lol, I'm not God ... but I suppose if it makes you feel better ...
When she rejoined the group, the bleak look in her shadowy eyes was all they needed to see to know Grath's fate. One door stood between them and Shonar, and Zazz Darkfist's arm-mounted rocket launchers took care of that obstacle.
Then they were free, and the
Lessaria lay ahead of them, behind a chainlink fence and gates, locked with an old-fashioned padlock.
Nightshade pushed her way silently to the front of the group and held out her hand imperiously. Copper smirked and handed her a skeleton key. Now the Assassin would earn her keep. She bent over the lock, working silently. Sensibly, she had changed into working garments, changing her silky dress for less feminine clothing. After a moment, she stood back and the gate swung open. Copper grinned at her cousin, and then gestured for the Assassin to take the lead. With grave dignity, Nightshade stepped into the compound, ready to cut and run should any danger present itself. But no enemies fired and no alarms went off, and Nightshade made it to the
Lessaria with no trouble.
When they had all made it to the small ship (it was a little squished), Shinyso and Omega offered to stand guard. Copper allowed Shinyso, but told Omega that he could not afford to miss this. Because he was telepathic, Shinyso could still hear theconversation.
Shonar began, sitting in the pilot's seat of his small, modified Protector. In his hand he held a small data chip.
"Right. I can't send the program to the Sarav because the
Soldier of Fortune might intercept it. However, I understand that the presence of a certain Fader is distracting Beren and his people enough that a bit of teleporting won't be noticed - as you should know, Faders are one of the only things that can destroy these guys. So while this Fader is covering for you, Wild Angel here can do a bit of long-range teleporting." He paused, and Zazz Darkfist piped up.
"My ship
Star Falkon is on Carrotus. I'd have brought it, but they impounded it because of some odd modification. I can help you if you need."
Nightshade added, "
Nebular Web is on Drant."
"So's Omega's ship, the
Jendara," Alpha added. "If you've got copies of that program ... "
Shonar gave her a quick grin. "Don't need it. Angel here gets you aboard your ships and here, and I can send your vessels the program via a special comm channel. However, during the time it takes to load the program on, install it and get it running, your systems will be very vulnerable to any virus contacted. So I recommend that you shut everything possible down. I'll broadcast the thing on that channel, shortrange, so be ready to recieve it. Got that?"
"Yeah," Copper confirmed. "Right. Here's what we're gonna do - Zazz and Nightshade, you pilot your own ships. Kovu, you're the only one Claw's letting pilot the
Vortex Crawler, so Saturn'll take the
Moonblaze because her ship was destroyed by Beren. Omega, can you pilot Jassiv's
Starblown?" At his not she continued, "good. Kaz, Blackie, I hate to say it but you'll be in charge of the
Assassin, and of course Shonar'll have the
Lessaria. Phoebe, you can take Wild Angel's
Webmaster. So, that cuts our intrusion team down to Claw, Ducky, Wild Angel, Zanzibar, Shinyso and me."
Alpha grinned. "You forgot me and the
Jendara."
Copper smacked her head with the heel of her hand. "I knew I'd forgotten someone. Too much to remember. Thanks, Alpha. Angel, can you handle all that?"
"Sure can, but I don't know how."
"Maybe this'll help," the mercenary said, handing the magician the broken halves of Grath's staff. "I don't know - I'm not a magic-user."
"No, that'll be useful," ANgel said, brightening. "So. Who's first?"
"I'll go," Zazz said. "
Star Falkon's all prepped and waiting for me to pay the fine."
"Right. Take this," Wild Angel instructed, passing the bounty hunter the bottom half of the staff. Holding the top half, she pulled the location of the ship from Zazz's mind and worked an intricate bit of magic, both pulling the
Star Falkon towards her and pushing Zazz into it. The result was a sleek ship with four engines arranged like a plus sign or a cross, with an engine at the end of each arm. It looked fast and deadly.
Repeating the process with each pilot, in short order the
Lessaria was a lot emptier, and the air around it full of hovering ships. Bending and picking up the bottom half of the staff (which, incidentally, had not gone with them), Angel banished all the ships to where the Sarav waited. Shonar flashed a tense grin at Copper.
"Progran transfer done. Get up here, will you, and pilot this piece of junk. Angel, you've got about twenty seconds before that Fader hides her presence again. Get us up past the
Soldier and we're home free."
"Done," she said, and their surroundings altered as she slammed her shields up, also shielding the staff and Copper's sword. Something about Zanzibar's talisman made her shield that too, and Ducky. Then she abruply sat down and closed her eyes.
Copper started the engines on this unfamiliar craft, and throttled up. Shonar slid a data chip into a slot on the console and pressed a button. The scanners flared to life, showing every Sarav that had come to help. Even now they were recieving the program from Kovu, who had the original data chip. Copper recognized Emerald Dragon's green fighter, the
Dragonfire, as well as Scimitar's crescent-shaped ship that bristled with lasers, the
Razor's Slash, and Ferran's needle-like
Edge of Infinity. Even as she watched the scanners, the ships were duplicated over and over until they reached the size of a small army. Quite a few non-Sarav, members of other gangs, had come along, swelling their numbers. Their swift maneuvering and intricate attacks lent the impression of even more fighters than there really were.
"Right. Kovu,
Vortex Crawler has the torps we need. Follow me, line up on the nose of the
Venomstrike, fire. Then go after the
Soldier. After we're inside, forget us, just don't kill
Venom!"
"Got it. Crawler
out."
No, I can't kill you off, but I could add you in and THEN kill you off. So there.