Rising Phoenix Gaming

Slowly Seiya was getting the hand of the weapon controls, and managed to tag one of the pursing ships with a burst of cannonfire, blasting several holes in the hull and doing significant damage to it. He was inwardly elated by this, but knew the ship wasn't out of the fight, nor were they safe from danger.

Two of the fighter fell behind while the other two gained on them their blaster fire streaking by the ‘Lance which twisted and spun in a rapid dance that would have made an outside observer dizzy. Suddenly a shrill alarm screamed out from the overhead. Emi who had been tryingt o make sense of the strange sidebar symbols, dragged her eyes back to her screens, “Missile lock? They have missiles!” Missiles were bad. Even a near miss could trigger a detonation that would make a direct blaster hit look like a pesky insect bite. A direct hit could turn them into a cloud of expanding debris.

Quickly trying to familiarize herself with the specs and vagaries of the Hyperlance's systems, Ivy instinctively responded to Sori's comment before she could bite back the answer. "Go for the Rift." She knew it was a mistake before it was all out of her mouth. She didn't want to go through the Keshite Rift. It even brought them closer to Silrayne Prime, which was the last place they wanted to go. And she couldn't backtrack right after telling them to go through the Rift, they might start asking her why, and she wouldn't be able to answer, because she didn't know why. Her skin writhed, like the suggestion of mocking laughter. "Juicing the thrusters," Ivy said, fingers dancing over the console, manipulating inputs. She exhaled a soft whistle at how responsive the Hyperlance was, and heard a shift in the hum of the power core. "Be prepared."

Seiya had taken up one of the gunner positions. While he did know his way around personal arms, ship combat was still something foreign to him. That said he was game to try at least, and he managed to fire the ship's weapons, though the screen in front of him indicated his shots hit nothing. Well he didn't expect to hit really, but showing their foes they weren't just defenseless prey to be hunted would hopefully help them escape.

Sori was a transport pilot not a fighter ace but she did her best making several evasive course corrections that didn’t seem to throw the pursuers off in the least. “I need a destination. As soon as I am able I am going to punch it into FTL.”

Sori burst into the control room, her eyes scanning the panels with a sense of urgency. "We have to detach the umbilicals before they lock us down," she barked at Emi, flipping switches and pressing buttons with lightning speed. The station shuddered as the Hyperlance's vital connections were forcefully severed, sending waves of panic through Sori. "This is no ordinary ship we're stealing," she yelled, sweat beading on her forehead. "It belongs to one of the most powerful and treacherous corporations in the galaxy. We need to make our escape now." She slammed herself into the copilot's seat and activated the intercom. "Everyone hold on tight and brace yourselves! We're getting out of here," she ordered. Taking control from Emi, Sori pushed the throttle to max and aggressively manipulated the maneuver controls, throwing their stolen starship into a chaotic frenzy as she attempted to break free from the docking clamps. With a deafening snap, the clamps gave way and the Hyperlance was released into space. The sudden jolt sent everyone stumbling, Ivy clinging onto a console for balance while Seiya rushed to help Sori in the cockpit. "Careful, Sori," Seiya cautioned over the roar of their engines. "We won't stand a chance if we burn them out too early." But Sori was in a frenzy, her determination pushing her to push the Hyperlance beyond its limits as she evaded incoming fire from pursuing security ships. "We've cleared the station," Emi reported, her fingers frantically flying over her console. "But they're still hot on our tail." Seiya peered out of the viewport and saw a swarm of Zephyr starfighters closing in on them like a pack of hungry wolves. Their only chance now was to outrun them or face certain doom.

Ivy's skin itched, the Black whispering for her to go to the bridge, to get behind the flight controls. If she took them into the Keshite Rift, it could show her how to go back... Ivy licked suddenly dry lips and holstered her force-blaster. Her hands opened and closed, trying to relieve the tension. "I'll take engineering," Ivy called back, her low voice tight, as she turned about and went to find the power core to the ship she'd never been on before. She wasn't much of a navigator, but she more than proficient with most other roles on star-craft. Her lips were pressed together as she stalked amidship, sharp eyes and ears scanning restlessly for anyone who might interrupt their escape. She stubbornly pushed the Black back below her pale skin, wishing she'd had something to drink. She'd check the mess later. This was fine. It was fine! She didn't need to fly. The Hyperlance was a fancy, experimental ship, she was indeed curious to see what made it go. Finding engineering, she tapped the entry panel, idly wondering if she'd have to slice in. She punched her comm-unit to her erstwhile allies. "Anyone give a thought on where we're going?" She had, but most where options she wasn't keen on taking.

