Faarin sat in a smokey bar, drinking his ale from the scarred plastic tabletop. For a moment his concentration lapsed as he watched the reflections of the lights in the pool of liquid on the table. He looked up again through the haze of blue smoke to the other sitting at his table. "Operation K/T is ready to go?" he asked. The figure opposite him nodded almost imperceptibly. "Good. Now the Fallen Angels will be made to pay for the atrocities they caused. Blood where blood was spilled." "Blood where blood was spilled," echoed the figure across from him." ------------- Lieutenant Kuroishi was in the bar with Geist, watching some kind of animated film on the holoviewer. Two great machines stood in an arena fighting. They looked, if anything, like huge droids. Both held swords, and as they began to fight, the sun glinted from the massive green gems in the shoulders of one. "So," said Geist, "have your contacts come up with anything on this Faarin fellow yet?" "No, nothing. As far as my people are concerned, he doesn't exist. Even GUESSWORK hasn't got me anywhere, though I'll qualify that with a 'yet'." "From what Fish has told us, he seems to be from Gauss, and I know we're not that popular with a number of people back there just now, but I don't recognise the name 'Faarin' at all, it doesn't even sound like a Gaussian name." "Personally, I think the first step is probably to go back to that bar on Tadath and pull the bartender for questioning, and then to go back to the basement where they had him held and go over it with a fine toothcomb.  I'm surprised you haven't done that already." Geist just grimaced. "I have, and guess what I found," he paused and Kuroishi shrugged, "Diddly squat, that's what. Except for the disk that Viper has, we have no leads, and no clues." "Well then, I guess it's their move until maybe GUESSWORK can get us somewhere." -------------- "Aerik!" called a female voice, "It's time to get up, you'll miss your shuttle!" "Yes, dear," mumbled the prone figure on the bed, "Right there." He rolled out of the bed, and hit the floor with a thud. Crawling over, he used a door handle to pull himself to his feet, and opened the door into the bathroom and the sonic shower. A few minutes later, he was in a taxi on his way to the spaceport, his wife had handed him his bag, informing him that it was all his usual stuff, and not to open the bag until he had cleared customs at the other end. The shuttle he was boarding placed him on a liner bound for Tadath, where he was to make a few house calls, that would give him his final destination, and then it was a matter of time.

The embassy site was still a mess inside, though most of the bodies had now been cleared away. The basement site was still quite chaotic. A faked identicard got Aerik downstairs and into the crashed ship, a slicertool got him into the computers, and a datacard got him all he needed. As casually as he had walked in, he walked back out again, making it clear to the site foreman that his company was not happy with the slow progress that the recovery crew was making. He returned to the spaceport and caught the next flight off-planet. His new destination the backwater planet of Callandria.

[Writers notes: I am not writing about myself at all this chapter, if any of you guys want to do anything with me, you have an idea of what I'm like. I am writing almost entirely from the antagonists' perspective, and if you guys don't start writing anything soon, I'm going to kill a lot of people. PS I'll throw you a bone at the end of this post ;] Callandria was a dry planet, reminiscent of Tattooine, but with dust rather than sand. The populace almost uniformly had their faces covered with either a kerchief or some kind of breathing apparatus. As he walked down the street, Aerik could see little, for the sheer amount of dust in the air. He was beginning to sweat a little under the breather mask, but he could deal with that. The speeder hire shop made its way into view on his left, and he headed over. The building was made of the same prefabricated materials as most of the rest in the town, and just as eroded. Dust storms were a frequent occurence here. The painted sign was very nearly stripped away from the surface, leaving just a faded outline of the name 'Tomaas Kunan Speeders'. He hired one for a day and made his way out on to the plains. He was heading for one of their backup supply bases: a small underground bunker where various arms and supplies, including one small transport ship, were stored. There he would find what he needed to complete the next phase of his mission. Then, one more stop, and he would then begin the final phase of the mission. The entrance to the bunker was right where Faarin had said it would be, its plasteel exterior was developing pits, and it had lost any semblance of edges that it might once have had, but the LEDs were still lit on the door control, so it still had power. Aerik punched in the code Faarin had given him and the door started to grind open, the dust and grit that had worked its way into the runners making the motors scream with effort. They died from the effort leaving the door a little over half open. More than enough to allow Aerik to get inside. The computers on the lower level to a little time to reinitialise, and the droids a little longer, but Aerik had enough time. He fed the datacard from the Tadath site into the slot and waited while machines in the next room began a construction run. As the mechanical arms swung and whined, he approached the transport and put it on to a warm up sequence. He opened the cargo doors, and ran the fuel hoses out from the wall. Finally, he checked and cleaned the mechanisms on the launch-bay doors. He couldn't deal with these doors jamming half way open. Just as he put the cleaner back down, the delivery crane deposited his cargo on the bay floor with a slight clunk. Aerik went over and examined the creation they had made for him. A grey ovoid around eight feet in length, and with a diameter of four feet at the widest point, it looked vaguely like a large chunk of polished haematite. A small panel on the side opened up to reveal a small keypad and a red LED display, both dark and inactive at the moment. He typed in the code for a systems diagnostic, and codes flowed across the small display, finishing with a single zero. Aerik went over to the small loading crane and used it to life the device into the hold of the transport. He then closed the hold and opened the bay doors. Shortly after he lifted off. ----------------------------------- [here's your bone] ----------------------------------- ----------------------------------- Satellite monitor report ----------------------------------- Location: Callandria ----------------------------------- Observing: Storehouse known to be used by Amon Nezumi ----------------------------------- Report: Access by one human Entry: Main door, approached by speeder Exit: Corellian Transport desig. Ragnar ------------------------------------ Report ends ------------------------------------ Tycho looked at the screen and blinked, then got right on the comm.

