Emily slowly stood up from behind the crate, while others tended to Korvan. She took a brief look around before turning her attention to the door, and closed it as requested.
"Well, two of us are escapees," she said, loud enough to be heard while trying not to be too loud. "The ship-car-thing we were on crashed, we were the only ones strapped in. That's Maldor over there, and I'm MLE-1138. The pilot had a computer, that's where we found out about Jin Larson, Potential Asset. That's him, with all the arms. We also got this safe house of the computer."
"Yeah, I'll be alright. Just more pissed off than anything." Korvan says to Amaryst and Maldor.
Korvan isn't hurt, just a little uncomfortable from some of the armor along his belly melting. It'll just take a short breather and a quick job from the patch kit that he carries to feel right as rain again.
The vehicle in the warehouse seems to be a large hovercraft. It's been outfitted with a few different weapon emplacements and hardened with armor, and it seems to have a top-of-the-line engine. Not for cargo use like most hovercrafts, it's a private model, for crossing the ocean. It could make the journey over the Atlantic in less than three days if necessary.
The woman checks her own commlink, holding it up for the group to see. She has the same address on her own commlink - Jin's. "I got it too. My captain told me before we dropped in. You're an old doctor from the Institute, but you quit. We figured we might be able to use you if it came down to it, but the three of us," she says, indicating herself, her partner, and the war-bot, "Decided to come here first."
"So, you need to get off-world? So do we." She waves her hands, broadly indicating the warehouse. "We have some weapons, passports for us lashunta, this hovercraft, we've got disguises and we've got some money. But we have no ship, and we're nervous about taking the passports and just going to the spaceport."
At the mention of passports and money, Rollo raises his eyebrows as he walks over next to Amaryst. "You have money and fake IDs? I mean, seems like a good enough chance to me."
"Well, we figured we had a couple days to think it over, but we haven't come up with anything better, so we might just do that. I'm sure that all ships to Castrovel are cancelled right now, so we'd probably have to ride economy to some other backwater, and then we'd be stuck there just as much."
The other lashunta, the man, approaches her. They have a silent, telepathic conversation, and at its conclusion they both look with narrowed eyes at the group. Their battle-bot stands stoically behind them. "Why did you come here?" asks the man.
- - - - -
The man on the other line laughs, his voice guttural and rough. "How generous of you!" he barks. "I'll wrangle up a couple of racers and have some of my cam-bots re-programmed. You got a venue yet?"
You can practically hear Steve's eyebrows raise. "A milkshake? I thought you didn't eat..." He hesitates. "I mean, I hear that there's a new place, over in Park Square Mall. It's called "Rocket Rogers", supposed to be a vintage burger bar."
- - - - -
Smyrna receives a call on her commlink while setting up the website for Cross' race. The number isn't one she knows, but a quick online search reveals it to be the number for the UFIA State Department.
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"Curiousity mostly, also hope that you might have some fake IDs stashed here that Rollo and the kids could use so we could get to the spaceport. Amaryst owns a ship there." Jin explained to the two potential allies "It's not got enough quarters for all of us but we could probably squeeze in. However, with the size our group is growing to we will probably need to buy additional provisions to make the trip."
"So, do you have food supplies and spare IDs here? Because if you don't then we are back to square one of how we can get to that spaceport to begin with." Jin asks, with a tinge of worry. God, what are we going to do if they don't? We can't get the kids involved with performing a bank robbery...
"I was thinking the old water treatment plant. It's a good size for the sort of race and away from the usual stomping grounds so no one should be looking too close at it after last night's crash. Meet me over at Roger's and we can work out the logistics. I've got Smyrna plugged in and handling the web presence so if you've got some interested parties, send them her way."
After ensuring his friend is OK, Maldor listens to the ongoing conversation. "Do you guys know if this was the only operation? Maybe we can take that big craft somewhere - heck, anywhere - else before we get on a shuttle off planet..."
Maldor wants to help, but he is way out of his league here...
