Some of us are safe alone Some of us pretend That we can always start again The things we never end Some of us are born to fall Others to stay true But tonight it seems so far from me to you - Stuart Adamson (1958-2001) /* Big Country "Far From Me to You" _Why the Long Face?_ (1995) */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES EXILE STAR-CROSSED Part I: The Crying of Lot 490 Benjamin D. Hutchins (c) 2010 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2356 OMEGA SAHRABARIK SYSTEM, TERMINUS SECTOR_ In the course of nearly seven decades as a dangerous fugitive, Benjamin Hutchins had reached a few definite conclusions about the universe. One was that it was often a very unfair sort of place. Obviously so, if it were the kind of place where a man could spend 67 years on the run for a mass murder he hadn't committed. Another, considerably less abstract but strangely related, was that he really hated Omega. Formed from the remains of a worked-out asteroid mining station in a backwater system of the Terminus sector, Omega was the very model of a lawless frontier outpost. No, not even that. It wasn't really anywhere near an active frontier, not any more. Now it was just a lawless -nowhere- outpost. The Terminus was the hind end of space, and Omega was the hind end of the Terminus. Eight million or so people, most of them scum, crowded into a hollowed-out asteroid and killing each other over its meager resources. Take the lousiest, most crime-ridden town on the worst planet in the galaxy and then cram it into a pressurized hull with all the extra privations, dangers, and discomforts that entailed, and there you had Omega. Gryphon had been here maybe twenty times in his life, many of them back in the days when he was a Wedge Defense Force officer and occasional field operative for the Worlds Welfare Work Association, and it was always a bad day when the order came in to go back... but ironically, once he found himself on the outside of the system, as it were, it became one of the places where he was safest. No agent of galactic law was likely to cross his path here, and given the place's absolute lack of enforced order, if there were bounty hunters or opportunistic mercenaries (and there always were), he could just take them on, take them out, and move along. It often infuriated him that his, or rather the Butcher of Musashi's, reputation for mayhem had -grown- despite all the years he'd spent trying to overcome it. Year after year, as he threaded his way through the dark underbelly of the galaxy looking for answers that never came, the stories of what it was he was supposed to have done in 2288 - a year that was not within the living memory of a good many citizens these days - got more and more wildly exaggerated. The mechanics at Zelfina Station claimed the WDF's flagship, the SDF-17, had lost its final battle because of sabotage carried out by the Butcher. The pirates of the Vega sector avowed that the Butcher had slaughtered ten thousand civilians in one sitting, as it were, personally eradicating the entire ship's company of the missing Cunard-Salusian spaceliner Star of Leitani... one by one with a kitchen knife. None of it was true, or at least if it was, he hadn't done any of it. For the better part of seventy years, he'd dedicated his life to uncovering what had -really- happened on Musashi, and permanently divorcing his own identity in the public mind from that of the Butcher... but it seemed like every time he got close, something happened to make him slide back. Overall so far, if he was honest with himself about it, he had accomplished - in the words of his old WDF Academy weapons instructor - precisely dick. On the other hand, there was the undeniable fact that his murderous reputation gave him considerable credibility with certain elements of the criminal population, and that could be handy from time to time. Take now, for instance. In his old role of Commander in the Wedge Defense Force, Executive Officer of the flagship, Upholder of Justice and general doer of good deeds, he'd have had a major ordeal just finding out where this underworld auction was happening, and he'd never have made it in the door without a strike force. But this time he'd been -invited-. He was a Known Quantity in criminal circles, to be respected, admired, and a bit feared by those for whom lawlessness was a religion. Occasionally he used that to his advantage, much as it bothered him to do so. With all the forces of Law and Order the galaxy had to offer after him, with a general attitude that they would shoot first and possibly inform him of his rights later, the underworld sometimes seemed the safest place to go. He frequented a few of the outlaw BBSes, had become adept at the use of mail drops and other methods of clandestine communication, and thus the invitation to this event had reached him. He had been intrigued; so he came. