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Jaxom awaits the retreat of the party members.
”What? I thought we were pulling back!”
"What? Ok, Ricky, err, Randy? Roger, I mean Roger!"
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Up near the ceiling of the chamber, Telion glows briefly with stellar iridescence before blasting downwards towards the sniper, landing a solid blow to the green-skinned android's face. Laser blasts from Diamaante and August blast the scene, the operative scoring a minor wound on the sniper's leg. Jaxom and Jagjug struggle to turn around within the tunnel.
The dispassionate sniper looks at the snarling korasha lashunta with a cocked head. They take one hand off of their sniper rifle and hold the hand out towards Telion, palm facing his eyes.
The android lets the sniper rifle fall from their hands as a laser pistol springs from a quick-draw sheath on their wrist into their hands. Telion is left stunned, a scorch mark in his torso.
"What the..." Telion's thoughts were cut short when the laser pistol popped out. "Fine, let's see how you do back there." The solarian kicked off the ground, a bit awkwardly, sending him tumbling back into the open cavern, but ignored the spinning surroundings. Instead, he reached out, gathered his will and pulled, sending a ripple of graviton energy out and snaring his android attacker.
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Telion pushes up and back from the android with a burst of kinetic energy with partial success. As the solarian rises, he directs his gravity-infused hand at the android, acting just like a tractor beam. Unfortunately for Diamaante, the sudden displacement of her enemy throws her shots off, and her shots ricochet wide. Idar takes careful aim as the android flies closer.
His shot sails far off target.
Jaxom attempts a 180 and to head back to the fight...
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August launches himself from the floor in a tight spiral, lasers showering the android sniper trapped in Telion's gravitational pull. A laser blasts through the sniper, a further shower of sparks and blood encircling the forms hovering off the floor.
The mortally-wounded android sniper reaches down to their belt and activates the sole grenade remaining on their belt. An explosion rips through the cavern, wreathing Telion and August in a cloud of fragmentation.
The android stares lifelessly out from their void-black eyes as the fragmentation cloud spreads ever outwards in the zero gravity chamber.
Finally making his way back into the space, Jaxom looks around with his blaster out, ”where is the enemy?”
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The android's lifeless body lies floating in space, the feeble explosive shattered in pieces around its body. The sniper had a female countenance with blue-green skin laced with gleaming electrical circuitry, now darkened. August does a quick search of the corpse, uncovering scorched freebooter armor (type I), an azimuth laser pistol with a full battery, a survival knife, a tactical shirren-eye rifle with 13 longarm rounds, a clear spindle aeon stone, and a credstick containing 300 credits.
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"We managed to defeat her, Jaxom. That was a tough fight. Can you check over Idar to make sure he doesn't need any more medical attention?"
Diamaante looks over August's shoulder as he searches the android and takes pictures of her corpse. "Friend of yours?" she inquires.
After the loot has been sorted, she finds a safe spot to sit down. "We ought to rest for a bit before moving on. Get our breath back." She picks a few fragments of grenade out of her armor.
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August eyes the aeon stone and slings the rifle over his shoulder. A lousy weapon requiring a reload every shot - something every half-civilized planet would have replaced centuries prior - but it did give you a longer range punch his pistols did not.
He looks up at Diamaante and his reflective faceplate gives nothing away.
"Not mine, no. But I may look up her associates when we return to the station. I'd be very interested to know what brought her out to attack us."
”Will do!”
Jaxom gives Idar the once over...
After that is complete, and he looks at the gear, he asks, ”anyone want that pistol?”
Telion floated back and grabbed hold of the rocks near his companions. "A rest would be appreciated. Haven't had a fight like that in a few years. Why do you think she'd rather go out like that than be captured? Did that bounty information suggest any kind of allegiance to some kind of coordinated organization or a history of mental instability?"
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August looks up at Telion and shakes his head.
"There could be a number of reasons. Most androids avoid arrest because they tend to be put into forced labor camps under harsh conditions. Asteroid mining is hard work, and dangerous - and far more lucrative when you don't have to worry about springing for life support equipment. Then there's the possibility she has a death sentence on a more brutal world, like Vesk Prime or Akiton, out for her. Or gods forbid Eox."
He sits down and checks out the rifle as they rest, making sure it's loaded and ready to fire if necessary.
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The crew catch their breath in the silent vacuum chamber. August places his new aeon stone in the brim of his hat and checks out the new sniper rifle as Idar looks on. Jaxom pokes around at Idar's head wound, successfully removing some pieces of shrapnel before they caused more damage. Diamaante checks out her new freebooter armour as she rests with her head on her arms. Jagjug pesters the envoy about all of the 'upgrades' that he could do to her armour. Telion floats in mid-air with a grip on the rocky walls of the chamber, staring silently at the inert floating corpse of their would-be assassin.
Both August and Telion feel like they've learned something from this last encounter, something important has changed within them, something has grown...
Personal comm-devices buzz silently for some of the crew members.
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[spoiler=GM]
[spoiler]
August stands up and looks at his commlink, quickly scanning the text and committing it to memory. Job one is to escape the rock, everything else comes next.
He looks down the corridor, helmet lights off to preserve some illusion of stealth, while he scouts ahead with his newly acquired sniper rifle.
During Telion's inspection of the dead android, he recovered the small data pad and brought it to Jaxom. "Do you think you could figure out where this pad has been connecting to? She flashed a message to me just before she died, with a name of someone I've been looking for. Supposedly he's gone missing."
"Do you think it could have been a skin augment that isn't active anymore now that she's blown herself up? Part of some kind of active camouflage system or something?"
Jaxom takes the datapad and tries to see what he can discover...
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Jaxom looks at the hand of the dead android that Telion has dragged over, claiming that he saw a message projected from her palm.
"You do? Eh... I think I prefer to keep my hand-hand, but could you tell me what it's communicated with recently?"
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"Oh," Jagjug looks disappointed.
"I try to sneak peek at hand-pad?" Jagjug suggests, yanking the dead android's arm out of Jaxom's hands. He pulls a screwdriver from behind his ear and begins tinkering with the now-dark electrical circuitry of the android's hand.
A spark shoots out of the android's hand and the goblin drops the arm with a shock.
"Is broken," Jagjug suggests, putting the screwdriver back behind his ear, not before scratching the inside of his ear with it.
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Neither August's nor Diamaante's tinkerings are able to extract any information from the dead android.
Jaxom also falls into line.
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August makes a note of the dead android. Telion leads the crew out of the chamber, pulling himself forward across the rocky walls. The tunnel curves and then forks, splitting into a short passage leading to a narrow exit back to the surface of the asteroid and a curving passage leading into a larger chamber. The sheer size of the asteroid helps to dispel the claustrophobia of the rocky passages somewhat. A different sort of phobia grips Telion as he shines his pulsar fist into the new room: a dead humanoid body floats in mid-air in the cavern, its jumpsuit emblazoned with the name 'ACREON'.