Thoughts buzzed through Esther's mind as she walked the corridors of the Derby. Hypotheses running through her mind, attempting to piece the clues and nuances together into a working picture that made sense. That was the snag, that made sense. She could come to any number of conclusions based off the facts, but none that were within the realm of reason.
She nearly ran headlong into a young BAF officer, bringing her train of thought back to the thought of it being a small person, more probably a girl. As the BAF officer passed out of sight, Esther promptly forgot ever having seen her.
Lost in quite introspection, Esther was shocked when she arrived at the docking bay. She resolved to check the pulse of the Derby - the crew, preferably off hours and in bars - when she got back from her patrol. Her patrols involved actively hunting criminals down, not just flying on any set path.
Esther hopped up the bottom fin and into the cockpit, only to be shocked to see a dagger laying there. She had been around the block more than once, and knew exactly what it meant - back off, or else. It meant they, whoever 'they' were, knew what she was doing. When the prey knows its being hunted, the hunter can turn into the prey real quick.
Esther dropped from her cockpit, and began to think. Patrol could wait.
Esther's thoughts were disrupted from a voice on the other side of the fighter.
"Hello, Esther."
Esther, startled, walked around the cockpit to see a man standing there, in a business suit. Well tailored. Out of place in a hanger.
She looked at the stranger, who was smiling disarmingly. His smile faded as he caught the meaning of her hand reaching for the concealed blaster. He stiffened, and got ready to do.. something.
"MI5, or maybe MI6", she thought.
"What the hell are you doing here?", she asked. Her hands dropped to her sides, and the disarming smile returned.
"Apologies. Name is William Stephenson. I work for Her Majesty's Government."
"You know already that someone is spying on the Fleet Admiral. Consequently, I had might as well solicit your help. Especially seeing that our friend left you a present.." He gestured at the dagger.
"I am not interested in working for bloody cloak and dagger..."
"The Crown will pay 15 Million Credits for your trouble." He interrupted.
"..for cloak and dagger agencies that pay poorly. You pay well, so I'm in."
Stephenson smiled. "Good to hear it. I'll contact you later."
A mechanic crew entered the hanger and walked by. Esther turned, briefly, nonchalantly waved, then turned back.
Ashley Huntington strode down the corridor, as she did every Thursday. She wore a bulky dress made of fine cloth in subdued greens and blues. The upper half of her face was covered by a matching hood, leaving the rest of her face visible. Behind her walked a Commander Corwin, who escorted her each week. Percy trusted him or something.
She reached the door to Percy's office and Corwin entered the code into the keypad. Ashley glanced at it as he typed in the code, taking notice of the numbers. Changed it have they? The light on the keypad burned green and Corwin opened to door to the office for her. She entered the room as he closed it behind her, and then went to the only other door in the office. The one that connected to Percy's study.
She pushed the door open and watched as Percy looked up from his desk. A smile spread across his face and he stood. Ashley smiled back as he came around the desk and walked across the room. He came to a stop in front of her, grabbing one of her arms with his hand, and kissed her on the cheek. "Hello honey," he said as he leaned forward to kiss her again.
Several inches from her face his neck came into contact with cold hard metal, as a hand slid around the left of his neck, tightening to the point where he could feel the tips of fingernails pressing into his skin.
"Hello Admiral."
Evyn Hunter raised her head and looked into Nelles' eyes, her mouth twisted in a humorless grin as she dug her fingers into his neck and pressed the dagger's tip into his skin, drawing a trickle of blood. "You know, its a pity you had to get that Carson girl involved in this, I didn't want to kill her, but you haven't given me much choice have you?"
"What have you done with Ashley?" His voice came out as a croak due to the knife pressed against throat.
Evyn's grin turned into a disgusted sneer. "She'll live. Perhaps you should have been more honorable, or at least faithful Admiral."
She dragged the dagger until it rested on the center of his neck, and raised the hilt to the point where it aimed staight into the middle of his throat
A bullet does a crazy thing to a bottle of Champagne.
Glass sprayed Nelles in the face, but Evyn got the worst of it. Nelles took advantage of the situation. He grabbed the arm that held the knife, and began striking Evyn in the bicep. His face was red and scowling. He wasn't thinking of himself, but this woman had killed his Ashley, and he was furious. But Evyn drew the blade across his arm. Another bullet flew through the air, narrowly missing the Outcast spy.
