\| Divided Paths |/ - Chapt. 3 - Resolute - Biome (IC)

Suflet Călit's eyes widened upon his realization of his fatal mistake. He mispronounced this alien's name! His entire race will be forced into slavery, or exterminated alltogether. The sand on the planet will no longer radiate its beautiful glisten, but instead reek with the foulness of pollution! And in his race's last moments, they will curse the name, Suflet Călit.

The Markovan ship promptly headed towards the coordinates they had been given.
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Nira grinned at Krim's compliment. "Black belt in Andebon kick-boxing," she said proudly. "It's my species' favorite method of fighting. We've got good legs for it." She proudly stuck one out for inspection.

"Well be certain you don't take the heads off any of out gracious hosts," said Haslin. "Save it for the assassin. In the meantime," he continued, addressing Krim, "should we check on Azra?"
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Zara stepped forward, revealing herself. "But of coursssse. Perfectly underssssstandable. In fact, I can even give you ssssome more payment in advancccce." She brought forth a small box and held it out close to Fluffy's face, the keyhole facing towards her. Zara gave the box a small shake, and the contents rattled promisingly.

"Allow me to pressssent you thessssse lovely gemsssss. We Liirlith like to call them sssssleeping beautiessss." She then pressed something on the top of the box, and out of what had looked like the keyhole sprayed a bunch of knockout gas.
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"What is it you want to say?" demanded Terrin, once he and Hissiin were back inside the interior of the ship, where they could not be heard. "Speak quickly!"

Hissin took a deep breath, summoned up his courage, and faced his captain. "Sir, with all due respect, I believe your conduct up to this point has been inappropriate and unbecoming of a captain. You have been very insulting to these people, and you are risking an intergalactic incident."

Terrin snorted. "Why should I care about insulting them? They have next to no military. They wouldn't stand a chance against us."

"Those others, the Nevarzians, might," pointed out Hissin, "and they looked like they had something to lose in this situation which might make them more dangerous. But even with that aside, there's no reason to treat these people like this. It's arrogant, with all due respect. It just doesn't make any sense to make enemies over trivial things."

Terrin looked at Hissin for a long time, his face seeming to suggest how he might rid himself of this troublesome soldier who dared to question his actions. Then he let out a world-weary sigh, and waved his hand dismissively.

"Very well, Hissin, you win," he said in a martyred tone. "From now on, you can handle diplomacy, I'll just supervise a little."

He waved his hand towards the door. Hissin stared at him a moment, surprised that Tissin seemed to have given up so quickly, but then, after a bit of hesitation, made for the door. The moment his back was turned, Terrin glared at him for an instant with a look of such enmity it might have made Suflet Călit faint in terror, if he had seen it. Once outiside, Terrin pasted a look of resigned contrition on his face.

Suddenly two unusual black and green ships came out of the nebula they were heading for and latched tractor-beams onto the Markovan ship. They then slowly started to pull them in.
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"That would be a good idea. I need to make sure he's recovering well. I hope he isn't convinced that we planned to kill him."
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On impulse Fluffy pressed a button on the collar around her neck. Plates quickly moved over her mouth and nose making a sort of gas mask. She then jumped back and pulled out her energy dagger.
"You do know I'm not some brain dead thug. This dagger may not be charged but its still sharp so how about I trim some of those overgrown fingers of yours. I'm getting my pay and I don't care which side is paying."

Nvarn rushed into the scene with unnatural speed and agility, his helmet up and shielding system online. In his right hand, he held his rifle, medium range mode activated. The weapon was actually a miniature magnetohydrodynamic cannon designed to fire bullet shaped projectiles of a molten metal alloy suspended in an electromagnetic field. Nvarn steadily swept the area with thermal, radiation, and magnetic scanners within his eye augmentations and helmet, identifying all those present.

"Nobody moves, nobody gets injured." He shouted, voice thundering, while gesturing for Tissin and Straus to come to his side. As if to interrupt any activity still occurring, he fired his rifle once, deactivating the sound suppression. Once things had temporarily calmed down, Nvarn wanted to quickly get his point across and arrest those who were causing this issue to begin with, hoping that his intimidating figure and weapon would also help to bring order to chaos.

He first looked to Nazzi, Gettrav, and Dolos, who was once more under the guise of Astan, moving his gun robotically so that the barrel faced them. He first chose to address the UFIAI infiltrator. "Lower the ambassador, Jorro'kil." Under the helmet, he grinned slightly, as the last word came out rather sarcastically. "Or..." He began, grabbing a knife from the inside of his armor and attaching an EMP detonator to it, deactivated. "Would you like to meet the spirits?"