"All right...I am securing the bridge," Emi said as she flicked the control to lock the door. "I'd check engineering first. If someone wants to stop us from taking off, that'd be the first place to do it." She abbreviated the preflight abysmally, basically just running the engine test and control test. The rest would have to wait until they were clear of the berth. Even before the flight control tower indicated they had clearance to take off, Emi was already cycling the engines up...ready to go the instant they heard. Or the instant the attack started threatening the ship. Clearance or no clearance.

Getting aboard the ship was harrowing, but everyone made it. "Get us out of here as soon as it's safe!" He roared even as he closed the hatch and dogged it. This was getting well beyond his expertise. He was more at home on the ground than a ship, but he set out to prowl the ship and make sure they weren't carrying any unexpected sentient cargo. "I'm going to make sure we're the only ones on the ship!"

As the chaos erupted around them, Seiya and the others quickly realized they were in a dire situation. Ivy's bold move to create a diversion had bought them some time, but the looming threat of the sniper kept them on edge. With Emi stealthily making her way onto the Hyperlance and Ivy rallying the group towards the ship, Seiya knew they needed to act fast. He scanned their surroundings, noting the panicked Zephyr employees and the confusion spreading through the dock. Without Rhona's leadership, he needed to step up and make quick decisions. As Ivy reached the hatch to the Hyperlance, Seiya gestured for the rest of the group to follow. "Move, move, move!" Seiya called out, urging them to board the ship quickly. The sniper's warning still lingered in the air, but they couldn't afford to hesitate. As more laser-shots burned holes in the deck, Seiya took a deep breath and sprinted towards the hatch, his heart racing. Sori watched Seiya sprint and dodge or more accurately she watched the lasers which flashed out trying to touch the Feline. Sori assessed and acted she stepped trigger her rig with a supreme effort she lept upwards her blade forming in her hands and she used all her power to slice into the bulkhead where she thought the sniper was! The sniper, caught off guard by Sori's sudden attack, let out a grunt of pain as the blade sliced through the bulkhead, narrowly missing him. He quickly retreated, realizing he was no match for the group's combined skills and determination. As Sori landed back on the deck, she could see the panic in the sniper's eyes as he disappeared from view. Seiya reached the hatch of the Hyperlance and motioned Ivy inside and for Sori to come on. The Zephyr employees were now in disarray, torn between the chaos unfolding around them and the group making their way onto the ship. With a final defiant look back at the station, Seiya knew they were leaving behind a mess but also a legacy of survival. As they boarded the Hyperlance, a surge of relief washed over them. The ship hummed to life around them, ready for departure. Emi was already at the controls, her fingers flying over the console as she prepared to take them away from the station.

Emi faded from view before Ivy could shove her up the ramp to the Hyperlance. A pilot was important, but they might need a hacker to get the vessel out of the Docks, even with the FTL Key, and to rip out the data packet. Doesn't look like they were going to get paid, but after Rhone and Taarko, it wasn't safe to stay on the station. Regardless of what the sniper claimed, tying up loose ends was the smarter play than letting them hang loose. Ivy cursed, not even bothering to look for the sniper as she rolled over the fallen and deskulled Rhona, giving her a very quick patdown for any datatabs or a communit that might hold info on her contacts (or cubils), though she didn't expect to find anything. The Black was trying to consume her but she forced it back, though she could feel it slithering under her skin. "Off docks!" she shouted, done rifling through Rhona's pockets and scampering back to her feet, hoping to throw off the sniper for a moment - and not her own allies - as she darted forward in a broken, zig-zag pattern for the hatch to the Hyperlance. "Get the ship ready for launch, now!" she barked. "They're trying to steal the ship!" A blatant lie, but hopefully any doubtful Zephyr employees would be more distracted by those firing at them, than by the group actually trying to steal the ship.