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting from a cooperative auction of items stolen by the five biggest criminal organizations of the known galaxy, but there had been the vague impression in his mind of furtive goings-on in a spaceport warehouse somewhere, or perhaps spacesuited, dimly lit negotiations in an abandoned waystation along one of the old pre-warp traderoutes. Well, he'd been half right about that last part, because the venue was indeed an abandoned waystation along one of the old pre-warp traderoutes (for certain values of "abandoned")... but he wasn't going to need a spacesuit, and the negotiations were anything but dimly lit. The gathering's gentle hosts, the Black Dragon Society - the Greater Rigel Sector Co-Prosperity Sphere's most powerful yakuza clan - had pulled out all the stops and secured the use of Omega's fanciest nightclub for their little soiree. The line at the club's front door stretched out almost to the docking ring and then hung a right and backed most of the way to the shopping district, its neon sign flooding the whole area with red light. Gryphon paused at the end of the docking-ring corridor, adjusted his cuffs, and rolled his eyes slightly at the name of the place. Only someone ironically aware of what a shitbucket Omega was would open a nightclub here and call it the Afterlife. It had struck him as a little strange that the invitation he'd received had specified black tie, but the yakuza had some peculiar ideas of what constituted good gangland manners, and who was he to object? He didn't much like the idea of going -anywhere- on Omega unarmored, much less into an underworld auction run by a vicious yakuza clan, but he wasn't really too worried; he wore a kinetic barrier vest under his tuxedo jacket if he needed it, and a Bryar carbine (cut down into a sort of blaster shotgun) slung across the small of his back with a magnetic clamp. Strange how, on Omega, a man in a notch-front tuxedo didn't look too out of place with a powergun for a fanny pack; but then, that was the life here. Everyone on the station was locked in a constant competition to be top dog, and if you didn't look tough and come strapped, you didn't even make it out of the docking ring. Gryphon walked past the line and the bouncer as if he belonged. Just before he reached the nightclub's outer door, his first test appeared, in the shape of a man wearing the faceless black armor of a Black Dragon Society shock trooper. He had a GENOM D.4a blaster carbine slung over his shoulder, a nasty-looking slugger pistol of indistinguishable make at his side, and he held up a hand. "Hold it," he said, his voice scratchy through his helmet's speaker. "Let's see your invitation." Gryphon considered making a tough-guy gesture for form's sake - plunking the muzzle of his scattergun against the guy's faceplate and asking, "Will this do?", maybe - but decided he didn't need the tsuris just for the sake of playing alpha dog this early in the day. Instead he handed over a datapad bearing a copy of the encrypted email he'd received and said, "Confirmation number 646674." The guard paused as if in thought, and Gryphon knew he was checking a readout inside his helmet. Then he stepped aside and made a beckoning gesture. "Go right in." Gryphon nodded, thanked him (why not be polite), and proceeded through the door, down the long corridor behind it, and through the inner door into the club. He hadn't been here in years - at least one change of ownership ago, the last time he was here it was called the Ktzvk Club - so he expected that it had changed... but what he found was not really in keeping with what he'd been imagining. The club's three-level layout was still about what he remembered, with the central dance floor, the bar, the tiered levels of railed tables, and the stairs up to the private lounge at the back. The lighting had been changed from the lurid pink-orange he remembered to white, the walls scrubbed, and the whole place looked weirdly crisp and clean, especially for a nightclub on Omega. The dance floor had been converted into a stage upon which a cargo-handling system and the auctioneer's podium stood. The lack of thunderous music was also a little weird. He plucked a drink from a passing waitbot's tray, sipped it, and grimaced; it tasted like a combination of pineapple juice and Windex. Loitering by one of the support columns, near the back, he pretended to nurse the drink and people-watched while the early bidding went on. He wasn't overwhelmingly interested in ancient jewels, relics of lost civilizations of the Rim valuable only for their archeological interest, or any of the numerous other bizarre things that the highest-level criminals of the galaxy traded in for their own amusement. He was here for the practical side of things, which was coming later on. In the meantime, he surveyed the orderly crowd of evening- dressed underworld figures. They were mingling cordially, despite the fact that there were probably more blood feuds in this room than in the entirety of a more civilized space sector. Such was the persuasive power of the armored Black Dragon soldiers stationed around the room, Gryphon supposed. He wondered idly exactly how much Interstellar Criminal Reward Fund money was wandering around on the hoof in this one room - counting himself, of course. He yawned, meandered toward the bar, ditched his drink, and scouted around for the platter of Lit'l Smokies he'd spotted earlier. An hour later, he was making small talk with a Rigellian space pirate, name of Tavonseck - quite a nice guy, really, if you could get beyond that whole space-pirate thing - when the item he'd been most interested in arrived