Keeping his weapon focused on Dolos, he lowered his head to speak to Gettrav. Due to the thin walls present and his enhanced hearing, Nvarn had been able to hear the last line in Gettrav's speech, and judging by the lack of resistance towards Astan, he guessed his intentions. "You, Markovan, are under arrest provided you plan to pursue treason."

His eyes darted about the room as he continued to speak. "The rest of you... Jorro'kil, Liirlith. You will also be under arrest. Attacking or fleeing is useless - I have more at my disposal than you could imagine."

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Dolos had been waiting for the Nvarn, Strauss and Tissin. Just as Nvarn stormed the room, Dolos moved the ambassador between it and Nvarn so that Dolos was completely consealed. Dolos was holding the Markovian from the neck and was holding the pistol against the back of her head. “Ah, finally someone with appreciation of life, especially that of others. There has been a disturbing lack of that recently”, Dolos said , lifting its head just enough for the others to see a quick crooked smile go across Astan’s face. “However,” Dolos started with more serious tone, “the only way that nobody ends up getting hurt is that we get a free escape from this scene”, Dolos said, beaconing at Velsen when saying ‘we’.

Dolos took a slow, careful step backwards, pulling the ambassador with it. It had noticed the device in the hand of that cyborg Krathunian, and recognized it from the truck. The fact that the Krathunian was threatening it with an EMP confirmed to Dolos that Nvarn had somehow figured out its identity, at least partially. “While I have no doubts your cyborg has some impressive abilities, I believe that I can pull this trigger and there is nothing you can do to stop me. Nothing but to let us leave.” Dolos was dismissing the Nvarn on purpose, to provoke him and to appear as a Purist. Dolos was holding the trigger tightly, and driving failsafe preparations through its systems, trying to shield the basic functionality of its consciousness from the worst effects of an EMP.

Straus was about to approach Velsen, when the other Jorro'kil threatened to kill the Markovan ambassador. Quickly stepping backwards, he placed himself behind and between Nvarn and Tissin. In a hushed tone, he whispered; "You take ze kil and ze Markovans, I'll take zis Purist.." He said, quickly unslinging his IAR.

"You veally zhink you'll get avay?" He asked the Purists.

"Vhere vill you go? We know everyzing now. Vhat could you do?" He stepped ever closer to them.
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Velsen tensed as the Strike Trooper, clearly so due to his armor, neared him and his ally.

"I.. will not die. I will not surrender. This attack will stir up my brethren across Free Absolute planets.. the movement will transfer its energy, from here, to the farthest reaches of our territory."

In truth, Velsen was stalling, hoping for Astan to get them out of this.

He remembered his comrades. They would be in the sewers by now.. hopefully out of the building. If they could get outside the city, into the mountains, there would be some hope.

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Nai paced back and forth, a tense expression on his face. Same cold prison, new faces. He had been interrogating these new Purist suspects, gathered together, coupled with new evidence from the autopsy information gleaned from the Purist guard the Krathunian Nvarn had killed.

The du'rakked kils were so stubbornly devoted to their cause, Nai had no respect for them whatsoever, only a feeling of irritation everytime he saw one.

"We have time.. your friends might not. I'll give you all one last chance, tell us everything now." Nai said to the three kils. All were dressed in standard attire, plain shirts with black jackets, and slim, black pants made of a synthetic fiber. One of the jackets was made of leather, an unusual sight. All of the outfits had some ornate bars or symbols on them, indicating job or rank.

They all stayed silent.

Dissappointed, Nai spoke again. "Alright... If you can wait.. we can wait."

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Kesh Pol stood, slightly anxious, watching the conversation between their Nisip host and these.. Markovans. He was worried for the food, and hoped the Nisip had some form of preservative in it, and also because he was unsure of the alignment of the Markovans, specifically if they were Confederacy. He had never heard of them nor seen them before, so he had little reason to believe either possibility, yet his paranoia was everpresent.

"You are very rude, perhaps you should show more respect." Kesh said to none of them in particular. He turned to Suflet Calit.

"We should.. be transporting this food.. soon." He shifted his long weapon's position nervously.

