Search For The Traitorous

Near the crashed ship
Yridia II

Dirk pulled the brake on his speeder and slowed to a stop right in front of his destination, a crashed ship. Another speeder stopped beside him carrying a large Tarentum Protector, Zero Raven. Dirk swung off the speeder and made his way to the ship, Zero walked up beside Dirk and asked, “What do they expect us to find that the Tarentum soldiers didn‘t?”

Dirk scanned the horizon then turned to Zero, “The soldiers inspected the ship, not knowing what to look for, we’re going to thoroughly search the ship for any kind of clue to who started the outbreak.” Dirk continued towards the ship, with Zero beside him. When they reached the ship Dirk tried to open the door to no avail, “Piece of crap machine, seems that the Tarentum soldiers didn‘t even look inside the ship.”

“Out of the way and watch how it’s done.” Zero shouldered past Dirk and started to work on a panel beside the door. After working on the wires under the panel for a few minutes he said, “Their that should do it.” Zero looked at the door and watched as it slid open, but then it stopped, not even leaving enough room for Dirk to move through. Zero grumbled then turned back to the panel.

“Move.” Dirk said calmly.

Zero turned his head in time to see Dirk spin around, in a roundhouse motion, and then moved out of the way just as Dirk smashed his foot into the panel. Zero swiftly stood up and got into Dirk’s face, “What the frak do you think you’re doing?!”

Dirk pointed past Zero, “That.”

Zero turned around and saw the door was completely open.

Dirk walked past Zero into the ship, as he passed him he said, “No need to thank me.”

Zero glared at the Sadowan and followed him in.

Dirk stood in the middle of the ship and looked down the corridor leading towards the cargo bay and the one leading to the cockpit, when Zero past him walking towards the cockpit. Dirk followed him, curious, “What do you think your going to find in the cockpit?”

Zero continued to walk on, “I’m hoping that I’ll find out where the ship picked up its cargo.”

Dirk stopped for a second, “I thought the other ships had coordinates that framed another house, this one probably just says its from Sadowan territory.”

Zero shook his head as he walked into the cockpit, “Those were implanted coordinates, that’s why we aren’t at war, what I’m looking for are the real last coordinates.”

Dirk walked into the cockpit and raised an eyebrow, “How are you going to do that?”

Zero sat down in one of the pilot seats and turned his head toward Dirk, “It would be too hard for me to explain it to you.”

Dirk nodded, “Probably..”

Zero started to work on the controls and then lights started to turn on in the cockpit. After the lights went on Zero pulled out a data-pad and plugged it into the controls and hit a few buttons then numbers flew across the data-pad’s screen.

As this was happening something tickled in the back of Dirk’s mind, so he drew his katana.

Zero turned again at the sound then looked at Dirk, “Breaking the ship won’t make this go any faster this time.”

“Something’s wrong, you stay here I’m going to look around.” Dirk turned around and walked out of the cockpit and down towards the door they came through. As Dirk walked out of the dark corridor into the dim light he saw a sight that would frighten many others, surrounding the ship was at least fifteen Rakghouls. Dirk raised the comlink on his arm to his head, “Hey Zero how much time do you need.”

Dirk’s comlink responded, “At least twenty minutes…why?”

Dirk flicked his katana, readying to attack, and smirked, “No reason, just going to clean up a bit out here.”

Zero listened through the comlink “No reason, just going to clean up a bit out here.” He heard Valentine say, and then before the comlink clicked off he heard the growl of a Rakghoul. “That does not sound good at all,” Zero said under his breath.

Looking at the control panel he tapped a few more buttons, then pulled a datapad from his belt. Connecting it to the terminal he punched in a few commands, and lines of text began to scroll across both screens as the search program began.

Turning away from the console, he reached under his cloak, grabbing the hilt of his armory saber. Walking through the hatchway, he saw Dirk surrounded by over a dozen Rakghouls. The Guardian was swinging his katana, hacking at the Rakghouls. Grinning Zero ignited his saber.

“Trying to have all the fun Valentine?” Zero said with a grin.

As the saber sprung to life with a hiss, the Rakghouls turned, eyes burning with desire, the pure simple desire to kill. Bringing his saber up, he lunged at the nearest Rakghoul, his red blade slicing through the air, impacting on the attacking beasts arm, slicing clean through the forearm. The beast howled in pain.

