"What do you know about Infinity Inc.?" asked Dominator. The Senator attempted to spit out some curses, but the information scrolled across the screen. It was basically the same stuff Dominator already knew, which wasn't that helpful to begin with. It seemed the Senator dealt with the basically with the lower employees. He sent most of his aid to a smaller corporation set up by Infinity Inc. to help profit it. THAT was something.
"Tell me the name of the smaller corporation, Senator..." Dominator commanded. The Senator finally began to look worried as the information scrolled out. Titus Facilities. Smiling, Dominator gave a thumbs up to Cheryl and Dakota who were in the room with him, to make sure nothing bad happened to the Senator while hooked up to this thing. "Where is Titus Facilities located?" Dominator said calmly to the frightened Senator. A location popped up on the screen and Dominator recorded it. "Is that all you know?" he asked. The answer came out a yes.
Turning away from the man, Dominator patted Cheryl on the shoulder. "You and Dakota patch him up some and then prepare a shuttle to take him back to Earth. We have enough proof that he was working for Infinity Inc. so we don't have to worry about EarthGov coming down on us...at least too hard. Send the bodyguard along with him. No sense in keeping extra people around, I say..." Dominator told them. Cheryl nodded and went over to help the Senator.
Walking out the door, Dominator grabbed his comm. link. "Patch me through to Slash," he told Hunter Tower. A few seconds later Slash was on the other end. "Slash, alert the Hunters to a briefing tomorrow. And, if possible, find out where Wiendigo has vanished too. I could use his help on the upcoming mission against Infinity Inc."
"Sure thing, Dominator," Slash said. Dominator clicked the comm. off and went off to search for information on Titus Facilities. He had no time to worry about anything else but the problem on hand. However Death Star managed, he didn't know. But in the end, it broke Death Star.....
Knowing that in the next few seconds another shot was about to go off, for whoever this was they were good, Death Star bent to his knees and rolled off the edge of the beam and began to fall rapidly towards the ground. Holding his saber in his hand, he threw it out and listened to it hit a beam hard, slicing into it some even, but it stopped Death Star from falling. The impact caused Death Star to bounce up some, also sending a painful jolt through his arm, and he went over the edge again, falling to the finished part of the structure. The hit caused him to go at a slight angle now and he was able to smash into one of the windows with his back, partially using his jetpack to propel himself backwards inside. Just then, from the ground this time and not from the sniper, came a volley of shots as he went in.
Laying on his back in agonizing pain, Death Star struggled to get up when he heard footsteps coming for him.
Glancing through the scope, he saw that Death Star was on his back, barely moving. And he could take the shot....Just then his comm. crackled as the volley of shots from below stopped. "Carter?! Carter?! Did you get him?" came the voice of his boss. He, Jared "Blackjack" Carter, had almost just shot his x-Commander.
"Yeah, target hit, sir..." Blackjack said, still watching Death Star through the scope. Just then two figures came up from behind him and snatched Death Star, dragging him out of the line of sight. Hesitating for a few seconds, Jared laid his sniper rifle down and morphed into a falcon. Squawking, he flew down across the air and into the broken window. Landing on the ground, he morphed back into himself and pulled out his weapons. Walking around the corner, he searched for any signs of Death Star and his mysterious captors but saw neither. Walking past a room, he was suddenly jumped by three bodies. "WHOA!" Blackjack shouted as he hit the ground hard, seeing stars briefly as his vision cleared. On him was Death Star, Garland, and X1. "You?!" everyone said at once.
"Jared?!" Death Star muttered through a hoarse breath, still hurting from the fall. "What the hell are you doing here?!" he asked.
"Um... er..." Blackjack muttered.
"You were the sniper! Damnit man, you could've killed me..." hissed Death Star, glancing around. "So, you're back with CorSec as a SWAT person?" he commented.
"SWAT? You mean he swats flies? I could use a man of that expertise..." X1 spoke up.
"He means Special Weapons And Tactics unit, X1. I heard about it when I was with CorSec," Garland informed him, his eyes darkening some when he thought of CorSec.
"Yeah... I had a... reason to go back to CorSec. Sorry about nearly killing you, but I didn't know who you were, I just thought you were some guy taking out our Special Weapons divisions," Blackjack told them. Garland shifted some and Death Star's eyes narrowed.
"You've been gone for 3 months or so, God, it's been so long I can't remember, and now I learn you've joined CorSec? Why'd you join CorSec again, Jared? I - we - thought you learned!" Death Star exclaimed.
"Death Star, things have changed with CorSec! It's different now..." Blackjack pointed out, his voice trailing off. Suddenly noises from the other SWAT personal was heard nearby, coming up the stairs. Garland glanced down there and turned back to Death Star. "We have to go!" Garland hissed, glaring angrily about something Jared didn't know about.