on the bidding platform. "You'll have to excuse me, Captain," he said. "This is mine." Tavonseck made the Rigellian equivalent of a nod and a "be my guest" gesture with one of his tentacles, rumbling, "A pleasure to talk with you." "Ladies and gentlebeings," said the auctioneer, "we now come to the military hardware portion of our program. Starting off the section is lot 375: a genuine Royal Saenar Armory Weapon, Anti-Vehicle, Model 6 Grindell/Galilean Non-Linear Rifle, known in more common parlance as the SPARTAN Laser. Very tightly controlled by the Salusian armed forces since that time, they are extremely rare finds in the real world, as it were. Various knockoffs exist, but all have proven inferior, and most dangerously ill-made - as some of you here will know first-hand. "This is the real thing, ladies and gentlebeings, a genuine WAV- M6-G/GNR, fully outfitted with all the factory accessories including the hard-to-find PP-16979/AM-Sh fusion cell charging unit, newly liberated from the RSN arsenal on Donatu IV." The auctioneer, a rather pudgy middle-aged humanoid with hair so orange it had to be fake, walked slowly around the stand-propped, shoulder-fired laser, which was slightly disconcerting since the weapon itself was slowly turning in the other direction on a turntable. "This is an exceptionally powerful man-portable directed energy weapon," he went on, "famously used - as its common nickname suggests - by the Royal Salusian Navy's SPARTAN super-soldiers during the 22nd- century Covenant War. This item is guaranteed to be superior in performance to any man-portable weapon be found in the arsenal of any law-enforcement agency in the galaxy. Complete specifications can be found under this lot number in your programs." The auctioneer paused, and Gryphon took the opportunity to check out his competition by scanning the crowd, looking for people taking the moment to consult their programs. He saw four, and of those, only two looked really serious: a tough-looking human woman in a black gown that nearly hid the angles and ridges of dermal-embedded armor (he made her for a mercenary, or possibly an assassin) and a green-and-black-dyed Dralasite who had to be acting as somebody's agent. The woman he figured was serious because she had only needed a cursory glance at the catalog to remind herself that this was the item she wanted. The Dralasite had assumed a tough, no-nonsense, let's-get- to-work cube shape, its six smooth sides broken only by the pseudo-hand gripping its bid transmitter. After a decent interval for program-consulting had passed, the auctioneer stepped back to his podium, put his hands on either side of the lectern, smiled, and said, "Ladies and gentlebeings, shall we start the bidding? Do I hear seven hundred fifty thousand credits for this fine piece of machinery?" The woman dropped out at two million five with a snarl of disgust. The Dral hung on, slowly shifting into a tight, angry sphere, until five-seventy-five; but Gryphon took it at an even six megacredits. It struck him as faintly ridiculous, paying six million credits for something he could once have acquired by picking up the phone on his desk and asking for it, but times changed, and what the hell, they weren't -his- six million credits anyway. He'd come away with twice that from the last nest of asteroid-belt pirates he and Old Number One had wiped out. "Sold! for six million credits, to Bidder Number Four Twenty-Four," said the auctioneer, and then his florid face paled a little bit as the full information for Bidder 424 flowed across his lectern readout. He continued in a slightly less hearty tone, "... Mister... Mister Benjamin Hutchins... of Earth." He glanced up, spectacles reflecting, and Gryphon gave him, and everyone else who turned to look at him, a cheery wave. "Hutchins of Earth," murmured somebody off to Gryphon's left. "Is that - the Butcher?" "I hear he's worth a hundred million," said another voice. "To whom, Ralvin?" wondered the pedantic tones of a Vulcan. "Your estate? Surely you're not fool enough to think you can, as you say, 'take' him." "L-ladies and gentlebeings, please," said the auctioneer, mopping at his now-orange-smeared forehead with a handkerchief. "The B- Black Dragon Society insists that there shall be no v-violence... " "Take it easy, pal," said Gryphon with a sardonic grin. "I'm not here to cause a problem. I just wanted that laser. Now that it's mine, I'll pay up and be on my way... " He scanned the crowd, spotted the ferret face of the man called Ralvin, and met his eyes as he continued, "... no trouble." Ralvin scowled, turned, and shouldered his way into the crowd. A scarred and grim-looking Vulcan with an alarming number of earrings followed him. "Well, th-thank you, Mr. Hutchins," said the auctioneer, stuffing his handkerchief back into his breast pocket. "If you'll just see the steward and settle your account, he can help you make arrangements to have the item secured aboard your ship for transport." Gryphon gave the man another smile and nod, then turned and made his way toward the steward's booth, the picture of smug unconcern. He hated to admit it, but deep down inside, he had to: There were times when he got a kick out of playing the villain a little. Half an hour later, he was in the secure