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Better Off Dead; Carrier Quest
Topic Started: May 29 2011, 11:25 PM (119 Views)
Athena
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One of the smaller CC facilities on Namek had put out distress beacon sometime in the early morning hours. Given her close proximity, Athena was dispatched to deal with it. Should have been a pretty straight forward sort of assignment for a member of CCI, right? Especially for someone like Athena. The mission seemed to fit her specialty well enough: take some statements and try to identify what really happened, if anything...etc. Funny she just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Instincts told her it was more than just coincidence.

Athena had to remember to listen to those more often...

The facility in question was a small set of labs masked as one of the many hospitals in the Dahn-tu Village. CC scientists had been on Namek aiding and studying the various life forms residing on the planet. Mostly they were an alliance outpost to Namek who remained mostly neutral in matters of war, especially in most recent time. Thankfully, those aware of the miniature facility had found them more helpful than not and so the mutual cohabitation had continued.

Getting any kind of a distress signal from Namek had been unusual, something that hadn’t slipped by Athena as she touched down near the facility itself. The nameless building was located right near the middle of the city, something Athena referred to as hiding in plain sight. She knew what she was looking for by the report that Forsch had forwarded her not long after she’d moved into transmission range upon landing on Namek. It was obvious that Forsch wasn’t concerned about any physical altercations, otherwise he might have sent Melo with her.

At least, she hoped he wasn’t...It was getting harder and harder to work for Forsch and trust his judgement. So regardless of how easy this mission was supposed to be, Athena approached with caution. From the outside, the four story building looked innocent enough. She’d landed not far away, the blue and black carpet vanishing in a blink of white light as she stepped down onto the simple stone road outside of it it. Unlike Earth, paved roads were very rare and didn’t travel for long distances like they did on Earth. The truth was, most people walked or flew where they needed to go on Namek. The city was surprisingly quiet given the high time of day, and the woman took her first steps towards the facility, ready to investigate.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Del said from behind her. It wasn’t so much that the man appeared, he just was. He wasn’t the type to come and go, he was always there, somewhere now. Athena couldn’t feel anything but annoyed when he randomly inserted himself into her daily routine.

And why is that?” she replied uncaring of his answer. More and more the Namekian had been appearing and giving her his two cents. Was he hoping she would remember something? Well, it hadn’t worked. She remembered as much that day as she did before she’d met him. Other than his name of course, which she suspected was his memory and not hers.

“I don’t have to tell you something is wrong. The only reason I know that, is because you do.” Del was stating the obvious as he moved up beside her, his nearly seven foot frame towering her in comparison. She’d known the minute she had been given the mission that there was something wrong. It had been in Forsch’s voice over the communicator. The entire idea behind such a mission was beyond her. If this facility was so damn important to them, and it was in some sort of trauma bad enough to require a panic beacon over an actual transmission then shouldn’t a team have been out here to investigate. For a moment, Athena contemplated contacting Melo as she stood there moments from walking inside. The truth of the matter was, having him as back up would have made her feel more secure. She doubted he was even in the same galaxy as her though. No, she was on her own with this one. Well, kind of.

“Your silence only confirms what you’re thinking, Athena. You should rethink this.”

I don’t have much of a choice,” she countered as she started towards the front set of doors. She knew what he was going to retort with and she shot him a look of death over her shoulder as she reached out and pushed against the double doors.

What she expected was the busy sound of work taking place: phones ringing, footsteps echoing through hallways, people conversing, music playing, minds busy thinking about whatever it was this place was built around. What she encountered was utter silence on all levels. For a moment, she thought the building might have been empty at first glance as she reached out metaphysically and felt her way through the hallways before she actually walked down them. Her footfalls were silent in the short black boots she was wearing over the snug black pants she wore low on her hips. Her shirt was a dark blue and hit her short on the midsection leaving her thin waist in view under the long black jacket she was wearing open in the front. The floor was tiled a nice shiny white with silver flecks that caught the long runner lights overhead and made them glitter as she moved over them. Del was soundless beside her. Could figments of your imagination make noise?