Nelles gasped and fell back one way, Evyn the other. His arm was cut deep.
William Stephenson walked out from the anteroom, pistol in hand.
"Thought you might try something like this, Cardi-peddlar."
Nelles eyes opened in shock. First the Brittania, now this? Why would Outcasts do this?
William Stephenson approached Evyn, who stood slowly, eyes narrowed.
"Who were you framing, Evyn? Kusari? Or the Corsairs? We've been paying too much attention to the Mollies lately, haven't we?"
His monologue was loosening his concentration. And Evyn was trained to take make use of that.
A spinning backfist caught Stephenson on the chin. He staggered sideways. Then a fist caught the pistol, and threw it in the corner of the room. Evyn went for it.
And got a roundhouse kick in the forehead for her troubles. Stephenson had not been stunned long. She fell back onto the desk, and her hands were cut by the glass there.
Stephenson took up a fighting stance and got ready for the onrush.
Evyn went in kicking and punching, fast as an angry cat. Stephenson fell back and assessed his attacker methodically. At the right moment he jabbed.
And busted Evyn's ear. Split it right open. That was going to cauliflower. He felt bad about that, hitting a girl is one thing, but wrecking her looks? That's just wrong.
Distracted by that thought, he took a nice roundhouse kick in the solar plexus, and doubled over, but as he did so, he grabbed her leg and brought both of them crashing into a cupboard.
"I say, watch the china!", bellowed Nelles.
Evyn and Stephenson just looked at the Fleet Admiral. Then started pounding each other again.
Evyn got a good ridge hand in on Stephenson's throat, and he gagged and staggered back. She rushed in on him, too fast, and got a nasty sidekick to the kidney.
They began to grapple, not a good thing for Evyn. Mass usually wins that sort of thing. But she had an unlikely saviour.
A shot rang out.
And Stephenson looked down at blood swelling on his belly.
"You are a BLOODY lousy shot, Admiral!" He collapsed.
Percy Nelles had managed to get the pistol, and he held it now, hands shaking, blood from the cut on his arm covering his shirt, and the pistol itself.
He simply wasn't helping. Great Flag Officer, lousy with firearms.
Evyn whirled around to face the Fleet Admiral. He pressed the trigger once, then again. The first shot, ironically, utterly destroyed his precious china, and the second one winged the Outcast spy, ripping a small chunk of flesh out of her shoulder.
Evyn Hunter knew the game was up, and ran like hell.
Nelles went over to Stephenson, who was a nasty shade of white.
"I'm so sorry, lad! I'm going to get security!"
"NO! Nelles, get that Carson woman. This needs to be handled discretely." Nelles began to protest, and Stephenson interrupted, and explained:
"Captured publicly, she is a traitor, and will be executed. A corpse is useless to us. Captured secretly, she can still be turned."
Nelles nodded, went to his viewscreen, and spoke to it in a shaking voice.
Evyn gasped as the alcohol burned its way into her shoulder. Her teeth clinched together and she let out a hiss as the rest of the bottle's contents poured into the wound on her shoulder. She opened her eyes and looked into the mirror at herself.. The tattered remains of her dress blood-drenched and soaked from the whiskey running its way down her arm and back.
She raised her blood-drenched knife to the sleeves of what was left of the dress, slitting openings in them so she could easily pull it off. She shrugged off the ruined dress, leaving her standing in a form-fitting black bodystocking. And after she bandaged and wrapped her shoulder up, she fit an equally-black leather outfit over it in the hope that it'd make her less visible in any shadows she was able to find.
She turned around, which was all she needed to do to reach the wall on the other side of the small locked supply room she had chosen to stash her stuff in. There she opened a small chest, inside of which was a gun, a small pack of explosives wrapped into a bundle with an attached remote detonator, and lastly a syringe, already filled with a clear liquid. Liquid she hoped she'd never have to inject into herself. She stowed it into the small pocket fitted to the sleeve of her jacket, then she separated the explosives and fit them into small pouches on her belt, along with the detonator.
As she raised the gun to fit it in the holster at her waist, a squeal came from the back of the room. Holstering the gun, she grabbed her dagger and slowly walked to the far end of the room, where she crouched and brought her face level with that of the girl sitting on the floor, her back against the wall. Ashley's hands were bound behind her back and tape covered her moth, preventing her from screaming.
