Planet California Minor. A planet that is really cold on the far side so going there in a normal uniform would be a death with, but that is not the desired destination. The cloud near the planet offers much more... opportunities as it could be said. In the center.. well not really in the center, a bit above is the Willard Research Station. Like every other research complex it looks white, at least on the outside.
A big, cold rock with 3 docking ports and a small balcony where the bar is. As it is a norm there, at least 1 docking bay should be open for usage. Maintenance is done when the least traffic is expected and Darius got unlucky on got there within that time. He waited for about 10 until he would be able to dock and proceed to his destination. Upon entering the docking bay which is a bit tight for some unknown reason, lots of machinery, still unused could be seen. After landing and leaving the ship, a lot of machinery that is being used could be heard. Still... The station interior does not look like your everyday research station. Its dark, a bit dirty as it could be seen. Ignoring the bad sights Darius proceeded to the Azurite research department.
The interior was indeed huge. It actually looked like an ice domain of some sort. The main room was in the middle and it looked like a damn fortress. The departments were set as rings that were around the central chamber. He did not come for sightseeing so he went on to the 4 floor of the station and proceeded. Not many guards would be seen around as the station is in the middle of an ice field, its outer defenses are good and I don't see that anyone, anytime soon will dock without permission.
In the central room, where everything was mostly connected, the machinery that was used on the station could be heard really loudly and it would be echoing throughout the central chamber. Darius finally got to the department where Maximus Jackson was. He entered and saw that Max was doing something strange with some unknown device. Upon entering he knocked twice on the wall just so see if it is fine to enter. "Yea yea, come in." Max said in an annoying voice. Darius approached Max and hit him on the back. Max dropped his device down, put his hands on the desk and looked at Darius. "You really do enjoy doing this to me, don't ya?" He said with a sarcastic smile. "You know I love to piss you off here and there." Darius shrugged and turned away from him. "Anyway. What are you working on there?". Max pushed away from the table, "Working on that countermeasure like always and I am looking at the Azurite I got from Joker. Well not just him. Several other LSF cruisers arrived 2 minutes after him to drop off even more of it." Max turned to the Azurite and approached it. "Well... This thing can make you feel funny here and there, but if a nomad is not near it its pretty much useless on that part. More to it, I have been trying to make some mind control devices."Max opened one of the closets and took out another strange device out of it. "So... This device uses, lets call them Mind Control waves to play with another's mind. It's something nomads use. The thing is, It is not strong enough to work on a human being and so far I have been able to manipulate lab rats, but they seem to be resisting." Max moves back to the countermeasure, "This baby uses the opposite waves to counter the mind control. So far it somehow works, but I need to work on that device first." Max turned to Darius, "So...You just came here to check on me or?".
Darius, who finally got to say something backed away from the wall and sat on the clear desk, "I need you on my ship. I am probably getting the hell out of here. There is a war that needs to be ended and I need the best on my ship for that. Are you game?". Max started laughing for a bit, but then calmed down, "Okay. I am game. I had not been on a good adventure and I could really use a refreshment. Tell me what do I need to do." Darius started leaving slowly after throwing Max an ID and a location on Manhattan. "My ship is on the Juneau shipyard. Get stuff you need and can take with you there. If you cannot take everything, we will do a pickup here before leaving. The location is my apartment. Allie and Jenny should be on my ship so take them with you too. And DON'T break anything while you are there." Max nodded, "Alright. I will see you at the apartment there. When will you be coming though?". Darius, still on the door had turned around, "I will probably come with Tina to the apartment. Nikolai is on Manhattan so we will be tracking him after I get there. We will see each other there then. Bye." Darius left and made his way to his ship. "Yea yea. Whatever." Max got back to his work before he started packing up.
And so... Slowly, Darius made his way to Norfolk Shipyard to pick up Tina. While he was at it, he decided to send another quick transmission to Shepard. At least so he can arrange for a drink.
If one could name the most quiet place in New York it would be the Norfolk crossing. Each time you would arrive there you would only see some hotshot Ensigns trying to look cool and what not. The Norfolk shipyard itself would be more of a military base as it only has military equipment for sale. As for Darius, his attention was turned to the guard room in the station. With 2 docking ports on that base it is really a miracle that one is free all the time. Well, its always the same thing; dock in and leave the ship. For some reason the base was quite silent today as if nothing was happening in it. One ship docked, barely a guard per room. Something must have been going on.
