Ghosts that Linger - NOVERIA, Open

[Doc Shaftoe]

Halleck followed his alien cohort down to the parking garage. He'd hoped that she would have been able to get a shuttle. Weather or not, it would be easier and faster to simply fly there. Rules were rules however, and the administrator was adamant about them. No sense in blowing his cover just yet. The rover was large. One of the older industrial types with plenty of storage space. If he had the right equipment, it would have made for a very effective bomb. Unforutnately he'd need it intact to get back to Port Hanshan.

Options scrolled through his mind faster than he could sort them out. How was he going to approach this? Should he kill everyone in the facility? Should he try to sneak into Chernow's office? Was there any guarantee that Chernow would even be there? Would the hanar prove to be a problem? What was he going to do with Hunter? As much as he wanted to bring the pilot with him, there was no doubt that they would need a fast ride off of the planet once things hit the fan. Once the alarm was sounded at peak 13, Port Hanshan's security would arrest anyone coming back from that facility. If he could convince Chuck to fly out to the peak, they might be able to escape from Noveria before things got too difficult.

He turned to the pilot.
"Chuck, I can handle this on my own. Why don't you go make sure the ship is ready for when I'm done. We should probably leave Noveria when this is all finished. Not a lot of work left here."

Halleck didn't wait to see if the pilot followed his instructions, but he hoped the man wouldn't leave him hanging. This was the one part of his plan that wasn't foolproof. He was relying on someone who didn't trust him worth a damn. He only hoped that Hunter feared Halleck hunting him down and killing him more than dealing with ERCS security and whoever was providing security at Peak 13. Not that he'd be able to kill Hunter if things went to hell. Odds were that he'd be arrested and imprisoned, if not killed outright. An inconvenience really, but in the time it would take him to escape he'd lose any potential leads that Chernow could give him.

He climbed into the land vehicle and ran a hand over the holographic displays. The engines rumbled to life, sending a shudder through the frame. He calibrated the driving controls to fit his preferences and ran through a basic maintenaince checklist. He always inspected his equipment before using it, unless of course he was in one hell of a hurry.

"You ready ms. Opal?"

[mindightfox91]

Opal floated inside of the transport. "This one would like to caution the pilot about the cargo that has been loaded. The cargo is very expensive and some of the cargo can be explosive. This one would not like to be in an explosion."

She said then she tapped the door and the transport closed ,"This one is ready to go."

With that the hangar doors opened and they were off driving down the snowy transport road of the port that lead to peak thirteen. She studied the human for a moment. Then shifted uncomfortably as she did not enjoy the environment outside as it could easily freeze her solid. One of her tenticals twitched at the thought.

She continued to remain silent for the rest of the trip.

[Doc Shaftoe]

The rover shook, shuddered, and jumped as it raced across the frozen surface. Halleck ignored the posted safety limits and guided the vehicle with a deft hand. There was no denying that he put wheels over cliff-edges and drifted across ice slicked corners, but he didn't care. All that mattered to him was getting to Peak 13 as quickly as possible. Plumes of snow and pulverized ice shot out from under the massive tires as the rover sped across the frozen wasteland.

Halleck scanned as he drove, taking in his surroundings. He could see massive tunnels far below as he passed over bridges. Weather sensors lined the cliffs, registering all kinds of barometric data. No doubt they were linked to satellites in orbit. Frost built up along the edges of the Rover's windshield. He toggled the defrost switch and swerved sharply to avoid a crashed Rover. Dark shapes in the snow marked frozen corpses. Unlucky travellers whose vehicles had broken down in a storm.

He skidded around a bend and suddenly the Peak 13 facility was laid out in front of him. Vast and mysterious, the concrete facade lacked windows or any real indication that it was inhabited. The only sign of occupancy was the open garage door at the end of this road. The main Comm tower loomed overhead like an ancient titan, watching, waiting. For some reason it made Halleck very uncomfortable. As much as he tried to shake the thought, a primal sort of fear nagged at him.

The fear propelled him, forced him to continue. Rather than slow down as he entered the garage, he sped up. Whipping the rover around, he slid into the first security checkpoint and gave the vehicle a new paintjob. As soon as the Rover lurched suddenly to a stop, he unbuckled himself and kicked open the door, tossing a fragmentation grenade into the cluster of approaching security personnel. With a deafening thump, the explosive device shredded anything caught within its lethal radius, and incapacitated anyone caught inside the cone of shrapnel.