Sniper. Shiiiiit. As Seiya parlayed, Emi dropped a hand to her arm where her implant's virtual interface was. Warping time and space, altering reality...creating gravitational anomalies was one thing, but it didn't have to be so garish. Emi's form wobbled and distorted, as if viewed in a mirror that was starting to bend. And just like that, she was gone. She quickly ducked down so her head wasn't in the same place it had been spotted last, and started caaaaarefully working her way up the ramp into the ship. Hopefully the others wouldn't wait around. Snipers be scary.

"Come and get it coward. I might let you leave with your life, your dignity is certainly long since gone." Seiya called back, hoping to get a rise out of whoever was talking, buying them time he hoped, even as he waited for the others to decide what they were going to do.

A voice from above distorted by some sort of device called to them, "Your employer is dead, runaway and I will let you live. Leave the FTL key."

"Sonova..." Seiya growled, even as he unlimbered his rifle, searching for the sniper. Quickly when he didn't see anything from other angles, he realized the shot came from directly above them. He pointed up, indicating this to everyone, and scowled. He didn't have anything that would get him a clear shot from down here. "Okay, we've really got to go now."

Emi quickly rifled the corpse and found the FTL key and a few other things she slipped into her bag. Rhona who had been awed by the rapid events seemed to catch her snap and rushed up. "Ok he was right, we still need to get out of this zone and it is going to be crawling with cops which might be good for us" Rhona quickly led the party to another set of access tunnels and into the maintenance tubes that gave access to every inch of the gargantuan station. At one access hatch that didn't automatically open Rhona had Emi hack the lock and then they were out of the shutdown zone. In about a half hour they found them selves at the Dock for the Hyperlance and true enough there was little activity. On their way there they had heard of the station wide alert and the emergency in the entertainment zone with reports of gang fighting and mass casualties. Here at the Hyperlance they found a few citizens watching a display about the starship and a few uniformed Zephyr employees who may be security but no massive police presence. Rhona exchanged a knowing look with Emi and the rest of the group before striding confidently up to the group of Zephyr employees. She flashed them a charming smile, her demeanor oozing charisma and authority. "Hello there," Rhona began, her voice smooth and persuasive. "I'm Rhona, Chief Operations Officer of Zephyr Corporation. We've had reports of some disturbances in the entertainment zone, and we need to get this ship prepped for immediate departure. I trust everything is in order here?" The Zephyr employees glanced nervously at each other before one of them stepped forward, clearly flustered. "Uh, yes ma'am, everything is...um...under control here. We were just about to conduct a routine security check." Rhona nodded approvingly. "Excellent. We'll be boarding shortly and setting off as soon as possible. Please ensure that all systems are online and ready for departure." As the employees scurried off to comply with Rhona's instructions, she turned to motion the rest of the party to come forward at that moment a red dot appeared on Rhona’s forehead and back of her head exploded!

Cautiously lowering her gun to her side, Ivy joined Emi by the car and Taarko's body. She gave the driver a sharp nod, then her free hand wrapped in the hem of her shirt, she took the gun sitting on the roof of the car and placed it in Taarko's limp hand, putting a finger through the trigger guard. "Get gone and lay low. Only agent in the zone or not, others are going to come investigate the disturbance sooner or later," Ivy told the driver. If you were leaving a corpse, better to leave potential friend behind rather than an enemy. "Might be they won't look too closely at a dirty cop, and PavSec will sweep this under the air scrubbers." The slim, taut woman gave the crouching Emi a nudge on the shoulder with her thigh, smoke grey eyes scanning their surroundings for anyone thinking about interfering. "Found it? We got to get gone too, before we can't use what we came for."

Emi snapped her fingers, and the gravitational anomaly winked out, like a dream, like a whisper. "Pleasure doing business with you." She hurried to the fallen Tarko and searched his body for the missing FTL key, acutely aware that the longer this took, the more chance there was that the rest of these goons would make a bad life choice and complicate this.