When Athena’s unseen senses didn’t detect anything outright she breathed in and drew air in through that sensitive nose of hers. What she found there was death. Most importantly, blood, and lots of it. More than any one person should dispel and hope to survive. She paused though Del kept moving forward. The long white robes he was wearing swayed as he walked with ethereal grace. She wondered if his feet were even on the ground as he came to stop at the entry of the first glass door on the right. A sign on the wall was translated from Namekian to display: Lab 0A-9C. The look on Del’s face told her everything she needed to know about that room without having to look herself. When she came to stand beside the Namekian apparition she prepared herself for the worst.

Not even that was enough...

The inside of the white lab was painted red in pools of blood stretched out across the floor. She lifted a hand to cover her mouth as she walked slowly inside. There were at least twelve bodies, all of which were gutted in long straight slices from throat to groin, spilling their blood and bowels across the floor. The smell of decay hadn’t quite settled in making the kill fresh, at least within the last eight to twelve hours. The blood had begun to dry in places, turning black and clotted around the edges. She examined the room to find bullet holes in perfectly straight lines across the walls and in the ceilings. Plaster had rained down where it had been blown away, leaving thick gouges behind and white dust all over the room. It was hard to even make out the rest of the lab beneath the gore but she spotted several computer terminals and some rolling tables in various places. The contents that had sat on them were strewn about: broken glass, clipboards, papers, etc.

A wave of nausea hit her and she turned away from the graphic display and right into Del who was standing there, a very concerned look on his face. He rested his hands on her shoulders and moved her from the room. Once free of it she leaned against the wall and dry heaved, drawing air in and out of her lungs over and over again to try and calm herself down and regain her composure.

All those people...” To her, they’d been co-workers in the field. People who had moved to Namek in hopes of pursuing good and safe science. Now they were nameless faces on the floor in a puddle of their own death.

“You can’t do anything for them,” Del’s voice drew her out of the fog of panic and she looked at him. He was kneeling next to her, his hand on her arm - solid, warm, and alive. If she didn’t know for a fact he wasn’t really alive anymore she’d have sworn he was actually there with her. “You have to focus, Athena. You were sent here for a reason. You have to figure out what caused this, as horrible as it is.”

Athena was silent while she debated with herself whether or not she was going to vomit. Only when she realized they weren’t really alone did she raise her head.

He...or it rather came stepping around the corner by the door she’d entered. She’d have thought it was human by looking at it, but its lower extremities bent in the wrong direction at the knee joint much like a dog’s. It’s upper half was human enough but massive in size. Its head very nearly brushed the ceiling that she would have gathered was almost ten feet tall. It stopped at the far end of that lobby while Athena remained at the narrow entrance of the hallway, staring openly at it as it remained silent and still. She knew though, rather by the absence of an ascertainable thought process what it was.

“Android,” Del said, the voice of her own deductions.

It was then it began to shift in size and shape, lowering until its knees bent backwards in a coiled position. She several large turrets rise out of the machine’s shoulders, her eyes widening as a distinct whirring noise filled the entire room.

“RUN!!!” Del shouted as he spun Athena on her toes and shoved her into the hallway.

All around her bullets ricocheted off the walls and across the floor and ceiling. She moved as fast as her powerful legs would carry her and turned as soon as she could as those deadly little missiles clicked loudly all around her, narrowly missing her as she skidded out of sight. Athena didn’t stop to look back either as she took off through the labyrinth of hallways. She didn’t have time to try and remember the way she’d come or how to get out. What she needed was to get away from imminent death and regroup herself.

Not far behind her she could hear it running, firing off round after round when it managed to catch up with her enough to unleash hell. As she shifted on her legs and turned through yet another corridor she felt the biting sting of bullets rush up her side, catching her in the thigh, midsection, and several times in the shoulder. Adrenaline surged through the pain, but a steady stream of red pumped out quicker by her raging heart left him an easy trail. Her mind was racing trying to deduce outcomes while trying to keep herself in operation while precious blood pumped out onto the floor as she ran. Her body was numb on one side shaving off seconds she needed to try and escape.