Halleck dropped from the Rover and slid into cover. As additional security approached the crash, Hallek flicked another grenade across the room, using the distraction to vault his cover and sprint for the lift. The explosion echoed off the garage walls as the lift doors slid shut. He watched as the fire suppression system activated and doused the security in flame retardant foam.

"ATIR, do what you can to keep their security occupied, and patch me in to Hunter."

"Working. Link established."

"Chuck, it's Dave. I need you to bring your ship to Peak 13 ASAP. I'm on my way to Chernow but I'm going to need a fast exit."

[mindightfox91]

Opal had fallen asleep while the human drived. Due to her lift perpulsion unit she could not feel the deft sliding movements as the human dangerously around the Ice Roads.

It wasn't until they reached the Station that she was jolted awake as they traded paint with another vechile. At first she thought the pilot was fighting malfunctioning controls as the freighter slammed into another one.

Then when he kicked the door down and started fighting the guards that it dawned on her what was going on. Fearing for her life she shut the door of the freighter. Then she went low to the floor hiding from the fight.

She was thinking about what she had gotten herself into. S

[Doc Shaftoe]

The lift ground to a halt. Halleck knew that security would be waiting for him in the corridor outside. Two fragmentation grenades, two nonlethal grenades, and two smoke grenades. He still had the motion sensors, but nothing else. In the momentary peace, he pulled the gloves out of his pack and slid them on. They were fingerless for enhanced dexterity, but had reinforced knuckles for hand to hand combat.

Throwing his bag back over his bag and buckling the straps, he pressed himself into a corner of the lift as the doors sheathed open. In the hallway were several guards and a few LOKI mechs behind hastily erected cover. They opened fire soon as the doors parted. Glass shattered as rounds peppered the lift's far wall. Halleck waited for a lull before hurling a HE grenade at the guard in the center of the formation. It hit him square in the head before exploding. Halleck spun out from cover on the heels of the detonation, revolver up and firing at the disoriented guards.

Three rounds caught a guard in the chest and head, dropping the body heavily. Another two knocked out the targeting sensors on one of the LOKI mechs and it opened fire on its comrades, sensing hostiles in all directions. Pressing through the chaos, Halleck slipped down the corridor and into the main lobby. From here he could access any part of the station. Now all he had to do was find Chernow. First stop? Security control room.

He brought up the schematics on his Omni-Tool and ducked down the proper corridor. Most of the guards were occupied with helping to put out the fires in the garage and trying to track him down. Security drones started pouring down the hallways, their repulsors humming as their weapons belched fire at him.

"ATIR!"

"On it."

Halleck waved his Omni-Tool in the air as the ATIR VI rewrote the programming on the lead drones, turning them against the others. This gave Halleck an opening. Sprinting past the drones, he followed the signs that said "security" on them. It was easy enough. If he didn't want to make absolutely sure that it was done right, he would have had ATIR hack the security systems. Instead, he was going to find Chernow and destroy the security consoles to slow the peak's security teams down.

Just one door remained. He waited for the door to open as he slid into the room firing. The first two technicians distorted the holographic projectors with their blood. The last was able to roll out of his chair and take cover before returning fire. Halleck recovered just in time to avoid loosing his brain. He rolled into cover behind a desk and fired blindly in the direction of the other man. He risked a peek and saw the other man advancing on his position. He hurled himself in the other direction, moving as low as he could to different cover. Hoping to catch the man off-guard.

The Technician paused before leaping into the spot where Halleck had been. The man immediately spun around and started to scan the room. Halleck caught his breath as he hid behind a support column. The orange holographic displays painted a strange hue over the room. The red emergency strobes painted momentary and disorienting shadows across the room. Throwing him off. The round hit the steel next to his head before he heard the shot. Reflexively pulling his head away from the kill-zone, Halleck rolled out of from that cover and came up to a standing position. Firing his revolver to keep the other man hunkered down.

The technician fired blindly at Halleck and nearly caught him in the chest. The man was a good shot whoever he was. Halleck ducked behind an overturned desk to reload and stood up to see the other man striding forward. Halleck lunged at him and put his shoulder square in the other man's chest. Knocking him to the ground.

Halleck recovered and stomped down hard on the other man's face, catching him in the jaw. He felt (and heard) the bones give way as the man's skull caved in. He could hear gurgling sounds coming from the man he'd just killed as he moved to the security monitor.