“Zero I told you I had this under control!” Dirk yelled, smashing the katana into a Rakghoul’s head.

“It’s taken care of don’t worry!” Zero replied. “Besides, it wouldn’t do well for inter-house relations for me to let you die here!”

As he brought the saber around again, he felt a shiver run down his spine. Dropping to one knee, he managed to duck as a clawed hand swung overhead, right where his own head would’ve been. In focusing on the enemy in front he’d let one sneak up on him.

“Dirk, we have to come up with a plan, this is ridiculous” Zero said, as he cut the Rakghoul off at the knees.

Outside the crashed ship
Yridia II

“Plan was to keep these things busy as long as I could.” Dirk flipped over a charging Rakghoul and then cut deep into the next one. “But a new plan would probably be helpful now.” Behind him, Zero lopped off the charging Rakghoul’s head.

After fighting for a bit the Rakghouls started to surround the two fighters. Dirk and Zero went back to back and spun around, making sure their backs weren’t exposed. “How much longer until the data-pad finishes?” ,Dirk asked.

“Only a few more minutes, why?”

“I’ve got a plan, go grab the data-pad and set the ship’s engine to explode.”

Zero looked at Dirk like he was crazy, “What?! Your kidding, right?”

“No, now unless you have a better plan I suggest you hurry up.”

Zero grumbled then jumped over the Rakghouls in front of the ship, then ran for the door. The Rakghouls ran after Zero, but before they could get to far Dirk killed one of them with two of his locust knives. The rest of the surrounding Rakghouls charged, Dirk quickly stabbed his katana into the nearest Rakghoul’s head, but couldn’t pull it out and swore.

The Sadowan let go of the sword and pulled the dagger, at his side, out of its sheath. As he swung out the dagger, it caught on a Rakghouls throat and slit it. After killing one more Rakghoul Dirk ran past the Rakghouls that were blocking the path to the speeders. Two Rakghouls immediately followed him, but the rest decided to go into the ship, after Zero. While running Dirk looked back and saw that the Rakghouls were going into the ship, so far his plan was going well.

Zero ran into the cockpit and grabbed the data-pad, which had only had one line on it, the coordinates. He quickly started to overload the engine.

Dirk jumped on his speeder then shot forward spearing into the nearest Rakghoul, then turned the speeder sideways and caught the other one. Still going very fast, Dirk aimed the speeder for the door and had it parallel to the ship.

Zero finished then got up and ran down the corridor and saw most of the Rakghouls running towards him. Zero ran faster and leapt over the hoard , only just missing their claws, as they reached up for him. As he landed he rolled to his feet, so that he would keep his speed and ran out the door. Just as he exited the door, he saw a speeder flying at him, then flipped over it just in time.

Dirk saw Zero fip over him then saw the group of Rakhouls that had been right behind him, and jumped off just before crashing the speeder into the ship’s door. As Dirk got up, he saw Zero was still running away from the ship. At that moment he remembered the second part of this plan and started running away from the ship as fast as he could.

The Rakghouls were trying to get past the speeder that blocked the door when the ship’s engine exploded causing the whole ship to go up.

The blast picked Dirk up off his feet and flung him forward into the ground, knocking him out.

Zero had just gotten out of the blast radius in time. After catching his breath he looked around for his Sadowan partner, then saw him face down on the ground, and he wasn’t moving. “Oh frak.” Zero ran over to Dirk and turned him over. “Valentine…Valentine, come on get up!” Zero yelled.

Dirk cringed, “You don’t have to yell I can still hear you.”

Zero sighed then helped the wounded Sadowan to his feet and walked him over to the last speeder.

“You shouldn’t have been worried about me, dying is something you should always accept on a mission.” Dirk said.

Zero forced a laugh, “I wasn’t worried about you, I was worried I’d have to carry your dead body back to base.”

Dirk grunted in pain as he sat on the speeder, “So we get the coordinates?”

Zero pulled out the data-pad then input the coordinates onto the data-pad’s map, “Yeah, they point to a facility in a nearby city.”

Dirk stared off into the distance, “So what do you want to do, we could go to the coordinates ourselves and check out the facility or we could head back to HQ and report what we found here. The choice is up to you, I’m fine with either."