Evyn raised the dagger and gave it an evaluating look, twirling it with her fingers as blood streamed its way down the blade. Without looking at Ashley she said, "You really should have picked a better boyfriend Ms. Huntington." She touched the tip of the blade to Ashley's cheek. "It would be a shame if you were hurt because of him." She slowly traced a line from Ashley's upper cheek to her chin, leaving a smear of blood along her face. Ironically it was Percy's blood coloring her skin.
She stood again as Ashley let out another whimper, and left the room. She kept the door unlocked, so someone would eventually find the girl that was tied and gagged at the back of the room. She didn't want to kill her, just scare her. Hopefully after all of this she'd be too scared to come back out here.. A front-line battleship isn't a fit place for someone like her. Nelles was a fool to be involved with her in the first place, though the chance of him ever realizing that was slim.
She started off on a slow trot towards the ship's hangerbay section.
Evyn crouched, hidden in the shadow of a dark corner, the light above her long since burnt out. She kept her body rigid, her matte-black clothing giving off no shine. Only her eyes moved, to stop any hanger mechanic or pilot from seeing her.
For twenty minutes she sat there, observing the actions of the hanger staff. It left her puzzled at first when she found nothing to indicate the crew was aware of the attempt on their Fleet Admiral's life. Her confusion ended when Esther Carson entered the hanger. After collecting a bag from her ship, She gave Evyn's Templar a good lookover. She first peered into the cargohold, then crawled onto the wing and rummaged through the cockpit. As Evyn knew she would, Esther found nothing of interest, and promptly left the hanger. Why she did, and where she was going Evyn didn't know, nor care. She had gotten what she needed.
She pulled a small transmitter from her pocket, and after adjusting the frequency, sent a signal out, A receiver she had wired into the computers operating the hangerbay section of the battleship caught that signal and it started a program burned into the object's memory. It had been simple to program, and the security was light. Who would hack into the hanger's lights and sound system? The red warning lights began flashing, and a deafening sound blasted from the speakers mounted on the ceiling; An alarm.
Mechanic and pilots alike hurried out of the doors connecting the hanger to the rest of the ship, closing and securing the doors behind them. Once the hanger was empty, Evyn collected her helmet and flight suit from her ship and crossed the room to Esther's Manta.
With a quick thought she reactivated the cybernetic computer implanted within her. She accessed the camera logs that were taken directly from her body's optical system, effectively recording everything she saw that was deemed important by her mind at the time it took place. Among these 'recorded memories' were Estherm Carson's actions from just moments ago. Specifically when she entered the code to unlock her cockpit's window.
She dropped into the pilot's seatand began to work on the fighter's anti-theft system. Unlike malicious security keypads, she was familiar, and proficient, at breaking through this type of protection. Within moments, she was in the fighter's computer systens, She began to power the ship up and prepare for launch, and most likely, combat as she made her escape. As she waited for the fighter to finish its startup procedure she compiled a brief message and saved it in the fighter's memory until she could transmit it. finally the fighter finished and rose a meter off the floor, floating in mid-air.
Before the crew could discover that the alarm was false, she turned the ship around and started the engines. She frowned as she passed her Templar, but she knew she could never have taken it instead. The chance that the Armed Forces had ability to override their fighter's controls and move it remotely was too great. She didn't want to escape Bretonia just to be dragged back by her own ship. Besides, this way Esther couldn't chase her down.
The Manta flew through the opened hanger door and into empty space. She again pulled out her transmitter and sent one last message. The explosives she had tossed into her Templar's cargo exploded, blasting an explosion through the hanger. She heard subsequent explosions and knew that some of the other ships had been caught in the blast and spread it further.
One last explosion sounded from the open hanger doors and fire spewed out into space, quickly smothered from the cold and lack of oxygen. She grinned, pleased, for the explosion had reached the fighter's fuel drums and ignited them. That'd stop the battleship from launching its military ships, for they would all be damaged, if not destroyed outright. And of course, removed any trace of evidence from her Templar that was now likely to be a pile of blackened metal.
She turned the Manta away from Battleship Derby and set course for LD-14. She didn't have the codes on this Bounty Hunter's ship to unlock the gate, so she would take the longer path through Edinburgh. With the KNF indirectly and unwittingly covering her, she could reach Freeport 6 with ease.