cargo-handling area set up on the docking ring to handle the auction traffic, watching while a couple of Black Dragon Society technicians manhandled the SPARTAN Laser's gleaming black case into his ship's cargo hold. In the event, both terms were a little euphemistic, because the ship wasn't a ship at all. It was an old ExoSalusia Ranger fighter-bomber, and the cargo hold wasn't a cargo hold either; it was the modular weapons bay. Converting it for cargo use meant that the Ranger could no longer carry antistarship missiles, but then, that was a weapons system Gryphon didn't anticipate any great need of in his current line of work. He was chatting with the Black Dragon loadmaster about the relative merits of the Ranger versus a heavy fighter like ExoSal's Sabre or the competing Koensayr BTL-4 series when there was some kind of a fuss up in the rafters criscrossing the vast, starkly utilitarian chamber's ceiling. Somebody jumped down from the catwalk near the exterior doors, pursued closely by a half-dozen armored security guards. From his vantage point, nearly a hundred yards away, all Gryphon had the chance to notice was a flicker of grey-black, and the figure was gone down a maintenance hallway, major security alert in tow. Gryphon and the loadmaster looked at each other in the suddenly strobing red light of the bay, shared a shrug, and went back to their discussion, shouting now to be heard over the whooping sirens. Half an hour after -that-, having seen his cargo secured to his satisfaction, Gryphon took one last swing through the Afterlife before calling it a good day's shopping. He did this for two reasons: one, to see if Ralvin and his Vulcan friend were still around, and two, to make one last pass at the buffet. The place was starting to empty out, all the really hot lots having gone; as the auctioneer plodded doggedly through the last ten, obscure art objects of interest only to the ten or fifteen people who had stuck it this long, Gryphon had a curious "end of the con" sort of winding-down feeling. It reminded him depressingly of happier days, so he scarfed another Lit'l Smokie, took one last fruitless look around for Ralvin and pal, and gave it up. They were probably lurking somewhere immediately outside the docking ring, waiting to ambush him as he left. That was bad, because the Ranger wasn't his first choice for a two-on-one dogfight, and he wouldn't be able to just kick in his FTL and leave them behind. There was too much crap in the general vicinity of Omega for that; he'd have to maneuver clear of the debris field before he could jump to lightspeed. Another of the many reasons why he hated the place. The auctioneer's voice brightening jarred him from his reverie, and he returned his attention to the stage. The man was positively beaming, all trace of worry or weariness erased from him, as he grinned over his lectern. "Ladies and gentlebeings," he announced as though the place were still full, "we have another item which has just become available! This is unique in my experience." Behind him, the cargo-handling system was delivering what appeared to be a cryofreeze tube. The tube was occupied, but not activated, and Gryphon blinked at the sight of its contents. "Ladies and gentlebeings, Lot #490," the auctioneer bubbled. "Just, er, acquired by our auction security force: a quarian female of unknown provenance, approximately eighteen Standard years of age, in good working order with all relevant parts attached. Exact measurements were not possible under the circumstances, but she appears to stand about five feet, five inches high, and I would guess her weight at around one hundred twenty pounds, not including the encounter suit." Gryphon wasn't the galaxy's best eyeball judge of weights and measures, but to him the auctioneer's guesses looked about right. The girl in the deactivated freeze tube was slim but looked well-nourished and athletic. She was dressed in the customary sort of full-body environment suit quarians always seemed to be wearing when encountered in the wild: half wetsuit, half motorcycling costume, swathes of snug black duraplast and a purplish-grey textile with the odd grey alloy panel and the usual tapering, oddly elegant helmet with semi-reflec visor. From the way she was banging on that tube lid, she was plenty strong, though of course even the strongest regular humanoid would never be able to force a cryotube from the inside. Her voice could even be heard, albeit muffled to the point of incomprehensibility. Obviously he couldn't see her face - in nearly 400 years of roaming the galaxy he'd never seen a quarian's face, nor did he know anyone who had - but there was something about her body language as she thumped on the inside of the tube and hollered that Gryphon rather liked. She didn't seem to be panicked or fearful - more indignant. That was unusual in someone who'd been captured by people who made Trandoshan slavers look like the Royal Salusian Tea Society, and was about to be sold at auction to someone out of a group of the galaxy's hardest-core lowlives. Maybe she didn't really know how much trouble she was in. That sort of thing had a habit of happening on Omega. "... And as you can see," the auctioneer was continuing with a trace of indulgent humor in his voice, "she is quite... er, lively. What we might call a 'fixer-upper', but I hope you'll agree that the potential of this item is considerable. Quarians are rightfully renowned for their skill in technical matters, and," he added with a nicely timed twinkle in his eye, "there is the perennial mystery, perhaps to be solved by -you!