There were only four hours until Operation K/T was supposed to start, and the FA and VE were no closer to solving the mystery. Suddenly, Geist sat bolt upright. "Argon,"he said,"you remember those anti-matter bombs we found on that one planet, right?" "Yeah,"said Argon. "How powerful can one of those things get?"asked Geist. "Oh $h*t!!!"said Argon, loudly enough to wake up everyone in the general area. "I'll take that as a yes,"said Geist, as Argon rocketed out of the room as fast as he could.  The FA and VE people followed him. ------------- "Okay,"said Athran,"let's hear this one more time." "Okay,"began Argon,"we found out that K/T meant a massive planet to planet type collision that would basically destroy all life on that planet, but we couldn't figure out how someone would be able to transport a rock that big." "All right,"said Athran,"I got that much." "Well,"continued Argon,"we were so caught up with asteroids, that we stopped looking for other solutions." "Okay,"said Ath,"that makes sense, so what'd you guys come up with?" "Anti-matter,"said Argon. "Which is?"asked Ath. "Anti-matter is the exact opposite of matter,"said Argon,"for every piece of matter created, an exact duplicate of anti-matter is created.  Anti-matter electrons are positive, and the protons are negative, to give you an example of the opposite there." "Got it,"said Athran,"but how could something like that create a more powerful explosion than a matter explosive?" "Simple,"broke in Geist,"putting a piece of matter and piece of anti-matter together causes what is known as "annihilation"." "Sounds pretty bad..."said Ath. "It is,"said Geist,"a nuclear explosive, detonating one Hydrogen atom, releases .07% of its total energy.  An anti-matter bomb, using one atom of anti-hydrogen, would release the full 100% of the energy in it.  And just think what would happen if you used 100 atoms." At this, Athran sat bolt upright, fumbling around his desk for his comlink. He found it after a few seconds of blind fumbling. "Bear,"he said into the comlink,"Argon and Geist have found out what Operation K/T will most likely be, you are to deny them nothing in order to stop it from happening, do you understand?" "What,"came Bear's reply,"there's a whole lot of secret tech here that..." "That doesn't matter,"said Athran,"if it can help to stop this, then it can afford to no longer be secret." "Whoa,"said Bear,"that bad?" "Worse." "Okay, send them down, I'll get stuff ready..."

"Are you sure,"asked Geist, for the hundredth time. "yes,"replied Tycho, also for the hudredth time,"I'm sure." "Okay,"said Argon, for the twentieth time,"then let's go." They ran off, grabbing Master and Daishi, and choosing to go in the Royal Barkalounger rather than any of the ships Bear had chosen for them. However, the Barkalounger did have one important modification, it now had a special weapon designed to convert anti-matter into matter. A quick hyperspace jump later, and they were in the Grenneth System. During that time, Argon, Geist, Tycho, and Master had calculated every entry vector into the system. They found out that there were really far fewer than they had thought, and that those that there were, were all clustered in one area... ...one of the system's asteroid fields. When they arrived, Daishi landed on an asteroid, powered downt the ship, and settled down to wait for their expected "guest"...

The Fallen Angels stood ready in the Royal Barkalounger, covering the only entrance to the Grenneth System. Master and Daishi sat at the controls, while Fish, Jingo, Hippie, and Narm sat in the gun turrets. Argon, Deathwookie, and Tycho stood in the airlock of the Barkalounger, ready to do what was required of them. Every possible entry vector of the delivery ship had been plotted out, and accounted for. Every possible course, some barely so, of the anti-matter bomb had been plotted, and accounted for. The Fallen Angels stood ready, no anti-matter was going to impact on their planet if they could help it... [Note: We're only ready for the guy to launch this thing at the planet, we don't know he's going for the star.]
 