Zero walked to the second speeder, datapad in hand. Amazingly despite the Rakghoul attack, the second speeder was untouched, and luckily the two equipment packs were still firmly attached.

“You know, your lucky you used the other speeder” Zero said, casting an annoyed look at Valentine.

“Oh really? How is that?” The Sadowan asked.

“If we decide, we’d have lost all our equipment!” Zero stated.

Dirk murmured under his breath, a derogatory comment Zero was not meant to hear. None the less, Zero’s acute sense of hearing heard his words clearly.

“That was not exactly where I intended to shove the equipment” Zero said with a grin.

Lifting on of the bags, Zero began rifling through the contents.

“Lets see, 2 Needler pistols, 2 AKraB vibrodaggers. standard shadow suit. My pack is set” Zero said, snapping the case closed.

Lifting the other case he began looking inside.

“2 AKraB vibrodaggers, 2 standard vibroblades. 1 standard shadow suit” Zero said quietly before closing the case and tossing it to Valentine.

“I think we should do a bit of recon. Wait till dark, utilize the shadow suits, and look into it” Zero said, glancing in the direction of the town.

Dirk nodded, before slinging the case over his shoulders. Zero pulled the backpack on, adjusting the straps. Checking his saber and the condition of the speeder, he looked at Dirk.

“You ready?”

Outside the nearby town
Yridia II
Tarentum Space

Zero stopped the speeder in the woods, just outside the town. Both he and Dirk hopped off and started to make themselves comfortable, while they waited until nightfall.

When the sun finally went down the two put on their shadow suits and the rest of their equipment. Once they were ready they set out for the quit town. They quickly, but stealthy, made their way through the town to the large facility in the middle.

Once they reached the wall that surrounded the building, Dirk put his hand up, signaling Zero to stop.

Dirk turned around to face Zero, “Something feels wrong about this, you checkout the building, I’m going to take a quick look around town.”

“What!? Why we’re right here.” Zero said.

Dirk looked back towards the dark town, “It’s only just after dark, there should at least be a few people with their lights on, but no the whole town is pitch black, let me just look around for a few minutes then I’ll come back and we can head inside.”

Zero thought it over for a minute then agreed.

Dirk silently ran off back into town, while Zero turned towards the building and started to climb the surrounding wall.

Dirk looked around for a few minutes then chose a random house and tried the door, it was unlocked. He became like a wraith and made his way through the house without making a sound. After finding nothing downstairs he headed upstairs to check the bedrooms. When he opened the door to the first room it was in ruins, sheets were torn, curtains were shredded, and there were broken object covering the floor. The room looked like a wild animal had been released into it.

Dirk made his way to the next room and found it in the same state, but something kept bothering him about the rooms, if the people did change into Rakghouls why weren’t any of the exits broken like the doors or the window. When Dirk went to the last room he found a crib in the middle of it, upon looking inside of it Dirk was disgusted, inside the crib was a baby that had partially mutated into a Rakghoul, the worst part was the gaping hole in the child’s head from what looked like a blaster shot.

Dirk ran out of the house and into the next one and found the same destroyed rooms but all the doors and windows were intact and adult Rakghoul bodies. It was only in the fourth house did he find something, under a table was tranquilizer round, which Dirk wouldn’t have seen if it hadn’t been for the little bit of moonlight that reflected off of it. Dirk started to put things together, weren’t any Rakghouls because they had all been gathered up and the ones that weren’t fully grown were killed and left behind. Dirk looked through a window in the house towards the facility, and thought that they might find a lot more Rakghouls then they were hoping too.

The Sadowan ran back to the wall and found Zero waiting there.

“What took you so long, you said only a few minutes, I’ve been waiting for almost half an hour?” Zero said quietly, but anger still noticeable.

“How many guards were there?” Dirk asked, not answering Zero’s question.

“Don’t dodge my question. Wha-”

“How many guards!” Dirk asked again.

Zero ground his teeth, “Too many why?”

Dirk told Zero about what he found in town and what he thought happened.

Zero thought to himself for a second, “Well we definitely know something is going on inside that building. So let’s go check it out.”

Dirk nodded, “Ready when you are.”