"Messy." He muttered to himself, obviously displeased with the outcome of the tussle.

[mindightfox91]

Opal peeked her head out of the window to see people running out of the main door that went into and went into vechiles. An Asari opened the door of the freighter to see opal who shrank back.

"Hey I'm not gonna hurt you. I just want to get away from this place as fast as I can. So I'm gonna take this frieghter." The Asari said and got into the pilots seat and fired up the transport. Then they sped out of the hangar streaking through the snow towards port Hanshan.

Opal looked back at the facility to see an explosion, thinking her life was not worth Mr.Chernow's business.

"This one urges you to be careful when driving." Opal said gripping the passenger seat with her tenticals. She knew the second they got to port that she wanted off of this frozen ice world.

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William Chernow was busy examining a computer with a schematic on it when the security alarms went off sound throughout the complex facility. He immediately closed the schematic a flipped to the security monitors. He watched through the complex as he witnessed chaos happening in his base. He shook his head in dismay.

"This can't be happening not now!" he shouted slamming his fist down on the desk. Then he gritted his teeth and tapped a security icon. "I want my body guards in here now!" he shouted through the mic.

There was no respond for awhile until someone came on the mic. "Sir this is Lieutenant Avery. Captain Renard is dead in the Hangar bay. Someone slammed into the complex with a frieghter and started attacking my men. This base is comprimised I'm taking what's left of my forces and heading to your position now sir."

Will snarled into the mic ,"Fine! move your asses I want you here Now!" After closing the comms william reached into his desk and with drew a M-12 Locust arming it. A few minutes later a squard of Six men came into the room plus lieutenant Avery all had Cerberus Shock trooper armor on and heavily armed waiting.

"About damned time you showed up." Will siad glaring at them. Then he started moving to stand behind him.

"Right let's get out of here Take me to my shuttle." He said and the Lieutenant nodded and his men took formation around their leader. The started to head out of the office.

[Doc Shaftoe]

Halleck's fingers flew across the holographic keyboard. He sounded a general evacuation alarm and flipped through camera footage for Chernow. Nothing, nothing, nothing! He was getting nowhere! Then he found him.

Posh office, post-modern furniture, probably asari or maybe elcor designer. Chernow pulled a Locust from his desk and slammed a hand on the action, chambering a round. Six men streamed into the room, each wearing heavy armor. Their gear was Cerberus issue. Looks like Halleck was right about all of this. The group of men flowed out of the office with Chernow in the middle. Standard box formation, keeping the weakest link or the most valuable person in the center. Maximum firepower out.

Where were they going!? He flipped through the station schematics, scanning as quickly as he could with his eyes. There had to be a route out, something he'd missed. There had to be SOMETHING! There... Executive Shuttle, top floor, private hanger. He downloaded the schematics to his Omni-Tool and uploaded a virus to the main security system. It would give him a little cover as he moved.

Halleck spun on his heels and sprinted for the door, nearly running head-first into the security team waiting for him outside. They too wore Cerberus heavy armor and carried assault rifles. He collapsed and rolled to the side as the men opened fire. They turned just moments too slowly to catch him as he leapt from his crouched position finding the lead man's jaw with his flattened palm. The force of the strike knocked the man back and would have broken his jaw if he hadn't been wearing protective armor.

Halleck grabbed the stunned trooper and spun him around, using him as a living shield. He drew his revolver and unloaded into one man and hurled the trooper at the second. The two men collapsed and Halleck emptied his thermal clip into them. He swapped cylindars then grabbed the combat knife off of one of the dead Cerberus troopers. Before he left the hallway he scooped up the lead man's M8 Avenger, resetting the action as he moved, sliding a new thermal clip into place and cycling a round into the chamber.

ATIR provided directions via his earbud. The Vi guided him down a corridor on his left to avoid a guard patrol moving to retake the security room, then to a service lift that would take him to the roof. He stepped to the side of the doors and hit the call button with his elbow. As the doors opened he unleashed a spray of blind fire into the car. When nothing made a sound after his volley, Halleck entered the lift, sealing the doors behind him.

The lift would get him to the roof, but not quickly enough. He shot out the windows, slung the rifle, and climbed on top of the elevator car. It was a single-car shaft so it was a tight fit. He placed his last HE grenade on the brake control box and started climbing up the carbon-monofiber cable. It was harder than he wanted to admit. once he was a safe way up, he hit the detonator for the grenade and sent the car tumbling to the ground as a weight, sending himself and the cable rocketing towards the top of the shaft.