It did not take him long to reach the security room as it was really close to the docking bays. Upon entering you could see a lot of computers with lots of guards sitting at them. The closest to Darius was Tina as the guard captain. He approached her slowly, "Hey there 'guard captain'. What are you doing?". He went up to her platform to see what she is doing. She sat back in her chair, "Nothing much. Guard work all the time and it is getting really boring. I hope you have some good news since you took your sorry time to get here."."Well I am planing on leaving and I need you." He looked at her with a straight face. She stood up, "Alright, I am game. This is going all to hell anyway and I already have someone to become the guard captain.". She then called out to some guy to give him the captain privileges. Darius went to the door after saying that he will wait outside. A bit later Tina left the room with her things, including her huge gun she always tends to carry around. "We are going to my apartment on Manhattan and we are using my ship.". Tina then for some reason blushed, "I-I don't know if that is-" Before she could finish Darius added: " Max, Jenny and Allie are there already". Tina frowned and went with Darius to his ship.
A bit of flying to Manhattan and then going to his apartment. The apartment was big. It was really old, but it was a good thing for several people to crash in at the same time. As they entered they could see Max, Jenny and Allie already having beer and chilling without them. "Come on Darius...how can you leave "ME" with those two nice ladies here?" Darius walking slowly through the apartment to find a good place to set Tina's gun said:"You know...If you were actually good with ladies I would be worried, but... you know how it goes." he then smirked mockingly. "Get the hell out!" Max made a strange movement with his hands, " You can't do this to me!" He took another sip of his beer, "Anyway, you got marines on that ship, but thanks to the ID I was able to move everything in without much commotion." He then sat back on the sofa he was sitting on. "Same goes for us," Jenny raised her hand halfway "We had no trouble getting in and out, but it might be problematic once we move out.".
Darius let out a long sigh, "I got it all covered. There are some people that are on the guard duty on the Claw that I can trust in that. When I give them a go, the ship is ours." Meanwhile Tina grabbed two more beers for herself and Darius. She then threw one at him. "Thanks!" He opened it in hopes it won't explode in his face. "Anyway," he took a sip," We need to track down Nikolai.". Tina sat down on one of the chairs. "I set him up with some contacts for work. I can call them and see if they have given him any contracts.". Darius nodded, "Do that. I hope you still have that key for Ira's location." He sat down near Allie as there was no other place to sit on currently. "Yea yea. No worries." She took the key out, "here it is!". Darius nodded again."Alright. I need some equipment ready if I am going to go after him. You two will help me out. Max.... Well I have no jobs currently for you. Make sure that beer does not run out." Max stood up, "You got it!". Everybody went to work to track down Nikolai Arlov, Darius's top assassin.
With the five of them in that apartment, it was bound to end up in ruins. Luckily it didn't. 2 Months of searching for the damn assassin and they finally found him. They had gathered around and began with the info. Tina was in the charge of looking for him so she spoke first. "Alright. I had to pass through a lot of contacts to find him, but I managed to track him down. The guy that gave him the job said that there is a Zoner warehouse deep in the old West Manhattan docks. They seem to be using it so they are not disturbed and what not. Luckily, today is the maintenance and there is a scheduled Corvo arrival in about 5 hours. The main thing, is that the target will be in the warehouse for the next 4 hours. We need to act fast." Darius then leaned forward a bit. "Okay then. I will move in that warehouse without being spotted, Tina will start causing damage AROUND the warehouse. Make sure it is not damaged, its a Zoner one. I hope you two got us the equipment. Max, you are on comm duty." Max got up and went to the different room. "Ill set up shop in the room..."he left 2 comm devices, "... use these for communication." Meanwhile, Jenny and Allie unlocked the equipment boxes for Tina and Darius to suit up.
After one hour of equipping, they were ready to move out. They took Darius's eagle and moved to West Manhattan where they landed not too far from the warehouse sites. They left the ship and quickly moved to the sites. It did not take them long to find the warehouses.
2 hours until the Corvo arrival. "Have you identified the Corvo that is on its way?" Darius was in prone on the far side of the site, looking at the target warehouse. "No, I am unable to track it. It is most likely cloaked. Have you found Nikolai yet?". Darius slowly got up, "Not yet, but I am moving in." Tina went to the other side to get a good position for a ruckus.
"Lost Horizon... I thought I would never see that place again." Darius muffled to himself. It took him a bit to climb that warehouse unnoticed. He entered through one of the windows in the back and hid himself behind the crates. He leaned on one of the heavy crates with his left shoulder and silently observed a meeting. "I can't hear anything... hold on..." He had noticed something blinking on the other side of the room, but decided to ignore it. "What is wrong?" Tina asked on the comms. "Nothing, just wait for my signal.""Darius you have 20 minutes to take out the target." Darius got ready to take the enemy down, but right after he set the gun down, the whole warehouse went up in flames. The blinking thing that Darius noticed was a heavy bomb, capable of destroying everything in a big radius. Tina was knocked back by the blast, but managed to survive without any injuries. Comms with Darius were cut off. "What the hell happened???" Max asked furiously. "Oh god." Tina got up only to see burning buildings in front of her. "He is gone, Max. He was in there when it exploded." Tina had almost broken down. "DAMMIT! Get the hell out of there now! The Corvo will be there any minute!" Tina started running towards Darius's eagle to fly away. "Meet me at the sleeper landing pad. We are going away from Liberty." Max sighted deeply and looked at Jenny and Allie. "We need to go. Pack what you can and lock this place." Allie stopped Max as she grabbed his hand forcefully. "And where do you think we will go? Where is safe right now?" Max shook her off. "Taus. Its safe there. I know a good place to hide for a while, before we split up again." The sisters both nodded. And packed their things.