- Ladies and gentlebeings, I must confess that I have no idea how to price such an item. What am I bid for this lovely creature - cryotube not included, of course? Don't be bashful! Such an opportunity doesn't come along often, even at a Black Dragon Society auction. This will be something to tell your grandchildren about!" Walk away, Gryphon muttered to himself. You're heading out of this place into a firefight with yet another scuzzball bounty hunter. You're on the run from everybody in the universe, and if that girl's heard of you at all, dollars will get you donuts she hates you just as much as everybody else. It's none of your God-damned business. Besides, what was she doing sneaking around a Black Dragon auction on Omega? Probably a thief, or worse, like the rest of these creeps. She'll get what she deserves. "Five credits?" said the auctioneer, peering at his lectern. "Bidder 201, am I reading this correctly?" "You're reading it right, Pops," grunted a hilariously tuxedoed batarian near the front. "Five." A muffled sound faintly reminiscent of "WHAAAAAAT?!" came from within the tube. The quarian girl slammed the heel of one small fist against the duracrys hard enough to rattle the tube on its cargo rack and unleashed what sounded like a pretty good stream of profanity from where Gryphon was standing. For some reason, he liked that a lot. "Six," he heard himself say. "I beg your pardon?" said the auctioneer. He peered, then recoiled. "M-Mister Hutchins! I thought you had gone!" "I was on my way out," said Gryphon, strolling casually toward the stage. "Already gave back my bid beeper, in fact. I just came back for some more food before I took off." He grinned. "There was nothing about -this- in the catalog." "Well, yes, as I said, this was rather unexpected," said the flustered auctioneer. He cleaned his glasses with his handkerchief, smeared orange hair dye on them as a result, made an irritated tching noise, and stuffed the lot into his breast pocket, resigning himself to squinting for the rest of the day. "Am I correct? Did you enter a bid of six credits?" "That's right," said Gryphon. "Seven," growled the batarian. "Eight. Look, give it up, friend. We can stay here all day and onesy-twosey each other until they shut off the lights. I like the looks of this one - so to speak - and I'm gonna have her." The batarian narrowed his upper eyes. "Be reasonable," he said in as wheedling a tone as a batarian can manage. "I'm taking a big risk here as it is. They've got no documentation on this one, no information at all. Neither of us knows where she's been, what she's been up to. She could have anything from the clap to a cortex bomb. You're going to stuff -that- in your cargo hold and take your chances?" Gryphon folded his arms. "If it keeps your alien meathooks off her? You bet, pal," he replied. "Us two-eyes gotta stick together." "Why, you - " the batarian sputtered. "G-gentlemen, please!" said the auctioneer. "Remember the Society - " The batarian stared at Gryphon for a second, then grated, "Nine credits." "Ten," Gryphon replied calmly. "Next time I start going by orders of magnitude. How many zeroes has -your- bank account got?" Another brief staring match ensued; even the girl in the tube quieted to watch this one as the seconds ticked tensely by. "Nnnggrrrr," said the batarian at length, turning on his heel. "Take her. I hope she gives you the -rot,- Earthman," he snarled over his shoulder as he stomped out of the club. "A-any other bids?" the auctioneer wondered, but no one in the fairly small remaining crowd spoke up. "Going once... going twice... s- sold, to Bidder Number 424, for t-ten credits. Now, Mr. Hutchins, if you wouldn't mind, -please- take your m-merchandise and go." Gryphon grinned and tossed the man a ten-credit coin. "Relax," he said. "I'll be out of your hair in just a minute. You want to hang onto that while I go get my flightsuit on, please? If I were a bolder fellow I might even wonder if the Black Dragon Society could spare a pair of handcuffs for a six-million-credit customer." When he came back, having swapped his tux for CVR-3 dive armor, the girl was out of the tube and handcuffed. She glared at him with hostility obvious even with her face completely concealed as he stepped up, patted the nervous auctioneer on the shoulder, took her by the upper arm and led her away. "Keep quiet and stay calm," he murmured to her as he steered her down the nightclub's entry corridor. "I'm not going to hurt you." "What - " she started to ask, but Gryphon squeezed her arm. "I said keep quiet," he hissed. "Just walk." She just walked. When they got to the Ranger, he yanked down the boarding ladder, considered his options for a moment, then shrugged, slung her over his shoulder like a sack of oats, and climbed, then stopped with his waist about even with the cockpit coaming and looked glumly down into the cockpit. Here was his first logistical problem: the Ranger was a single- seat aerospacecraft. It