up, the sounds of battle raged and rifles chattered in an automatic symphony as Faust took the scenery in. Turning to follow a machinegun crew as they hefted a 12.7mm assault weapon and a tripod Faust reached out as he passed a crate and pulled an automatic rifle into his grip.

“Clean up Miss Chambers and get her out of here, no proper woman such as her needs this sort of violence.” He remarked bitterly to a passing trooper, a quick salute not even noticed by the commander until he departed from the machinegun crew and ascended up a catwalk.

“Fucking Aschen and their fucking plans … “ Faust continued on down the catwalk, while watching an exchange of gunfire fly underneath him. “All their little fucking plans … “ He grit his teeth in a moment of furious rage, one hand wrapping the sling around his arm. With the other, he cradled the battle rifle into his shoulder. “And their fucking weird ass money.” Putting one elbow onto the railing he aimed the rifle downward and brought the scope to his eye.

“I’m so fucking glad they didn’t end you in the Galactic War.” Notching the safety off he chambered a single 9x56mm projectile into the chamber and felt the hum of the rifle’s magnetic rails.

The scope magnified the battle nearly threefold, and peering down into the lot that surrounded the industrial site Faust quickly tagged the various figures and shadows flickering about the factory.

After spotting Hagan three loud thundersnaps rang out, the battle rifle jolting in his hands as Faust sent a round at the two figures huddled together: a woman gripping at the young Hagan’s arm the image caught in his scope before his vision was blinded by the muzzle flash for a split second.

“Move in and secure that fucking Aschen.”




On the main floor of the meat packing station a heavily armed team of capsuleers was seen flanking beside a prepared machinegun nest: the GPMG mounted on a tripod and protected by a sandbag dugout spitting hot lead across the open spaces leading to and from the packing factor. Launching projectiles the size of a child’s forearm, attempting to run or simply back out the same way they had came would have to be done through a literal gauntlet of weapons fire.

“Eyes on the spook, up there!” One of the gunmen shouted through his microphone until he brought the KLS-89 into his shoulder, Sara and the two targets just ahead of them.

“Covering the flank!” Two of the troopers said before activating the flashlights on the foreguard of their weapons and illuminating Hagan and the woman beside him in light. “Just fuckin’ get them already dammit, there’s a whole mil riding on this!”

Kathryn silently watched the exchange before everything erupted into a literal gauntlet of weapons fire. "Screw this." She brought her scope to a dilapidated sign and some power lines above Sara's head, and she took the shot.

There was a brief whine, and the energy exchange from the high-capacity battery pack mounted on the agent's back into the rifle began, the initial capacitors powered up, followed by the secondary capacitors.

It all released in a sudden fever pitch and a deafening boom.

There was a blinding green flash of light at the muzzle of the rifle, the concrete under the weapon instantly liquefied from the sudden heat. Kathryn's face was instantly sunburned from the sheer amount of radiation from the cannon, and finally the bolt began to travel downrange at blinding speeds, impacting the signage above the exchange with a plume of orange-green flame and sending a hail of liquefied metal, concrete, and other superheated debris raining down on Sara and Dominic.

The weapon whined, and signified it's second charge, where Kathryn lined up the second shot on the muzzle flashes from inside the warehouse.

She pulled the trigger, and the weapon barked it's report, sending a massive green streak of light headed straight for Faust, liquefying everything around it and sending liquid metal and concrete raining down on anyone unfortunate to be under the bolt.

---

That wasn't all that was starting to transpire, with Contingency in place, a team of twenty LDA Spec-ops clad in full combat gear inched in on the exchange, and suddenly a firefight began to erupt between Aschen LDA Agents and SRL Capsuleers. Rapid-strobe like green flashes of light lit up the alleys, along with muzzle flashes from SRL Weapons.

"Go go go! Corvettes will be here any millicenton!" A Team leader called out, while he raised his PDW up at a group of SRL fighters, and laid down a rapid-fire spray of disruptor bolts downrange, suppressing the targets and allowing the rest of his team to move closer.

Up above two Apollos darted over. "Command, I'm trying to raise the Kobol's Killers, try to get them in on this shitstorm."

“Patience,” said Sara with a look over her shoulder. She had not seemed disturbed by the rounds that had by her ear whatsoever. Whether the bullets that Faust had shot at Whisper and Dominic Hagan struck, the Shadow still turned back to face the two with utter calm. There was even a small smile teasing the corner of her mouth.

“The other is valuable as well, Faust.”

The drones that Sara Weald had captured with her unfathomable resources and capabilities as a Shadow attempted to apprehend both Whisper and Dominic into submission and incapacitation. If they tried to run than the other ten capsuleers under Sara’s directive were going to shoot simultaneously at the targets’ knees, legs, and feet.

“As for the new terms, Dominic Hagan, you have not even allowed me to explain. I will personally let the woman leave if you surrender yourself,” Sara said before the sky shattered and exploded above her head. The split second before the debris came crashing down in a molten, screaming, and twisting storm of chaos there was an exasperated look on Sara’s face.

The Shadow’s body was crushed and annihilated right before Dominic and Whisper’s very eyes. The flesh melted off the bone that had cracked under the weight of the sign. An explosion of the body’s blood splashed everywhere on the impact. The capsuleers surrounding Whisper and Dominic immediately kept them all pinned to their current position. No one was going anywhere. And if they attempted to run, they were going to open fire and to kill this time.

The sound of someone’s hand clapping came from around the corner of the warehouse. The clapping stopped and Sara Weald pushed her sunglasses up onto the bridge of her nose. She looked down at the crushed body and arched a brow. There was an amused look on her face.

“Good shot. Commendable,” Sara Weald stated as she flexed the fingers of her right hand. A static discharge encapsulated the hand. It was very subtle and very near unnoticeable in the wash of the artificial light shining down on them all. It was Sara’s RADOS activating.

The time for games and teasing was now over. No more room for the dramatics. Just results. Sara was more than disappointed. She so loved her drama and the suspense that came along with it.

A charge of electricity ignited in Sara’s hand and created a blinding light. She struck the ground and an eardrum shattering explosive sound of disorienting noise rolled across the Abandoned Slums. It was as if lightning had struck precisely where the Shadow’s hand had impacted the pavement.