A curse from Esther Carson punctuated the explosions that rocked the ship, sending her sprawling across the hallway, along with everyone else she could see. Staggering right, she slammed into the wall and rebounded, managing to catch her balance. It had come from the hangar bay she had just left, which meant.... her Manta! Her left wrist rose to right in front of her face, and with some relief she noticed her Manta was still in once piece on the display. However, it was powered up and moving. What the...
It was a much more obscene, colorful, and loud oath that escaped Esther's mouth now, as she punched the wall so hard she felt every knuckle in her right hand crack and the skin split slightly. That ***** stole my ship!
At a dead run, Esther made for the hangar on the other side of the ship, covering hundreds of meters of corridors with rude jostling of anyone who got in her way. The second hangar was, of course, in turmoil, and Esther spared no time in picking out a ship and jumping in. Shouts told her that the pilot was nearby, or at least a mechanic who knew who the pilot was, but she didn't have time for pleasantries. It was a Templar Very Heavy Fighter, and Esther started it up, hooking up her wrist-comp to the ship and setting it to 'override security', a simple program that cracked ship startup sequence codes (standard issue amongst Hunters for situations just like this one).
Space is a three-dimensional affair, with x, y, and z axes being used to plot positioning. The size of the coordinates can get huge when used on a Sirius-wide scale, which is why they're localized by system, with the exact center usually being the star. Ship tracking systems would provide the system the ship was in, as well as the exact position of the ship using the (x, y, z) settings. By cross-referencing a map, it's quite feasible to quickly and efficiently track down any ship. Of course Esther kept a tracer on her ship, though she had neglected to put on an 'auto-override anti-theft', which was next on her mental to-do list.
Odd... it's going past Stokes now, looks like the Edinburgh jump hole... roundabout route to Tau 31?
It was obvious Evyn was a spy. Given the war, Esther jumped to the conclusion of her working for Kusari. Moving to the jump gate, she was one step ahead of a wing of fighters hunting her down for stealing military hardware...
~ ~ ~ ~
Time passed. Esther was right, though she got to the Tau 31 - Edinburgh jump hole before Evyn did. When she saw her Manta jump in, Esther couldn't help but smile in anticipation. Though it pained her to destroy her own pride and joy, she knew it was necessary.
Evyn Hunter, you picked the wrong Hunter to mess with.
She almost laughed at the pun. The exhilaration, the euphoria, of the approaching fight was upon her. Esther felt confident.
The ships hurdled towards each other, weapons firing, tachyon blasts impacting on the shields of the Manta, the experimental weaponry (and the large learning curve in using them) keeping the Templar from taking many hits. Odd, she's lisping to the left slightly... It was showing in the Manta's turning, as well as flying straight. Its shields dropped, while the Templar's shields were going strong...
Evyn howled in pain as her Manta was rocked by another explosion, sending her shoulder into the cockpit window. It throbbed with agony; having already taken enough punishment in her quarrel with Nelles, and the gunshot wound she had received as payment. Her mind threatened to succum to the pain, and only force of will kept her from blacking out.
Shoving away the pain, she focused on the Templar circling around her. Before it could position itself behind her, she yanked the stick back towards her right, sending the ship hurtling away. She held the turn for another second, then pulled the stick as far back as it could go, pressing the strafing rudder with her right foot. The Manta went through a half back-flip, sliding to the right as it did. The maneuver only worked partially, getting her out of the Templar's firing arch, but not setting them up for a head-on pass like it should have.
It wasn't such the ship's fault, nor her opponents skill, but the by-product of her infirmity. Her left arm hung useless by her side, sending pain through her every time she tried a sharp turn, or the ship was hit by another salvo from the Templar. It took all of her effort just to get the ship to turn with one hand, let alone fight back or dodge. A fact she was reminded of quite clearly as the Templar hit her again. However, this time the pain was accompanied by lines of red lights along the diagnostic board and a rhythmic beeping from the alarm system.
The stick's resistance vanished and left the Manta flying arrow-straight as the controls gave out. She looked at the line of red lights with disgust, and a fair bit of resignation. Throw me in a lumbering freighter rather than this paper-thin death trap. She watched as the Templar raced passed her window, and, with reluctance, reached into her jacket sleeve. She withdrew her hand, holding the syringe she had brought with her from the Derby. It held a clear liquid, liquid she was duty-bound to inject into herself to avoid capture and interrogation. It provided a most simple way to handle that problem. Death.
For once, regret filled her as she positioned the needle against the soft skin of her arm.