didn't even have room for a jumpseat behind the pilot's seat. This hadn't seemed like a problem worth worrying about when he bought it - after all, his main transportation for the last sixty-odd years was a VF-1FS Valkyrie, which had no more space in the cockpit than this, and he'd gotten along fine. All he was after with the Ranger was some cargo space for this trip. Now, though, he rather wished he'd gone for that black-market Beta Legios instead. Sighing, he hung the quarian girl over the coaming like a towel on the side of a bathtub, ignoring her filtered snarls of protest, and hopped over her into the seat. Once his straps were secured, he considered the problem for a moment before hoisting her up, turning her, and dropping her in his lap, then ducked his head between her cuffed- together arms and arranged her so that she was as much out of his way as he could manage it. Her helmet blocked visibility to his left, and reaching the throttle quadrant involved a bit of arm-stretching, but he could manage it, and it was about the best he was going to do. He switched the canopy to manual and eased it down carefully; she had clearance enough, so he locked it down. He turned his head so that he was facing her, their visors only an inch or two apart, and grinned. "Feel free to tell me what you'd like for Christmas, while we're appropriately arranged," he said. She glared at him - this close, he was interested to find that he could just make out the dim outline of her face (mainly the line of her nose) through her visor, see the glint of reflected light from her eyes, and thus vaguely read her expression - and said nothing. He shrugged and called for launch clearance. Once they were out of communication with the control center and he was taxiing the Ranger toward the launchway, he turned to her again and said, "OK, short version. The 'Butcher of Musashi' thing is horseshit, not that you'll believe me. Not actually being a ruthless criminal, I don't intend to hurt you, not that you'll believe me. And we're going to be up to our helmets in a dogfight in about five minutes. You don't believe me on -that- part, you'll get all the proof you want presently. Just hang on tight and don't panic." "What the - " she began, but he switched off his helmet's external pick-ups, so that everything coming to his ears was coming through the Ranger's computerized pilot information system. He'd need all his concentration for what was coming up next. They hit the void 20 seconds later, and two minutes after that, Ralvin and his partner powered out from behind one of the station's barrier asteroids to begin the chase. Gryphon's threat computer identified their craft without trouble. They were flying fairly recent Salusian-surplus Rapier III starfighters, good all-around fighters with performance similar to that of the base-model VF-1. Two of them would be able to give this old Ranger a good workout if Ralvin and his friend were any good, especially with the visibility and control problems Gryphon would have. Judging by the blinking of the comm light on the "snout" of her helmet, the quarian girl was still talking to him, apparently unaware that he couldn't hear her. He kept his eyes on the threat indicator and watched as the two Rapiers closed in. /* Dick Dale & his Del-Tones "Hava Nagila" _King of the Surf Guitar_ (1963) */ At 1500 yards, the two Rapiers slammed in their afterburners and lunged, their search radars clamoring for missile lock. Gryphon opened his own throttles and started an evasion pattern to port, and was satisfied to see that the girl had enough sense to stop yelling at him once combat actually started. It didn't appear that she'd ever been involved in a space battle before; the ghosts of her eyes went very wide at the first snarling grab of acceleration as Gryphon thumbed his afterburners on for a half-second to start his charge, and her arms tensed around his shoulders, her fingers lacing over the cap of his right pauldron. She watched as he reached with his left fingertips and toggled his weapons active without removing his palm from the throttle lever. The status lights for the weapons glowed green, except for the one labeled "LSR3"; he thumped the panel with the heel of his hand, and then that one fell into line. She glanced at his face behind the yellowish tint of his CVR-3's facebowl; he spared a moment to attempt a reassuring grin before his face went still, only the pale blue eyes flicking from instrument to instrument. A targeting reticule glowed into life on the inside of his visor, hovering in the neighborhood of his left eye. Blue-white energy lashed past the canopy, making the girl duck involuntarily; Gryphon rolled the Ranger to starboard and pushed the nose down, bracketing one of the Rapiers. He squeezed the trigger under his right index finger. The two blasters faired into the Ranger's nose cone blatted, firing linked, spitting red light at the enemy. He tagged the Rapier's right wing, narrowed his eyes in satisfaction as the targeting system locked onto it and designated it Rapier 1. He'd only hit the shields, and hadn't come anywhere near knocking them down, but it was a start. He reached down and slaved another weapon to the main trigger, pulling up and kicking down some right rudder to keep his nose on