Halleck only had a few seconds before he was dashed against the ceiling, his timing would need to be extraordinary. Fortunately, ATIR had his back. And VI's were far better at math than Halleck would ever be.

"Door's open, JUMP NOW!"

He complied and pushed off of the wire, momentum launching him up towards the open doors. He still hit the top of the doorframe and nearly fell before catching his hand in the door's track. He felt something in his left arm wrench the wrong way but his bones held. Nothing was broken yet but he'd feel that one. I'm getting too old for this, he thought.

Pulling himself up through the open doors and into the private hanger and scanned the room before moving to cover. There wasn't much in the way of cover up here. Just the executive shuttle and a few crates. The boxes looked fragile too, no good in a firefight. He hurled one of the pulse grenades at the only other door and held his thumb on the detonator, exposing as little of himself as he could to keep an eye on his target. As soon as Chernow and his men walked through the door, he'd strip their kinetic barriers and unload. Not the best strategy but right now he was pretty limited.

"Uhm, David?"

"What."

"That virus you uploaded?"

"What about it?"

"It's erased the reactor safety protocols. This facility is going to explode."

"...What?"

"You have maybe ten minutes. I'll just patch you through to Mr. Hunter."

"Chuck? It's Dave. The peak is about to explode and I could use a ride out of here."

"Come to think of it, why don't we just use the shuttle to-"

"No."

"Why not?"

"No."

"It would be our best optio-"

"No."

"Why can't you ever do things the easy way?"

"... I can't fly."

"But you're posing as a... seriously? You can't fly a ship?"

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Really? You can do all kinds of things but you can't pilot a shuttle? Those things fly themselves you know."

"Can we talk about this later?"

"If I had friends, I wouldn't be able to wait to tell them about this."

"You know I can delete you right?"

"Shutting up now."

[Enterprise1701]

Charles had been all too eager to be dismissed by Halleck.

He had just finished securing the airlock, and was begin to go through the motions of the hour and a half or so it took to get his crate back in the black and away from the miserable snowball they call Noveria.

As he climbed up the ladder to the cockpit from the front of the crew deck, the comm system crackled to life.

"Chuck, it's Dave. I need you to bring your ship to Peak 13 ASAP. I'm on my way to Chernow but I'm going to need a fast exit."

As soon as the transmission cut out, Hunter flopped down into the well-worn pilot's seat, staring right out the ice-encrusted forward viewports.

His first thought was to leave Halleck behind, of course. He couldn't hurt him from behind bars, of course. But Cerberus... Hunter had heard stories, watched the news, read a bit on NetLeaks. Those guys didn't screw around, and they loved tying off loose ends. Better to make sure that Halleck didn't get screwed over. Hunter didn't know very many good knots he could survive.

That... and there was something about Halleck. He may have been a ruthless bastard... but it seemed like he was fighting a good enough fight. Noone should have to be owned by their past. He'd seen enough of that all over the galaxy.

'I don't want to do it. Noone else is gonna do it. So, I'll be their huckleberry.'

A mantra he had co-opted to endure the must mundane of jobs, the most unbearable and demanding of customers. The most dire economic downturns. And now it was a battle hymn, urging him into motion.

"Fast exit... great, fast exit."

Hunter flipped a number of toggles, prompting the cockpit's haptic interfaces and displays to flicker to life, flooding the small room with technical-looking bits of hazy orange.

The ship's VI began prattling off to him in it's synthesized voice; feminine, energetic, annoying.

"Good morning, Ki-Cho Hunter, Charles Edward Would you like to perform a standard pre-flight? Estimated warm-up time fourty five minutes!"

Not being a gearhead, Hunter decided to be straightforward and ask the damn thing how to speed that up. It was designed to help the pilot after all.

He started urgently running through the diagnostic runtimes on the haptic controls.

"Any way we can warm this bucket up faster?!"

"This vessel's fusion plant is not rated for a cold start! Sorry, "

"Might have wanted to co-opt the pilot of a faster ship, buck-o."

"I'm not programmed to respond to that line of conversation-!"

"Shut up, I wasn't talking to you!" he snapped back.

"Any complaints can be forwarded to Junpei-Awata Computer
Industries!"

Quickly, he tapped furiously at the familiar keyboards of the pilot's station, buying a few minute's worth of decent-quality extranet access. A minute or so on a search engine was enough to find a relatively comprehensible guide on cold starting a dual microfusion plant.