The silence weighed heavy but at Trako's car the driver got out and looked at Ivy. Tark shook his head and, ignoring Ivy for the moment, addressed the Cat-man, "No, this zone is the entertainment zone. Full of drunk and hopped up citizens and the people paid to make em happy. The system isn't going to raise an alarm and create a worse crisis by causing a panic. The system relies on the cops that are stationed here to take things in hand, problem is I'm the only cop in the zone I ordered everyone out so our little party at the club would be interfered with." Tarko shifted his gaze to Emi, "As for her shutting down the singularity," He raised his gun quickly, "I don't think so!" A shot rang out and Tarko's head exploded in a spray of blood, bone, and brains. The driver laid his smoking gun on the roof of the car. "Shut that damn thing down and take what you want and hurry"

While Ivy was thinking the same as Seiya about the klaxons, she did believe Tarko about the stations internal security and safety protocols. She licked her lips, then with feigned deliberate casualness, she fired her force-pistol. It left a pocked hole in the door of Tarko's car, just to his left. A clear warning shot. "Hear that, boys?" Ivy called out loudly for Tarko's lackeys, though her dark grey eyes never left the corrupt cop. "Your boss is willing to sacrifice the lot of you. On the other hand, if you help us get what we want from this piece of jettison trash, we'll save us all." Her chin jutted toward the spritely and very satisfied Emi. "She made the singularity, she can shut it off and stop the station's safety protocol going into effect. We only want one little thing, you can take what he owes from the rest."

Seiya growled, the bike now at a halt with Amari aiming at Tarko, and Seiya covering one of the goons with his wrist cannon. "There'd be klaxons of all manner going off in such an event." He said mostly for amari's benefit. He didn't believe Tarko at all, and it showed as his eyes narrowed.

Tarko laughed. "Your not going to get away. That," he said shaking his head and pointing up at he sphere trapping him, "has already triggered the stations internal security and safety protocols. This entire section has already been isolated and is probably being detached as we speak. When that's done we will be pushed as far away from the main body of the station and probably disintegrated as a precaution. So why don't all of you lay down your weapons and I'll consider saving your lives and everyone else on this deathtrap."

"Pix," Emi said under her breath. "I may need you here buddy." A...squiggle appeared over her left shoulder. A shifting array of dimly luminous blue blocks in the air, each block about the size of a thumbnail. They slid along one another, like a three dimensional sliding square puzzle, until they formed the blocky outline of a tiny, vaguely humanoid, figure. "Uh huh," she said more loudly, to Tarko. "The real party starts when that thing you're stuck in collapses to an actual singularity. Ever heard the word 'spaghettification?'" She looks around at the armed gangsters. "I don't even have to wave my hand to make that happen now. Have your guys stand down and hand over the FTL key. Once we've got that, and we're safely away, I'll let you go."

Tarko's car sat frozen in place, surrounded by the distorted space created by Emi's esper abilities. Despite Ivy's commanding shout, there was no movement from inside the vehicle. The other gangsters from the two smaller cars that had been tailing Tarko had arrived along with the rest of the Heroes on their bikes, their weapons trained on the scene unfolding before them. The tense standoff hung heavy in the air as Ivy cautiously maneuvered her hoverbike closer to Tarko's immobilized vehicle. She knew better than to let her guard down, especially with someone as cunning and ruthless as Tarko. A low chuckle echoed from inside the car, sending a shiver down Ivy's spine. Finally, the door creaked open, and Tarko stepped out slowly, a smirk playing on his lips. He raised his hands in mock surrender, but his eyes gleamed with defiance. "You all certainly know how to throw a party," Tarko remarked, his voice dripping with contempt. Rhona was staring, not at Tarko or his gangers, but at the Gravity anomaly, shock showing on her face.

Ivy bit her lip to stifle a scream as she swerved wildly around the car skidding to a stop lengthwise across the ramp. Hardly slowing, the gravity field of the hoverbike pressed against the guardrail of the ramp as Ivy sped up the slope after Tarko. She took a shot at the rear wheel of the car screen Tarko but didn't even come close as she was still trying to get control of her hoverbike... ... then Emi's warning came through the commchannel. "Stellar slag!" Ivy swore, shivering as she noticed the imploding threads of emerald and ebony light as she slammed on the breaks and twisted the controls to avoid sliding into the distortion field, trying to maneuver her way around it and in front of Tarko's vehicle. "Get out, Tarko, you know what we want!" she shouted, bringing her pistol back up, other hand white knuckled on the controls of the hoverbike.