the twisting Rapier as the four smaller laser cannons built into the Ranger's wingtips and fuselage opened up along with the nose blasters. Rapier 1's shields strobed yellow, then orange, and were starting to go red when a stream of particle-beam fire cut across the Ranger's flight path and splashed against its own shields. Gryphon reversed his controls smoothly, breaking off his engagement with Rapier 1 to confront Rapier 2. A minute or so of this back-and-forth dance wasn't accomplishing much other than wearing on Gryphon's patience and his shields. He locked onto Rapier 1 again and gave it his full attention, risking unanswered fire from Rapier 2 for the time it would take him to dispatch his target. These guys were pretty good, he had to admit that much; they saw through that strategy and tried to turn it around on him, forcing him to switch to the standby that had seen him through every other jam so far: straight-up improvisation. It'd been a while since he'd been challenged this thoroughly, even if most of the disadvantages he was having to overcome here were of his own making. Hell, he might have been able to have a little fun with a fight like this in happier times. Or at least if his left arm wasn't falling asleep from having to stretch around another body to reach the throttle. Oh well, at least she doesn't weigh very much, thought Gryphon philosophically. (Right now, she technically didn't weigh -anything-, so the issue was mass and inertia, but he was a bit too busy to sort out the fine points of the physics.) If the girl's presence hadn't presented such a problem for conducting the fight, he could even have enjoyed it a little. Every time he had to work the weapon selectors or throttle back a bit, it was like he was giving her a little hug, and that wasn't something he spent a lot of time doing these days. That's just weird, dude, he told himself, shaking his head sadly. Try to focus. A moment later he got a reminder, if he needed one, of the importance of not letting one's mind wander in the middle of space combat. He'd been expecting the second Rapier to tag him while he dealt with the first, but whichever of the two was piloting that one had even better gunnery skills than he'd thought, and the fusillade he ended up soaking was -blistering,- nearly crashing his aft shields altogether. Worse, his own aim was a bit off, and his long burst didn't have quite the effect he was after. He'd wanted to disable Rapier 1, -not- cause it to go up in a gigantic fireball that he'd have no choice but to fly straight through. The sleet of fighter fragments they plunged through just about did for what remained of the Ranger's barriers, and Rapier 2 was right on top of him. Before Gryphon could execute another maneuver, a second brutal volley of PPC fire raked his ship from midway aft to stern. The impact cratered armor and shook the whole spaceframe, causing the fighter to lurch violently to starboard; Gryphon complicated the movement by kicking left rudder as hard as he could, turning it into a skid. The inertial compensators whined, momentum grabbing at the overloaded cockpit's occupants. Gryphon felt his CVR's underglove squeezing his legs, forcing G-displaced blood back up to his head where his brain could use it. His passenger's encounter suit apparently didn't have that functionality, because just before they completed the turn she went limp. The unresisted lateral G of the pullout snapped her head back hard enough that the rear of her helmet starred the canopy; then she slumped forward, her visor striking his with a dull clunk. Gryphon felt himself reach a full, rolling boil, and decided to just go with it. Being ambushed upon leaving Omega had just kind of annoyed him. It was the usual thing that happened there and it was the sort of thing he'd grown wearily accustomed to in his life. But this? This, for some reason, made him angry. Rapier 2's pilot didn't like him when he was angry. Sixty-three seconds later, the Ranger was alone, apart from a newly expanding debris cloud. Gryphon throttled back, tried without success to roll the kink out of his shoulder, and took stock of his situation. The fight had carried him quite a distance from Omega - he was well clear of the debris field now, clear to navigate in whatever direction he chose. For a couple of seconds, he seriously considered putting back in. Much as he hated Omega, there were medical facilities there. He couldn't tell how badly his passenger might be hurt. It wasn't as if feeling around for a pulse would help. That consideration ended when the long-range sensors beeped and let him know that more fighters were leaving the station and heading his way. Quite a -lot- more fighters. He felt the same sort of anger he'd felt at Rapier 2 surge back up inside him. Locusts! Opportunistic vermin! Members of Omega's dozens of dirtbag mercenary bands, most likely; they'd followed the fight with their own sensors, unwilling to stick their necks out while it was going on, but figuring now that the two dead bounty hunters had softened him up enough to make it worth their while to have a crack at him. Had he been alone, he'd probably have gone back and given them the fight they were looking for. As it was, he thought about it for four seconds, then turned away with a