With due haste, he jogged down the central corridor best he could, hoisting a spool of heavy transmission cable with his free arm.

It would have been an infinitely better idea to attempt this sort of thing if he was skilled in anything beyond the basic maintenance of his ship.

The legality of the mechanical operation he performed was somewhat questionable - especially considering the manner in which he tampered with a power transmission line in the docking bay. Fortunately, an ECRS guard who had caught him in the act proved open to bribes. With a spanner. In the face.

Not wasting another second, Hunter jogged back up to the cockpit and slid down a ladder into the confined space of the main circuit patch bay. He made the final adjustments, and braced for the worst, hoping he hadn't ignited any thruster fuel or imploded the drive core.

"Uh oh! Safety interlocks have been disengaged," the ship's VI exclaimed, with unnecessary energy and saccharine sweetness, " Oh well, you know what they say; shikata ga nai!"

Instruments began to indicate rising power levels, and electrical generation was already well under way. It would only be a couple of minutes until the thrusters were primed. With luck, he could reach Peak 13 in much less time.

"Chuck? It's Dave. The peak is about to explode and I could use a ride out of here."

With a groan, the pilot for hire pulled himself up out of the patch bay and began running through motions on engine ignition. Not missing a beat, he quickly flicked his radio on to respond to Halleck,

"Sit tight, I'm on my way. ETA... 2 minutes... I hope. After that, things might get pretty hot. I bribed an ECRS guard with something from my toolkit. It won't be long before they find the poor bastard. Hunter out."

With a smooth, practiced motion, Hunter throttled the engines into retrothrust and eased his craft out of the hangar, trailing umbilical connections, and yanking a service frame off of the hangar wall. The excess equipment rather promptly fell or snapped off of the craft, plummeting down the steep slopes Port Hanshan hung over.

With much uncertain rattling and uneven acceleration, the light transport burst into motion, making haste for Peak 13.

[mindightfox91]

William Chernow smiled as he came in sight of the shuttle with his Seven guards. Things were turning out well for him.....and that's when the ground gave way.

Bang!

A grenade had landed right in front of all of them making them fly in opposite directions slamming into crates, walls or the floor losing their kinetic shields. William winced in pain as one of his guards had fallen on top of him in their new Heavy assault armor. To say the least it left him gasping for breath shoving at the unconscious guard on him.

Lieutenant Avery Felt himself flying backwards to slam into the Elevator door they had just vacated. He stood up shaking his daze and pulled out his shotgun and crouched looking around a crate.

He saw man in his sixties crouched with a Assault rifle and started firing at him to which Avery retaliated firing back. Then the rest of his squad regained consciousness and the follow their leader firing back. Out of the Seven bodyguards that had come up the lift with Chernow only four were left.

"Will some one get this oaf off me!" he said still pinned by the corpse on top of him. He looked for his gun and saw that his Locust had slide over to the man firing at them who picked it up putting it on his side. Will shook his head. Great just what he needed. No weapon.

Since Avery specialized in tech he released a drone to go fight the Merc. "Go get'em sparky." he said as the drone sped right for Halleck

Once Avery Had deployed the drone he stooped next to Mr.Chernow and shoved the dead guard on off him then Handed Chernow his heavy pistol. Then He leapt over a line of crates ,"Alright guys time to give Mr.Chernow some cover!"

After that all of the shock troopers started firing at Halleck while Chernow crouched down limping towards the shuttle slowly.

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Opal and the Asari skidded to a halt as they reached port HanShans's Garage hangar door. The Storm that had been forcasted earlier had arrived. Once they were in the Asari hopped out of the frieghter then went around to help opal out of the transport. During the Trip the had smashed through a snow drift that almost caused them to fall off the ice road to their deaths.

As they hit the snow drift Opal had lost her grip and slammed into the windshield causing her floating system to malfunction and slide to the floor unable to support her own weight now.

Opal at this time was regretting even coming here to Noveria now as this episode was not worth her life. The asari went to go find the guards shortly came back with them to get opal out.

What a day this had been Opal thought as a two turian guards carried her inside. One holding her limbs while the other held her body.

She looked at the Asari as she was taken down the halls to the infirmary.

One of the guards that had carried the hanar back inside went back out to the Garage while the Asari explained what happened to them and what was going on to the other guards.

He could barely make out the outline of Peak 13 then it lightened up better for him as explosions could be seen. This was definately not good.