Athena slammed into a bathroom door as she limped inside, locking the door behind her, pointlessly. If that thing was hell bent on catching her it would take much more than a little single bolted door to stop it. Athena threw herself across the sink and gasped for air, her hand on her neck to check her heart rate. It was sporadic at best. She tried not to panic as she stared at herself in the mirror.

“You have to calm down,” Del said, his voice bordering panic as he appeared in the mirror beside her, his hand on her shoulder. “If you don’t slow your heart rate down you’ll die before you even stand a chance of getting out of here.”

Easier....said...than...done.” she gasped through large heaves of air. Athena pulled back her jacket to look at her side. A bullet high in her shoulder had nearly missed her neck, another near her scapula had lowered her arm’s mobility considerably. A third had entered and exited through her side, an angry black hole left in its wake and a fourth had grazed her thigh. She was almost completely red on that one side. Del watched her face pale visibly, her head swimming with panic.

“NO! You have to stay awake. Athena, wake up!” Del caught her as she nearly passed out, his hand on her face holding it upright to look at him. “You’re not dead, but you will be if you don’t keep moving.”

She stared at him through half opened eyes trying to bring to sense what he was saying to her. The truth was she was more out of her body than in it. When she started shaking from shock, Del cursed and knelt with her. Funny enough, she worried about bleeding on his perfectly white robes when he pulled her against him.

Without another thought he held a hand over her midsection, a powerful white light stemming from that open palm and spread with purpose across her entire body. It locked her in place, made her focus on what he was doing as she registered he was using magic that wasn’t hers at all. It was easier to think, easier to focus, and soon all recollection of pain at all was gone.

He was healing her.

“Before you ask,” he said as he closed his hand and withdrew it from her body. “No, I’m not some dead spirit.”

No he wasn’t. She’d always tried to think of him as a ghost. No, his brother had absorbed him at the point of death preserving his likeness and apparently his power in the vessel of his own body. Now, his vessel was Athena. Lucky her.

A loud banging on the bathroom door made her jump as it caved inwards from the large blunt object that had struck it. Del helped her to her feet as she stood in the middle of the room mostly covered in blood from her life threatening wounds. When the door nearly flew off its hinges and smashed into the opposite wall she threw her hands up in front of her, light blue ki spiralling down her arms. Gunfire opened up around her, but this time it hit the barrier of energy she’d constructed between it and herself, those bullets falling to the floor harmlessly at her feet. The rest of that bathroom was destroyed - stalls eaten through, the sinks shattered, tiles on the walls destroyed as they fell in pieces.

When the Android found its attacks to be worthless, the gunfire came to a stop and the small cannons raised out of its shoulders sank back down into its body. The blues of Athena’s eyes vanished into white as she lowered her head and slammed her foot to the ground. Energy rippled out from her, unseen and dangerous as it tore through the floor and destroyed the doorway. The machine was pushed back through the wall of the opposite hallway as Athena took off after it. She dived through the hole it created and tumbled into the next room. The metal death had landed on its back, stunned from the amount of telekinetic energy she’d thrown at it at once. Without giving it time to recover, Athena crawled onto the large thing’s chest, her legs out in splits to keep its arms from ready reaching up to snag her. It was leverage versus strength as she lifted both hands up over her head. They pulsed with vibrant energy as she brought it crushing down onto the thing’s head over and over again. Destroy the core, destroy the beast. And if the core wasn’t reachable, its brain would work just fine. She beat it til her hands bled, tearing its synthetic skin away from its metal skull. Dark fingers pressed into the rounded curve as she yanked hard, severing the head from the shoulders with notable effort. Athena felt its power core shut down as she gripped its skull between her hands.

If it wasn’t dead it would take some time to get back up, of that she was certain. For right now, that was good enough for her. With shaking hands she turned that massive head in her hands, surprised by the sheer weight of it as she drew her legs in enough to stand up. Once on her feet, she nudged the fallen machine with her toe to ensure herself it wasn’t going to jump up and grab her again.