Meanwhile, in a different part of the galaxy, a small empire seems to have started trying to mine some asteroids. A few small, plated ships are carefully drilling bits off of the space rocks, lead by a slightly larger and more fancy ship. They are all in a rough formation around the leading ship, but there seems to be something caught under one of the plates of it. It is seen that although all the smaller ships have lights on their sides, the larger one's lights seem off.
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Wijiit, the pilot of the larger mining ship, sighed. His skin had been tinted yellow from the time he was out of light. The only way the ship was currently illuminated was a screen showing where they were and how to maneuver. He quickly contacted one of the smaller ships. "Have any of you found glow vain yet?"
"No, I will report back if we find some," was the usual response. Wijiit was starving, his lamp had went out maybe a day ago and he needed it fixed of to land, nether of which was an option at the moment. He forced himself back on to his goal, otherwise he would disappoint the life givers by not complying to the wish of a higher up.
"Just keep drilling, we'll find some." He said in a way to convince himself.

The Captain of the Markovan vessel cursed.

“You lying scum!” he shrieked over the comm. “No one deceives the Markovan Empire and gets away with it.”

He promptly ordered some torpedoes fired, giving instructions to try to hit the source of the tractor beams. Meanwhile, he sent out a transmission.

“This is a Markovan vessel. We are under attack and require assistance!”
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Azra was not too badly hurt, although he would never be seeing out of his right eye again. He looked at Haslin, Nira and Krim as they stepped in.

"Can someone tell me what happened?" he said, a little shortly.
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Zara stepped back with a hiss. "Sssssso it would sssseem," she hissed, "but I'll find ssssssome way to enssssure that our plan goesssss through."

With that, she reactivated her cloak, and then pushed past the Felinite assassin on her way out of the room.
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Without warning, Nazzi swung backward wit her tail and legs, smacking Dolos in the joints of his legs and causing him to stumble and his gun to slip; any automatic firing of the gun went into the ground.

Gettrav took the distraction as an opportunity. Firing at the ground in front of Nvarn's feet, he shot around him. Tissin made to stop him. Gettrav's sword flashed, and Tissin fell bleeding. Gettrav shot off down the tunnel.

Meanwhile, Najii activated his cloak, and having spotted a small opening, he quickly squeezed his slender body through.
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Terrin took a deep breath and bowed to Kesh. "Do forgive my lack of manners." He paused a moment. "Perhaps you could use some help transporting these supplies? I'll leave my soldier here to speak with our distinguished Nisip friends."

A nasty raspy voice come through that sounded nothing like the alien they thought they were talking to. "Capture is inevitable. Stop fighting or you will only make this worse for yourselves."

The ship was dragged into some sort of hanger bay. Oria sent out some soldiers to collect their catch.
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"Sadly it seems someone hired a bounty hunter to assassinat you. You were luckily they didn't know much about your race's physiology it seems. Unfortunatly we have a very good idea of who the bounty hunter was. A Felinite by the name of Flufferellia Novarna. Or better known by her misleading nickname Fluffy."
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Fluffy ordered the droids operating her ship to move her ship to the next star system to stop Zara from hinding on it. After that she smiled and made her way to the medical room. "Looks like there has been a change in target."

The captain quickly issued weapons to all and sundry.

"We're not going down without a fight! That's not the Markovan way! We'll make them pay dearly for their victory!"

Armed with plasma rifles and swords, the Markovans prepared to engage any boarders.
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Azra frowned. "A Felinite did this? Are you sure? How do you know? And who would want me dead?"

The Zartoid moved over to the ship. They open the door and fire an electromagnetic pulse into the ship to disable their weapons. They enter and walk up to the Markovans. "Who is the commander of this ship?" Said one of the Zartoids in a creepy metallic voice.
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"All evidence seems to point to Novarna. I presume she must have followed us here when we came to this galaxy.
As for the person who might have hired her I'm afraid we don't have enough information on your enemies. It could have been a personal enemy of yours or a member of an enemy race or it could have just been someone who had something to gain from creating trouble between our to races."

Suflet Calit plastered on an easy smile and thought it would be good for these Markovians to help with delivery. It could lead to a three way alliance and get rid of this awful tension and awkwardness. "If it is okay with the Nevarzians," he said while slightly turning to them, "if so, then by all means I'd have no objections!" He let out a nervous and quick hehe.

After a while, it seemed pretty much hopeless. Wijiit knew he couldn't stand this for much longer, but he had no clue how to fix the ship. He needed light again, or he would die. He contacted all the mining ships. "Do any of you know how to fix this ship?"
"Sorry."
"I don't even know what your ship's stuff SHOULD look like."
"No."
Those were all disappointing answers. "Does someone even know what the ship looks like when broken?"
"Not really?"
"Your lights aren't on, does that make it broken?"
"I think it does?"
"I don't know." The lines then turned to chatter on how to see if it's broken.
A spicy smell filled Wijiit's cabin. He just turned off his line so that they can continue the chatter without stressing him out. If they find something, they can contact him back.