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Back at peak thirteen William Chernow was regretting ever comming to this infernal Frozen iceball as he tapped the pannel to open the hangar doors and a blast of Icy wind rushed in making him shiver. This was just great now a storm had arrived at the base and was going to be hell taking off in it. Chernow fired a few rounds at the attacker then crouched making his way back to the shuttle. By the time he came within range of the shuttle only two of his body guards were left alive. Avery Dashed over to chernow just as a heat skink round from the attacker took his last soldier in the face blasting his helmet apart. Then the mans body slumped to the ground like a sack of meat.

[Doc Shaftoe]

The doors opened and Halleck thumbed the detonator. He ducked behind the crate and shut his eyes to block the flash. The sound alone was disorienting enough without being temporarily blinded at the same time. He spun from cover and starting firing with his pilfered assault rifle.

He took three men in the opening volley. The four survivors and Chernow ducked behind cover, firing sporadically at Halleck's position. Between volleys of fire he swapped thermal clips and adjusted his strategy. The attackers were using a staggered approach. Two were up and firing while the other two reloaded, that way there was constant suppresive fire on their target. In this case, him.

Halleck put another man down with a burst to his helmet, and moved quickly to a nearby crate. He popped his head up to scan his targets. They hadn't seen him move and were still firing at his previous location. Good. He stood and fired at the Cerberus troopers, dropping one unawares and turning to face the third. The M8 clicked empty and Halleck dropped it, drawing his revolver in one fluid motion.

Adrenaline coursing through his veins, time seemed to slow down. He loosed a quick double tap into the guard's face and put him down. The relatively large caliber slugs penetrating his hardsuit with ease. The final man turned to face him and shouldered his rifle. He loosed a controlled burst that Halleck dove to avoid.

Rounds chewed away at the wall above him. There were no conveniently placed planters or chest-high walls for him to use as cover. The crate was the only thing keeping him from being shredded. Terrific. There was a break in the fire as the other man stopped to reload. Halleck vaulted his crate and started to unload as he advanced.

The fire was suppressive, not intended to kill. He just had to close the distance enough to negate the advantage of a rifle. Chernow was probably armed, but he'd deal with that when the time came.

Halleck holstered his revolver and drew the stolen combat knife, sprinting towards the Cerberus trooper's cover. He vaulted it with ease and landed in a run. He launched himself towards the trooper, knife held low. Thrusting, slashing, jabbing, punching, and grabbing. He was a flurry of movement.

The man blocked thrusts with his armored forearm, countering with the other hand and knocking Halleck off balance. He recovered just in time to avoid being tackled to the ground. He pushed off and lunged at the armored man, who had assumed a proper fighting stance. It was good, but Halleck was better.

He drew the other man in with a feignt to the left and spun right, bringing the knife quickly over and around in an almost dance-like movement. Pivoting on his inside heel, Halleck found himself sprawled on the floor as his opponent's fist found his stomach. He rolled right to avoid a kick and lashed out with his leg, knocking the other man to the ground.

Rather than take the man on the ground, Halleck climbed to his feet, knife held loosely, ready, waiting. He traced the man's movements as he clambered to his feet. Watching where he placed his weight. Halleck kicked off and lunged towards the man who brought his right fist around in a body-spinning uppercut that connected with air. Halleck had dropped into a slide and caught the other man in the knee with his knife.

He released the blade and stood up as the other man collapsed. Drawing his revolver as the other man pulled the knife out of the soft joint of his armor, Halleck put one round in the base of his armored skull. The guard collapsed and he turned to Chernow, revolver raised.

Rather than say something pithy and heroic, he put a round through the businessman's right shoulder. Timely. Chernow had a pistol aimed at him. Probably hadn't been able to get a clear shot during the scuffle. Halleck holstered the pistol and tapped his earbud.

"Chuck, I'm at the executive landing pad on the roof. Just beneath the top of the Comms tower. I've got Chernow and I'm coming out."

He grabbed the man by his collar and started dragging him towards the open hanger doors. Wind and ice whipping at his exposed skin. Halleck bit his lip against the cold and pulled Chernow's heavy ass through the gathering snow. The storm was going to make things difficult.

"ATIR, time?"

"Four minutes and counting until estimated reactor meltdown."

"Come on Chuck. Hurry."

[mindightfox91]

William chernow gripped his shoulder in pain as he was shot by Halleck even though he didn't know the mans name. He shook his head as he looked at Avery's body who was had been taken down in the knee by Halleck crumpling to the ground.