"I know," Death Star said and turned back to Jared. "Good luck to you, Carter. You'll need it with CorSec..." he pointed out and turned to leave. A sound of door being forced open was heard, echoing down the hallways.
"Death Star. ...never mind. Farewell." Jared saluted, and turned, walking to meet the rest of his team. And he never did learn what the entire thing was going on with Death Star, CorSec, and whatever they were looking for....
"Chief, you need help..." X1 said.
"I do not...now lets move before we get caught..." Death Star told him. X1 reached into one of his many compartments and pulled out a moldy loaf of bread and smacked Death Star with it.
"I said you need help. Once we get out of here, I'm going to sow you up and you're going to take it easy..." X1 commanded. Death Star begrudgingly nodded, wondering how the hell X1 carried all that stuff anyway. X1 morphed his body into a small bridge to the ground below. Garland helped Death Star walk down the bridge and to their car, which had surprisingly gone unnoticed by anyone. X1 opened the backdoor and Garland laid Death Star on the back, who was passing out from the damage he took. That's when Garland noticed that the wound was deep and that Death Star's arm was quite damaged.
"...Will he be okay?" asked Garland, not wanting to think of losing both Sharlena and Death Star in one day. X1 made a joke that didn't even pass through Garland's ears as he closed the back door and sat in the driver's seat. Trying to cheer up, he said, "Well, lets see how good I do driving..." Pressing down on the gas pedal, he rammed out through people in front of the building and went down the street before anyone could tell what happened.
X1 brought out his medical pouch and began to work on Death Star, who was out cold. Remembering Dominator, Garland grabbed the comm. link and called him up. After assuring him everything was fine, he hung up before Dominator could detect he was lying. Not that he could detect Di'Mantha's presence in him. Garland brought his attention back to the matter on hand. There was no sign of Sharlena, but they did find a clue. Which was probably something only Death Star could decipher. Pulling up to a Hotel, he hoped there would be no more trouble tonight.
"Stuff a sock in it buddy, I sure didn't get drug out of bed at 3 in the morning just to listen to you whine." snapped Cheryl.
"How the hell are we going to get in there? Look at all the guards, we'll never get past." Regulus pointed out. Squadrons of security surrounded the facility. It wasn't going to be an easy task at all.
"Easy, you're the bait."
The trio gawked back at Wiendigo. "Excuse me? You're NOT using us as bait!" Cheryl protested, about ready to beat the tar out of Wien anyway.
"Shut up for a minute and listen, you little dumbasses. All four of us will never make it in there. I've got the stealth abilities, but even all the extra security is going to slow me down. So be good little kamakazi targets and run interference, drawing away any attention to me, so that I can slip in, destroy what I need, and slip out. Got it? Or do I have to beat you all shitless until you understand?"
"Wien, you'd better hope we make it back alright. Otherwise, if one of us dies, you're dead." Preacher beemed at their quasi-executioner.
"Just move out, pissant. NOW."
The three mumbled about Wiendigo as they moved out. Keeping his eye on the building, Wiendigo growled as he started to fade into the shadows.
The female reploid scrambled over her controls. "I-It seems we've been shot," she said. Steel whirled his head around and saw the attacker ship, just as they were out of site of the station due to the moon it orbited. The ship fired again on them and Steel barely managed to pull out of the way. "Sending a call for help to the station; warning them about the attackers."
"Good. Can you identify that ship?" Steel asked as he flipped power to shields.
"No." Steel cursed as another blast hit the shuttle, blowing the shields out completely. "We're done for. We cannot take another hit like that..." he muttered as tried to enter hyperspace, but some sort of field from the ship was blocking it. The ship fired once more and the blast hit the Yiyan in the back, totally destroying the engines and sending the shuttle spinning in space, towards Jupiter. The comm. beeped with an incoming transmission.
"Prepare to be boarded and your 'cargo' taken," came a voice over it.
"....We have no choice," Steel said to Sherry. She nodded, terrified. "Granted...feel free to board. We have nothing more to put out in a fight, I'm afraid..." Steel told them and flipped the comm. off. He turned to her. "If we can stall long enough, the HQ will send out some fighters, I'm sure..." She nodded again.
Suddenly the shuttle jerked when the other ship docked. Steel frowned as he heard the doors opening and troops walking in. They were all cyborgs, human...this was by HUMANS. The lead one, a scientist looking fellow, nodded. "My name is Shell. We're taking these two back with us," he said and the troops with him freed the Senator and his bodyguard, the Senator thanking them over and over. When they were off, Shell walked off with them and the ship undocked.