"I am," said the captain, standing forward, erect, sword in hand, "and you have committed an act of aggression against the Markovan Empire, for which you will pay the price later. For now though, rest assured, we're not going down without a fight."

Swords were very much in evidence as the Markovans readied themselves for battle.
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Azra frowned, grimacing a little. "I'm afraid that does not ring any bells for me. I don't know who would want me dead." He coughed a little. "May I have some water please?"

"I'll get some," volunteered Nira. Before anyone could say anything else, she took off out the door at top speed. . . slap-bang into Flufferellia Novarna. The Andebon maid and the invisible Felinite assassin went down in a tangle of kicking limbs.

"What the. . .?" began Nira. "Help! I'm being attacked by some invisible thing!" She promptly began kicking at whatever it was with all her might.

The Zartoids then stunned the crew with energy pulses and one grabbed the captain, loosened his grip on the sword and put him in energy cuffs.
"This one is to go to Oria. The rest can be enslaved."
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Fluffy jumped out of the muddle and disengaged her cloak.
"Why you little brat!" She said angrily with her claws unsheathed.

The moment Dolos was hit it was immediately on combat over-drive with its every system except the disguise. From Dolos’ perspective everything started to slow and sharpen in detail as its systems started to run faster and faster. Dolos moved its right foot a bit to regain its balance. In one motion Dolos shifted all its weight to its right leg, freeing the left one to kick the ambassador Nazzi forcefully against Strauss.

As this left Dolos in clear line of sight to Nvarn, it acted quickly, shooting at him with its concealed railgun located in its left arm. Dolos shot a submunition shot with maximum spread, sending an expanding cloud of dust-like high-speed particles. Dolos aimed at the EMP device that Nvarn had in he’s hand, but the cloud was wide enough to cover the whole upper half of Nvarn. A miss was not an option for Dolos. It fired its plasma pistol at the back of the Nazzi, carefully placing the shot so that it would not be fatal, but would need fast treatment. The many loaned memories from guerrillas experienced guerrillas told Dolos that wounded tended to slow the group down much more than the dead.

Dolos was already considering its next move when the shots from its weapons were still in midair. It decided to attempt to get through the Nvarn and Strauss to get back where they came from. Not only it was the best way to get to the underworks, but the fact that Gettrav went the other way meant that they might split up.

Dolos rushed to a charge against Nvarn, firing it’s both weapons. Just before hitting Nvarn head-on Dolos jumped left, dodging behind Nvarn. It then placed a bone-shattering kick to the back of Nvarn’s right knee. Not stopping to continue the attack, Dolos grabbed the Velsen from shoulder and dashed out of the room.

Nvarn braced himself the moment that Nazzi made her move, figuring that Dolos would likely target him next. Now that he knew that "Astan" was actually a UFIAI infiltrator machine, he could determine the capabilities of the robot and act accordingly. Of course, it would be much stronger and faster than an actual Jorro'kil, and concealed weaponry was also likely. Nvarn transferred his armor's power to the suit's energy shielding and began to pump adrenaline and other chemicals into his bloodstream.

When the first railgun shot hit, it was absorbed by the energy shielding, the air around Nvarn rippling and a glowing white hexagonal pattern appearing where the shield was. The submunition shot was able to deactivate the shielding as well as disable the EMP device, though Nvarn knew that he would be able to take down Dolos without it. He was able to shrug off most of the railgun shots, though a couple were able to dent the plating and send pain surging through Nvarn's body, though this was suppressed with advanced painkillers injected with his augmentations. Nvarn had begun to turn around as the machine delivered a kick to the back of his knee. This again created jolting pain, but Nvarn's bones were grafted with advanced metallic alloys that strengthened their composition. It may have splintered and shattered a normal bone, but this would be a much more difficult task to do regarding the Sentinel. He spun on his heel, his gaze following that of Velsen and Dolos. As the two began to run, the Krathunian cyborg, using his leg and chest augmentations, ran forward with frightening speed. Bursts of molten metal came forth from his rifle, travelling at the pair with great speed, preceded him as he simultaneously fired his weapon. While he did this, Nvarn grabbed a knife from inside his armor and began preparations to leap forward and tackle the two to the ground as soon as he got close enough.