"Who the hell do you think you are! Firing at us! You are going to be in a world of pain for this!" Will said as he was dragged.

Chernow gritted his teeth in pain as his shoulder hurt more

This post has been edited by mindightfox91 on 25 July 2011, 11:02 pm

[Enterprise1701]

Hunter gingerly steered the Aberrant Import in underneath the comm tower, easing the throttle down as he kicked in the landing thrusters. Calmly, he brought her down quickly with very slight adjustments to the controls, being mindful of there being people on the landing pad. A faster approach could have blown Halleck clean off of the pad, depending on where he was standing.

He rapidly flipped a number of toggles and tapped a quick series of commands into the haptic interfaces lining the pilot's station. With the engines on idle, he jogged back through navigation, hopped down the steps to the main deck, then slid down the ladder to the forward hold. He fumbled a few moments with the authorizations on the airlock cycle, then managed to get the forward cargo door open. The door slowly swung down until its edge came to a rest on the ground with a resounding thud, forming a ramp.

Hunter urgently beckoned Halleck inside with his free hand.

[Doc Shaftoe]

"You're in no position to be making threats."

Halleck shielded his face as Hunter brought his ship in low. The man was a natural pilot. Fortune it seemed, had smiled upon Halleck. At least in terms of providing talented partners in crime/terrorism. He had no doubt that this is what his act would be seen as. No one got away with something like this without being branded a terrorist unless they were military. And even then, most governments would play an operation like this off as a terrorist attack.

Halleck didn't care. Let them come. Cerberus, The Systems Alliance, The Citadel, Bounty Hunters, it didn't matter. Nothing was going to stand in his way. But more importantly. He wanted the Illusive Man to know that he was coming.

The ship set down gently just outside the doors, with the fore cargo ramp extended. Hunter stood inside, beckoning like an old friend. That or someone who was scared shitless of being blown to bits.

Halleck grabbed Chernow and put him in a fireman's carry. Not a comfortable thing for the man being carried, but with a bullet wound in the shoulder it would probably be excruiciating. Good. Let him suffer a little. It'd make it easier to get something out of him later. Halleck charged up the ramp and shrugged Chernow off of his shoulders once he was inside.

"Get us out of here Chuck!"

[mindightfox91]

Chernow gritted his teeth as the as he was hauled aboard the ship by the attacker. Then as soon as they were in and speeding away from the facility. Within a few minutes there was a huge explosion that rocked the ship as a shock wave passed by.

William Chernow slumped against a wall knowing that he was going to be dead either way. If he survived this encounter with the attacker, he knew cerberus would kill him for his failure of being captured. He knew that he was mosy likely going to be tortured to death for answers.

As this truth hit him he seemed to get a dark expression on his features. He was now faced with the decision of either still being loyal to cerberus and endure the torture until he died giving up no answers or tell his attacker what he wanted to know and hope his life was spared. though even in that sense he knew cerberus would never stop hunting him for his betrayal. Either way he was a dead man...............................

[Enterprise1701]

Halleck sprinted over the ramp, carrying a bedraggled fellow over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, unceremoniously dropping him to the deck the moment they were onboard.

"Get us out of here Chuck!"

Sparing only a quick, curious glancee at Chernow, Hunter slapped the ramp controls with palm and clambered up the ladder to the crew deck. Having run up the steps to the cockpit, he flopped down at the pilot's station, quickly setting the main engine verniers to reverse as the VTOL-assist thrusters and mass effect field kicked in.

Without even waiting for the landing pad to clear, guidance from planetary traffic controllers, or anything else that one usually did when leaving a planet, Hunter simply gunned it - pushing the throttles up as far as he thought the ship could take it. Moments later, he got bumped around in his seat as the Aberrant Import felt the pressure wave from what was no doubt the Peak 13 reactor blowing its top.

With a sigh of relief, Hunter plucked the intercom handset from its holder and switched it on,

"This is your captain speaking. We have not exploded and should reach synchronous orbit in about 10 minutes."

[mindightfox91]

After spending the morning at his club and getting rid of his hang over Galen Found himself in a charter ship that was bound for Noveria out of Illium.

When he arrived coming off the docks he saw that the place was alive with energy not seen in a place like this where it was all Corperate smooth talking business agents. Now however as he came down from the ramp he saw that security and tightened a 100 fold. He narrowed his eyes as the security scanned everyone.