snarl, laid in a course back to Deneb, and kicked in the Ranger's hyperdrive. And his day got -really- bad. It didn't seem so at first; the transition to hyperspace was normal, and, having left all pursuit behind, Gryphon relaxed a little and started to look around for some way of getting the first-aid kit out of its little cubby behind his seat. Normally that wouldn't have been a problem, but then normally he didn't have an unconscious quarian in his lap. He took the handcuffs off her, both to give his hands something to do while he thought and because it'd give him more options when the time came to start shuffling things around. He was just about to unbuckle his seat harness when all hell busted loose. /* Savatage "Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)" _Dead Winter Dead_ (1995) 01:57 - 03:22 */ Several things happened all at once, and Gryphon wouldn't actually work out what they had individually been until later: Something blew apart with a crackling thud somewhere abaft the bulkhead behind his seat. Hyperspace smeared back into individual stars and blackness with a sickening lurch that was not entirely physical. A number of alarms went off. Most of the other instruments blacked out. A huge blue something spun crazily "overhead" as uncompensated G-forces tugged the suddenly-out-of-control fighter in several directions at once. Gas giant, part of Gryphon's mind thought as the rest of him grappled with the Ranger. That blue thing is a -planet-. We just bounced out of its hyperspace mass shadow. Hooray for the Pauli exclusion principle. More alarms: cryo plant malfunction, main bus A undervolt, fusion reactor offline, trying for auto-restart. Gryphon already getting his feet back under him, responding smoothly now, interpreting, acting. The Ranger very hard to control now, thrust vectoring in unexpected ways. Gas giant spins completely out of view, then back in. Search sensors pinging frantically for someplace to set down. There! Search sensors reporting a livable environment. Moon of some kind, probably. Jovian planets usually lousy with them. Number one engine 1500 degrees above redline and rising. Got to shut it down or it'll melt; can't spare what little power it's still making. Decision time, muchacho... Fuck it, let it melt. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Ranger's done anyway. Go for it. Reactor restart successful. Kinetic barriers to full power - double front. Just in time; Ranger's nose bites into moon's upper atmosphere. Hope there's some land down there somewhere. Rough entry, glide slope not ideal. Control angle of attack. Not too deep. Not sure how well the shields will hold up. Not too shallow. Don't want to ricochet back into space. Ionization barrier... passed. Dense clouds, surface icing. Canopy glazes over instantly. Can't see a thing. Haven't been sightseeing anyway. LIDAR altimeter going crazy. Barometric altimeter not working at all. Static port's probably gone. Gryphon's busier than a one-armed paperhanger now, though the busier he gets the more smoothly his mind works - full crisis mode engaged. Dials the cockpit inertia compensators to maximum power, loops his left arm firmly around the girl. Throttles useless now anyway. Ranger bursts out of low clouds; first sight of the ground. Not all that promising. Lots of mountains, craggy, snowy terrain, scrubby vegetation - what's the word? - taiga. The ground comes up like it's on a hydraulic lift. Try and aim for that clear area. Frozen lake? Glacier, maybe? Number one engine seizes with a horrible noise, controls go dead. Haul back on the stick, get the nose up just a little bit before the control surfaces freeze entirely. Below the treetops now, trunks whipping past on both sides. Nothing to do now but hang on and hope there's life after the big noise. Right arm around the quarian now, left hand behind her head, press her visor down against your chest, try to hold her neck still. Tuck your own head down over hers, hope the dampers keep working well enough that the impact doesn't just rip your arms off with her flying mass. Hang on as tight as you dare. She's completely limp. Might already be dead. But you do what you can. Because it's what you do. You try to help. She might've been better off with that batarian after all. The Ranger clipped the top of a glacial pressure ridge, sending snow and rocks flying, then mushed down into a narrow cwm between two wooded mountains. The edge of the glacier here was corrugated, almost terraced. The wreck hit another ice ridge, then another, one, two, three, four, like a toy car falling down the stairs, until it reached the bottom and skidded through the terminal moraine into a more-or-less level field. As it slid, it turned sideways, one wing tearing off, but somehow it remained upright as it turned through 270 degrees and fetched up against the base of a rocky cliff with a final resounding crash. Then, apart from the scattering of small stones and the gentle pinging of cooling metal, all was silent. /* titles roll on last 12 seconds of above cue */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presented UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES EXILE Star-Crossed Part I: The Crying of Lot 490 To be continued in Part II: A Walk in the Woods E P U (colour) 2010