"That was too easy..." Steel said, his eyes narrowing. He turned and saw that the ship was turning back around. "Shit! That son of a bitch!" he shouted and shoved Sherry down, both sliding across the floor to escape pods. Just then the ship fired, hitting the Yiyan as they slid down towards the opening doors to the escape pods, blowing the shuttle up completely.
"In other news," Dominator continued, trying to keep his own anger down. He was furious that this happened and would see to it Infinity Inc. got what was coming to it, "I found out about Titus Facilities. A small corporation that makes a special kind of metal for Infinity Inc. products, from the planet Jarivan where a special mineral is produced. Titus mines these minerals and builds the product and sells it to the mother company, Infinity Inc. A nice round about way of doing business. Now, Titus deals in it's own affairs too, like hiring pirates and other groups to move the mineral plus a deadly plant juice there that could even put a reploid out for days. Now, my plan is this: we're going to take a few of the ships from the Lost Armada and repaint them to make it look like pirate ships. We'll then head to the planet were we begin to drop hints in what we deal in. If we're lucky, we'll be brought up to the station above where we can learn more about the location of Infinity Inc. is, so we can stop Fade and Shell from killing anyone else, like Dath," Dominator informed them. He noticed that Darien shifted some when he mentioned Dath. Who knew what the kid was experiencing. "Hopefully, when we learn the information needed, we can take out Titus Facilities and then move on and intercept Infinity Inc.
"Now, we're all going to have to change our appearances to look like pirates. We can't walk in there and hope that we are not recognized as the famous Hunters of Earth. Once on planet, you will play the role I give you. Slash will be my first in command; Slash, pick a name suitable for you before we go. I am just the Captain and do not go out on missions with you. I'm more of a manager. That will be my excuse to stay on the Flag Ship of our pirate group encase things go down. Slash is the ace pilot of the group, so don't out fly him...any of you. Now, according to information, Titus deals in gambling, so we'll probably spend most of our time in the casinos. Something Blackjack would have liked if he were here, I'm sure," Dominator went on, feeling a slight pang of sadness thinking about how he hadn't seen Blackjack in awhile. He wondered where he went. According to Death Star, he left to think over somethings. That was three months ago. Looking at Slash, Dominator noted that he too missed Jared due to the funny look that flickered on his face. "That will basically be the ground part of our mission. The stational part will be the most difficult due to the fact we'll have to run a few errands so we can get close enough to gaining the information we need. Once we learn, I'll further brief you. As for now, that is the plan. Expect alterations. Any questions?" asked Dominator.
Slasher raised his hand and asked, "Do we get to name ourselves?" Dominator nodded, depending on what they picked.
Seraphna went next. "What is our ranks?" she commented.
"I'll give that you later. I'll probably base it on the ranks already being used now," he said. After everyone else finished, Dominator nodded. "Okay, we have 24 hours to get ready. See the Hunter's Bar's bartender, she also deals in appearances it seems, to get your new looks. If you have free time, and I mean ANY free time, you'll report for painting duty on the ships." Darien perked up at that, seeing as he painted the control room it's new look, that no bothered to change. "Remember, in exactly 24 hours, meet in the hanger bay. We'll be taking off then and heading out to Jarivan," Dominator finished and walked off to get ready for his role.
"Y-Yes thank y-you."
Fade smiled, if you could call it that, and stepped closer to him. "What did you tell the Hunters?" he snarled.
"N-Nothing!" shouted the Senator in fear.
"You're lying to me, Hodges. You know how I feel about liars..." Fade said and raised his hand to Hodge's face and blew it off, melting every piece of flesh and blood that came out instantly. The headless body collapsed to the floor. He turned to the scared bodyguard. "You, on the other hand, might be useful yet..." Fade told him.
Xevil nodded slowly, turning to him. "Yes. Do you want a load of them?" he asked, turning back to the hallway, lost in thought with the progress of Alien Nation. They were being slowly pushed back on some fronts, but on others they were progressing. He knew EarthGov would soon send the Hunters after them, and he was slowly preparing a plan, a new ship design, to deal with that. But that would be some time.
"Yes. I have plans to take out some of the Hunter's key players. I have their leader eating out of my hand, practically, by controlling Iceheart. It's a stroke of luck North Star's beacon lead me to her dead body..." Crucifixtion commented.
"Excellent. You will wipe the Hunters out while I prepare my armies. The Elder is growing impatient on how long it is taking to take over Earth. Soon it will have been a year since we have begun. He hopes to have the Earth under his control by the year mark or he feels the counsel will begin to look down on this operation. We cannot have that, can we?" Xevil said.
"No. But do not worry. Everything is going according to plan. Soon Earth will be yours...and all the humans will be dead. Starting with the deaths of Death Star, Garland, and X1..."