The guards scanned him and saw that Galen was carrying a side arm and went to take it only to get kneed in the gut by Galen.

"No one is going to take this gun from me. You want me to reliquish it then your going to have to pry it out of my hands." he said aggressively charging up with biotics a few seconds later. One of the Admin Faculty saw who he was and waved off the guards.

"Mr. Cerbantes Please come with me." she said to which galen nodded and put away his weapon then helped the guard he had kneed back up on his feet. After that he followed the Assistant close behind her into the elevator.

She looked at him ,"It a rather hectic time you chose to arrive Mr.Cerbantes. Things are very chaotic right now with what just happened here on noveria." She said

Galen looked thoughtful at what she had said narrowing his eyes ,"What has happened that has got the security so trigger itchy." he said

She giggled at his trigger comment then replied in a more serious tone, "One of our big facilities that Noveria rents out.........went on a meltdown and destroyed it's self. More details are still coming out as only a handful of survivors made it here. However the rest......well didn't make it out of the explosion." She explained

Galen facial expression became dark. He had major investments here on Noveria not to mention that there were other interest that he knew about were here in Noveria. The elevator doors opened and he saw whispering business men & women looking shocked all of them looking out of the main windows to the facility on the mountain across from them.

Galen clenched his fists in cold fury as he saw Peak13 utterly obliterated nowthing more than a fireball now lighting the snowy skies. He knew peak 13 had Cerberus interests there and some of his interests as he was about to go there until now. Cerberus was now going to be happy about this at all. He went around asking the survivors what had happened and they replied that the place had been assaulted by a man. He tried to find out more but he knew he wasn't going to get more information out of this bunch.

As he was about to leave for the hotel in disgust he was called into the administrators office. He followed the assistant into the office and an asari that looked a bit ruffed up and a very nervous hanar that kept changing colors.

"Ah Mr.Cerbantes come join us all please." The administrator said Galen walked over to the desk by the others and sat down in a chair next to the battered asari. The administrator was a dark scaled turian with tribal markings on his face. He held his taloned hands together as if wondering where to begin explaining.

It was the hurt Asari that broke the silence ,"So what happens now?" she asked the turian. who shook his head ,"I'm not sure." then looked at Galen. "Peak 13 was destroyed in an attack. I'm sorry to say as I know you invested there. The hanar Opal here was in the with the man who attacked and miss Singer here." He said motioning to the Asari and the Hanar. "Was a part of the staff that worked there."

Galen gripped his chair at the mention that both the Asari and the Hanar had got a good look at the attacker. Then he started asking them detailed questions and discussed what happened until it was getting nightfall.

After he was done with them Galen stood up and left heading for his hotel room. He was not happy at all and he knew cerberus would want to hunt down who did this.

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

Opal meanwhile later left for her own room area and went to bed herself letting Miss singer the asari to stay in her spare bed while she used the other one.

She knew now that it had been a huge mistake to ever sell things to William Chernow. As it had cost her big time. She floated down on her bed then turned off all the lights.

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

Meanwhile Galen sat on his bed typing in a data pad of the information he had learned and send it to cerberus the moment he got off world. All in all this had not been a good Day for him.


(end thread?)

[Doc Shaftoe]

Halleck heaved a sigh of relief as the Aberrant Import rocketed into space. He knew that he'd put Hunter in harms way but he was relieved that Hunter had come through. After sedating Chernow and strapping him to one of the bunks in the crew quarters, he moved forward to join the undoubtedly reluctant pilot in the cockpit. Lugging Chernow up the ladder to the crew deck wasn't easy, but it wouldn't do to leave the man sitting in the cargo hold.

Halleck stepped into the cockpit and squared his shoulders. What was coming next was not a common activity, and he didn't exactly enjoy it.

"Thanks for the help back there."

Hunter either had larger cojones than either of them thought or he was just too dumb to run away from a fight. Sure Halleck had put the fear of god in the man, but if he'd left him to rot there was no way that Halleck would have been able to come after him.

The question now was if Hunter was willing to continue in assisting Halleck on his crusade. Noveria Internal Affairs would probably post security information about Hunter on the ExtraNet, but Halleck still had some old friends in high places. Not to mention ATIR. That damned VI could do just about anything it seemed. It would be easy enough to erase Hunter's involvement in this whole thing. But if he was willing to stick it through to the end, well that would be something. Wouldn't it.