10 minutes after they met up on the landing pad and took off, never to be seen again.
I always keep thinking that it is a bad dream, where I die and get forgotten by everyone, but I did not die while the same happened. Even I have forgotten about myself. The people who saved me, offered me a different life, but research is not what I love doing. The feeling I get when I want to shoot anything in sight is a feeling that I have not forgotten. Yes, the Navy. I was a Commodore, and I died, but I have returned. Knowing who I am and not knowing my name, I will travel to a place where I will know my name, but I do not know where it is. This is problematic and my head hurts. My story? Well. Its a long one, but why not.
My long story started when I said to hell with it and traveled to the Omicrons. There I was recruited into a rogue order group called The Blackguard. Why am I saying this? Well, it will make sense soon enough. The man who recruited me is also the man who killed me. His name, Ray Jericho, who I have known only by the name of Joker. He was the leader of the group and his mind was a labyrinth. One which nobody could understand. I joined because in the beginning, I needed a job. In the end, I ended up as one of the higher ups and people were answering to me. It was not that big of a rank actually though I forgot what was its name... literally. I was given a name too. Not that I was renamed, but a code name. Dagger. Why? Because my pockets were full of daggers and I never missed. All the good times there ended up badly. The carrier destroyed, and about 100 people dead. They sacrificed themselves so we could live. The honor they received later on was huge. The so-called medal of the Hunter was handed in each of their information sheet. The biggest reward anyone could ever receive. This is where my Blackguard days ended and my Navy days begun.
As I had nothing to do, I came back home to Erie for a couple of days. Damn, I cannot remember their names. Its bugging me that I remember all the names, but the ones closely related to my identity. That aside, I joined in the secondary fleets of the Navy. Doing good with this and that, I have received an invitation to the 5th Liberty Navy Fleet. Every day I spent there was great. Take down rogues, outcasts and tons of other criminals then get promoted more and more. My wing man and the man that I could trust there was Mark Webb. Good pilot, but he disappeared all of a sudden. More and more promotions came by and I ended up as a Commodore. With that I had my own trusty second in command. Alan Collins. Older than me and he knew what was going on all the time, serious in every situation and starts joking when the enemy falls. When things started getting a bit worse with the nomads, I knew I had to take action. I gathered the people I trusted the most and we set up at my apartment. When we decided to move to the last member I needed, I was killed, by Joker. Something is off though. Why did he say "I am sorry"? Why did he apologize despite betraying The Blackguard by killing one of his men? As I lost consciousness, he left the area, not to be seen again.
I woke up on the operation table in some kind of a facility. I could barely see. Everything was blurry and I had noticed that my left arm was blown off. Speaking in front of me was a doctor, saying that I had barely survived and that I needed additional surgeries if I wish to survive. Even though I could walk, I had a little time to live. I had to meet up with a man that was in charge of the facility, Finn McCool. He approved that my life must be saved and he asked some questions about me and my knowledge. My name at that time, was Seth Wither. It was the first thing that came to my mind. My so called upgrades were approved and my life was saved. To save my dying heart, a power core was used to keep it healthy. My eye nerves were fixed and a new set of irises were installed to improve my eyesight. I received a new arm. Cybernetic and as I saw it, I noticed that it could be changed my others which was actually to my liking. I was offered to work within the IRG and I was picked up by the IRG vessel Genesis. The vessel contained an AI that helped me on my journey and research. With the ship becoming a lab, I had received a job. I was told to contact Ezrael Veriga. The fella wants a device that would make the cloak good enough so it does not rely on batteries like every other. After my job here is done, I will start traveling. I need to know who I am. I need to become who I was meant to be.
Perfect. I find out who I am and the first thing is I get locked up. With that, O'Neill is dead and Sader took command. The only experience that he got is from being a goddamn Commander and nothing else. Now he is an Admiral, trying to act like the old man. What the hell. Anyways. I need someone to defend me so I decided to pick Max. He has a license and I think he can do good damage in the court. I should be saved. Something is off though about Sader. Its like he is hiding something himself. I have sent a message to Tia and I hope she gets it properly. If not, I might be in deep trouble.
The station has not changed much the last time I was here. White and gray walls. Annoying liberty stars everywhere. Nothing at all actually. Heh. Looks like this will be a long stay home. I gave myself a mission though. Find this Rosalina Romanov woman who killed O'Neill. I will make sure she is in pieces when I find her. That is all for now. Closing the journal.