“Are you alright?” Del asked as he put himself between her and it, mostly for his own sanity than hers.

I’m not dead. Thanks to you. She didn’t look at him when she said it because her eyes were fixed on the metal skull in her hand’s. Athena turned it over and peeled the faux skin back from the base of the skull, looking for some kind of identifier. She was there to investigate what had happened to this place. This was the best place she could think of to start. Athena froze when she saw the imprint in the metal on the surface.

“KK?” Del asked. The truth was he was just voicing the question she was asking herself.

Kurenai Kinetics,” she answered herself, recognizing the symbol of one of Namek’s facilitators. It was Capsule Corporation’s job to know the names of all the major corporations of research, and even the not so major ones, like KK. Namek wasn’t necessarily known for its technological gifts. They were even less known for murderous androids destroying entire buildings of people. Something was definitely not right here. She could smell the deception behind the truth she was being fed and something told her she wasn’t supposed to have lived through this. Which meant one important thing...

Forsch was more of a bastard than she thought.

Without another thought, Athena reached into one of the many pockets lining her pants and pulled out a small round device, thankful it had escaped a soak in blood. Her communicator fit into the palm of her hand as she opened it up, reaching out to the one person she knew would want to know about this.

Melo. If ever there was a time to answer, now would be it.

“Welcome to Yardra-”

Give me that! Yo, sorry about that. Friend of mine got a hold of the communicator. What’s up?” Melo answered after a short interruption by a person Athena would not know.


Good to know you’re making friends. And hopefully not eating anyone else,” she chuckled, despite the destruction around her.

Listen...I ran into what I think could be a mutual acquaintance of yours, indirectly. Remember that group you wanted to look into on Namek? Well, one of their little toys just tried to kill me. And no, running into murderous death machines was not on my to do list today.” She didn’t have to read his mind to know what he might have said next.

Namek... that would be Kurenai Kinetics, right? Yeah, I don’t think they have a recall on their vibrators. Listen, I’m headin’ to Frieza #79 in about two days. Meet me at the docking bay where we landed to find Presley and we’ll see what the hell is goin’ on. Tell me Forsch didn’t send you there.

She was silent a moment.

Alright, I won’t tell you that Forsch sent me here. The frown in her voice was more than enough evidence that he had in fact sent her on a mission. “I was supposed to be investigating a distress beacon in some CCI owned facilities. I just so happened to be the closest one. Everyone was dead when I got here. If I didn’t know any better, I would say Forsch doesn’t like me much. Under normal circumstances, I can’t say I would have made it out of this one..." Athena reached down and touched her side, though absent any wounds she recalled quite vividly the pain of that bullet biting into her flesh. Yes, if she hadn’t possessed Del, she would have very likely died there with all those people.

Looks like our paths are comin’ together. You’ll have to tell me how you made it out of this one, hopefully you can remember this time, yeah? Melo was semi-joking with his last statement; there was also a sliver of concern in his words, meaning he was trying to hold it back.

Smart ass.” So maybe hanging around Melo had resulted in adopting some of his rudeness. Either way, she glared at the communicator in her hand. “I’ll fill you in on the details when I see you. I’ve no intentions of staying on Namek anymore, so I’ll leave right away. And just because I like you so much, I’ll even bring you a gift.” At that, she lifted the android’s skull in her other hand on a sort of twisted Shakespearean method.

A gift? Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Just make sure not to wear the black lipstick this time... it leaves marks.

Only if you’re really good. Otherwise I might have to re-enact exactly how I came across this gift of yours. See you then.

Athena snapped the device closed, effectively ending the transmission.

“So Frieza?” Del said. Athena had almost forgotten he was there.

Yes. Frieza...I could use the extra zenni. Thankfully my ship has some room...




[Carrier Quest - Space Travel - Namek to Frieza #79]
[Travel Time - 2 Days]
[+140 EXP // +100 Zenni]
[Quest Reward - 50 Zenni per opening = 200z total]
[Arrive at 05/30 11:24 PM CST]
Edited by Athena, May 30 2011, 07:56 AM.
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