The already frayed ropes on Nazzi's body finally fell away, cut by the kick from Dolos foot. She crawled over to Tissin, disregarding the cyborg Krathunian chasing after Velsen and Dolos. Tissin gasped. "I'm. . . sorry. . . I. . . allowed you. . . to be. . . captured. I am. . . dishonored."

Tears rolled down Nazzi's face. "You are brave and loyal, Tissin. You came to try and save me. That is honorable."

"Thank you," gasped Tissin. "I'm. . . just. . . sorry. . . I couldn't. . . do more." He gave a last gasp, and then closed his eyes, and breathed no more.
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The Markovan captain gasped groggily, blinking, and then despair hit. He had been captured. For a Markovan warrior, almost nothing was more dishonorable.
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Nira quickly took up a stance. "Brat yourself, furball," she shot back, and aimed a swift kick at Fluffly, just as Haslin and Krim came out of the infirmary to see what the commotion was.

The Zartoids dragged the Markovan captain to a room with a single object in it. A sort of odd looking metal chair. The Zartoids forced the Markovan into the chair and metal cables came out like tentacles and coileds around the Markovan. Chaining him to the chair so tightly that he could barely move his head.
The Zartoids stood either side of the door as another Zartoid entered.
"Leave." She said to the soldiers in a calm tone of voice. When the soldiers left she approached the Markovan with a twisted smile on her nasty fanged beak.
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Krim in horror yelled out to Nira to get away from her.

Fluffy moved back a bit and retracted her claws. "Relax, I'm not here to kill the ambassador anymore."

The Markovan captain stared at the Zartoid female. "You have committed an act of war on the Markovan Empire, and yopu'll pay for it," he gasped.
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Haslin frowned, approaching slowly. "Then what is your intent?" he said. "And why did you try to kill him in the first place?"

"You are but a trivial insect compared to us fleshling. Your threats don't scare me. However, if you were to supply us with some information we need we will let you live."
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"I was trying to kill him because I was hired to do so. But my employer failed to give me information on his biology which seemed like an odd thing to forget if you want someone dead.
As it turns out the lying snake snuck onboard my ship and came here with me. I met her in one of the dining rooms on the uper floor and she attempted to knock me out with some kind of gas. She got away but should still be here. I don't like to be tricked and I'm getting my money one way or another. I'm sure the good ambassador would rather have the alien behind it than the bounty hunter in the middle that fired the gun."

The Markovan captain spat at his captor. "I may be dishonored, but I'm no traitor. I'm not telling you anything!"
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Haslin frowned. "Perhaps, although I'm not sure that. . . "

"So this is the one!"

Azra had gotten up and was now standing outside, along with his two accompanying soldiers. He motioned to one of them. "Lend me your blade. This one and I have business."

"We need information on some artifacts in this galaxy. The energy readings from these artifacts are higher than that of solidifed plasma and we think they will be beneficial to us. But we need to know where they are and our knowledge of this galaxy is limited even whith the three tiresome years we spent studying this place."
She pressed a button on her arm and the cables tightened.
"So are you going to cooperate with us?"
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Fluffy drew her dagger. "You can try to fight me if you want but it will do no good. I'm offering to help you catch the snake behind this. If she gets away she'll still be free to cause trouble for your race and you'll probably be lying here dead because you wouldn't win in a fight against me.
I'll even pay for a replacement eye once we catch her."

The captain gasped in pain, but managed to get one word out.

"Never!"
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Haslin held out a hand to restrain Azra. "She has a point, we probably could use her help." He turned to Fluffy.

"Who is this person who hired you?"

Dolos glanced over its shoulder and saw the Krathunian rushing towards in tremendous speed. Dolos had hoped that the kick in the knee had immobilized the Kathunian at least for a moment, but no. Dolos dragged Velsen ahead of it as the shots from the Nvarns rifle started to fly across the hallway. Couple of them hit Dolos to its back, but the nanobots managed to deflect them, but the bots got destroyed in large numbers in the progress.

Dolos saw the Krathunian gaining them fast, and Dolos was already practically towing Velsen. It made few through evaluations, both on the current situations, its and Velsen’s survival together and apart and in the face of capture as well as on the larger scale on the importance of its mission and the importance of the Purist movement. It didn't take long for Dolos’ overclocked processors to come in to conclusion. Dolos made a one last glance at Velsen with its loaned face before letting go and speeding up to its maximum speed, leaving the Purist quickly behind.