Sun May 08, 2005 11:15 pm by The Ninja
thanks Grit, but not all the credit is mine. Direct some of the kudos to Arania, Dragonborn, Darkov (whatever his name is now) and Darkstone.
But as the fans requested, another chapter!
-:-
14:
Prometheus' voice rang through the base, signalling the approach of the Eagle floating ominously outside the massive base.
Arania, pinned to the floor by the mysterious Rheinland Assassin, was surprisingly relaxed, and stared past the eyes of his assailant onto his back.
"What are you staring at?" the officer asked.
Arania's smile broadened.
"My Dæmon" Arania replied.
"Your what?"
As if in answer, Araminta Materialised on Waalbeck's back covered in blue fire that threatened to send the Rheinlander up in flames at any moment.
"Now, now Ara" Arania said "That no way to treat a guest, but then again, this is hardly appropriate behaviour upon ones host..."
Waalbeck fumed at Arania's arrogance, and applied a slight pressure to his gun's trigger.
"Now, are you going to get off me or will I have to set you on fire?" Arania asked, "Because, advanced as the Dom'Kavash were, they didn’t trust each other, and installed a high-precision EMP generator on board"
Waalbeck raised an eyebrow.
"Basically" Arania continued, "guns wont work on board this base, with the exception of the concealed Graviton Defence cannons, and those are controlled by Prometheus."
"…Who also controls everything else on this base?" Waalbeck guessed.
"Exactly" Arania answered.
Arania grew annoyed waiting for the Rheinlanders reply.
"Get off" He said.
Waalbeck pressed the gun harder against Arania's skull.
"Fine" Arania said "Ara?"
The dæmon slowly lowered her flaming right wing onto the Rheinlander's back.
He went up in flames before she even had a chance to touch him.
Waalbeck panicked, and flipped out a combat knife, slicing a massive gash down the side of Arania's face and onto his neck.
As if in response, Arania immediately delivered a devastating blow to Waalbeck's nether regions, followed by a nice uppercut on his chin, knocking him unconscious and immediately putting out the burning blaze on his back.
Arania stood up, and felt slightly dizzy as he felt himself lose the blood out of the wound on his face.
His vision growing steadily blurrier, he hauled Waalbeck into the bedroom opposite his and locked the door.
"Prometheus," Arania muttered, stumbling back to his room, "make sure Waalbeck doesn’t get out"
"Sure thing," Prometheus replied
Arania collapsed on his bed, and saw a blurry image of a Phoenix bending over him.
The last thing he saw was Araminta laying her wing on his face, before everything went black.
-:-
Arania awoke, his vision still very blurry, but that wasn’t the worst of his worries. His bleeding had stopped, but running his hands over his face he could feel a feather-like seal over where the Rheinland assassin had sliced into his neck. His vision had cleared as he looked into the mirror and inspected the wound; it had been covered with a red substance that, as Arania looked closer, appeared to be a cross between a scab and some of Araminta's feathers...
Araminta herself flapped over and landed on Arania's shoulder as Arania walked back to the control deck, smiling at the pounding of Waalbeck upon his 'prison' door.
Once he had settled down onto the main console, a massive map flashed up onto the screen, blocking out the window behind it.
The movement map had changed since he last looked at it; the Rheinland government had pulled back from its posts in the omicrons and Bretonia.
Every single military presence in Sirius was moving into the Edge nebula, in particular the Omicron Minor and Major systems.
"I took the Liberty of Locking the Hyper Gate" Prometheus said "But I don’t think the security will hold out for long"
The map zoomed out to show the discovered network of the Dom'Kavash hyper gates.
"How easy do you think it will be to relocate you to here?" Arania asked, pulling up a system map containing a massive Dom'Kavash base, once that was much larger than the one he was on now.
"Not hard" Prometheus replied "we had to modify this base to include a neuronic data storage core and rewire it to the systems. There, all I have to do is overwrite the existing AI controller, since it is already hardwired to the entire base"
"How soon could it be completed?" Arania asked
"18.3 minutes" Prometheus replied "there is a hypergate to that system barely 10 km from here"
"Ok, go," Arania said, "and erase all the data on this base. Lock the gate after I go through too"
Prometheus vanished, and lights dimmed as he began transmission.
Arania walked down the corridor to the docking bay, making note to put a small tracer onto Waalbeck's ships computer power feed.
Climbing into his Anubis, he flew out of the bay towards the gate, transmitting a small message to Darkstone about the complications and to meet him at Toledo in three days time.
-:-
You wanna revolution?