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Argon Viper
"History is on the move, those who cannot keep up will watch from a distance, and those who get in our way will not watch at all" - Grand Admiral Thrawn
"'You have done nothing for which you should be ashamed'  'I have done nothing, and for that, I am ashamed.'" - Charlotte and Benjiman Martin, "The Patriot"
"'Pride is a weakness'  'I would prefer stupidity'" - Benjiman Martin and French Guy, "The Patriot"

The Ragnar lifted off from its rocky perch and shot out of the asteroid field leaving a fiery ion trail behind it for a few seconds. Aerik activated the hyperdrive and jumped to the specified point in the Greneth system. As soon as the ship left hyperspace, his scanners picked up another craft lurking near the system's asteroid belt. His computer was unable to tag any IFF code to it, and it gave off little EM signature, so Aerik dismissed it and continued on schedule, rocketing in-system towards the white dwarf at the centre. As he got further in, a countdown timer on his screen slowly began ticking away. He was concentrating so surely on the timer that he barely noticed the flicker of lights that indicated the first ion impact. He threw the ship into corkscrews and rolls to try and throw off his pursuers, but to no avail. The lights faded and died, and the whine of the gravity generators faded as Aerik's boots left the deck. He pulled himself into a defensive posture on the ceiling, crouched behind a computer bank with his gun. He was counting on any boarders assuming he would stay upright. An upside down figure strode in through the hatch, presumably using magentic boots, and Aerik opened fire. The shots just hit the armour on the figure and dissipated. Aerik stood and opened up on full auto, again to no effect. It was then that the powerpack on his rifle bleeped, and it was then that the stun bolt hit home. [To be continued...]
 
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Ramon Stonefish

"How can we say we are protectors when we are more feared than that which we defend against?!" --Lucien, the First Fallen.
"May the sinless tester of souls hold his hawk's perch over me" -- a kenning, author unknown.

[OOC: Okay, I knwo technically that I aint in Fa, but Argon told me to post, so I did. ] Fallen hitched his armour-puncturing blaster rifle close to him as he stood by the Aerik. Beside him stood Tycho. Bored, Fallen told Tycho, 'Hey, popping off to the cockpit. I'll be back soon.' Stomping down the corridor, Fallen soon reached the entrance to the cockpit. Glancing at the button manual, Fallen tried pressing a series of buttons. The door refused to budge. After working it for some time, Fallen lost his patience. Bringing up his rifle high, he butted it into the controls. The controls flickered and beeped before slumping open. The door creaked open. Fallen entered. The cockpit had a series of lights before it. Fallen glanced at it, recognising a couple of buttons. Feeder, hyperspace, terminal and ... 'What's this!?!' Fallen peered closely at a small print handout, barely figuring out the words. The paper was covered with symbols, in code. Feeling sure this had something to do with Aerik, Fallen looked around the cockpit, finally spotting a feeder that he had never seen before. Carved on the top were the same symbols. Having a hunch, Fallen fed the piece of paper into the machine. There was a sudden whirl and the terminal started producing a mass of words and blueprints. Fallen quickly scanned it. By halfway through it, Fallen knew enough. He quickly spun around and rushed back to Tycho .... [Yeah, Fallen knows the plans ... ]
 
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Leading Crewmen Fallen (Navy)
Vast Empire Navy
Brother of PFC Raxen
FM/LCRW Fallen/Kaph 1-2/1/mSSD Atrus/1ESF/VE/VEN/(=A=)

There were long tense moments as they searched frantically for the flying antimatter bomb, failing. Then, the comm clicked and the sounds of Fish's voice sounded in the Barkalounger's cockpit. Fish had stayed behind in the Ragnar to ferry it and its prisoner back to base. "Uh guys?" he started, "You know that bomb you're trying to find. Are you sure it's not the grey oval thing in the hold over here with 'DANGER! Antimatter' stamped on the side?"
 
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Ramon Stonefish

"How can we say we are protectors when we are more feared than that which we defend against?!" --Lucien, the First Fallen.
"May the sinless tester of souls hold his hawk's perch over me" -- a kenning, author unknown.

[1. How can I possibly screw up my own story? 2. I need the bomb, Aerik, and the Ragnar for the next chapter. 3. At no point in my posts have I mentioned the bomb actually being dropped. 4. Argon, you are absolutely obsessed with being harder than anyone else in the galaxy, aren't you?]
 
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Ramon Stonefish

"How can we say we are protectors when we are more feared than that which we defend against?!" --Lucien, the First Fallen.
"May the sinless tester of souls hold his hawk's perch over me" -- a kenning, author unknown.