"Yeah, I'll be alright. Just more pissed off than anything." Korvan says to Amaryst and Maldor.
Amaryst nods. "I am glad. But next time will you listen to me when I tell you to stay out?"
Without waiting for an answer, she returns to the main conversation.
"So what was the plan? How were you going to get the psychics off Earth after the attack? Where were you going to take them?"
With a wry smile, Korvan says, "Listening's never been my strong suit...if it was do you think I'd have the profession I do?"
"The plan was to escape on the spaceships," says the lashunta sergeant. "The plan was to not fail. And it's not like I was even privy to everything... what do you mean, psychics?"
The man speaks up. "I'm not comfortable sharing our current plans with you," he says.
Rollo walks forward, greeting them but otherwise just leaning up against a nearby pillar and listening.
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"You are military-geared and they didn't even have a backup plan? You realize the place you hit was a government bio-weapons facility yes? These kids are superhumans, I know cause it's partially my fault!" Jin says, getting slightly heated at the blatant irresponsibility that these lashunta have shown so far, then pinches his brow "You are on a hostile planet, with little support, and the government is after you, I understand suspicion but we are probably one of the few groups of allies that you have nearby based on your numbers and plan of action. So, will you help us fulfill both your mission and problem by getting these kids, the rest of us, and yourselves off this gods forsaken rock?"
Amaryst announces loudly in a flat neutral tone, "I don't think so, Jin. They are obviously lost on the river and can't determine upstream. They know nothing because they were told nothing, and had not the mind to ask. We risk too much by allying with them. We should wish them luck and leave."
A's comment above is based on an assumption that such mindless lashunta are pawns of a Corporation.
"Listen," says Rollo, "This woman saved my life."
"It might be hard to trust them, but unless you've got some other big option, you might not have a choice." he says, looking them dead-on.
At Amaryst's rebuke, both of the lashunta warriors scoff. "Please," says the man. "Like we lose anything by taking on a crowd of amateurs and a couple of targets," he says. "You think we're irresponsible for not having a plan? What's yours? Coming to mooch off of our resources?"
- - - - - -
"Got it, that's a good plan," says the guy on the other line. "Talk to you later." Steve Fergus signs off.
"We going somewhere, Mr. Cross?" asks K-Van, as he finishes off his fries and second Coke.
Cross pinged Amaryst and the others with a quick message.
Hey, this is Cross, I've got some interested parties lined up for the race. Going to talk to a guy about the nitty gritty. Things are getting on like a house on fire. You guys almost done with your thing?
"Yeah kid, we're getting you a milkshake," Cross says, leading K-Van out the door and giving the drunken George a wave. They got a few blocks away before the subtle wrongness of K-Van's address hit him.
"Mister Cross?"
K-Van blinks. "Yeah. Sorry, should I not call you that? It's your name, right?"
"Just drop the 'mister.' I ain't a high school teacher," he said with a note of derision in his voice, "And we're supposed to be posing as family. Kids don't call their older brothers, or dads, or uncles, or whatever 'mister.'"
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"We have several viable plans. All of which were made without knowing what we would even find here." Jin replies to the snarky soldier's barb "We came for answers and to see if this place had anything to make getting offworld easier. But it seems you had little more preparation than we did for this turn of events."
How could they honestly believe that attacking a major government facility in a metropolitan area and getting away with the assault craft intact would be a viable plan? Sheesh.
"Sir, Smyrna's friend has sent a message" Cassius suddenly burst into Jin's internal monologue. With a mental flick of the wrist Jin composed a reply and sent it to Cross, saving the comm ID in his Rig's system.
"Uh huh," says the lashunta soldier, crossing his arms. "So are you done?"
"Look," Maldor says to everyone. "We're all a bit frazzled right now. Let's take a deep breath, re-center ourselves, and come up with a plan of action together that gets all of us to safety. OK?" He looks around to each member of the ever-growing group, hoping to calm their nerves and get them to work together.
"Didn't your friend just say that you already had several plans?" says the lashunta male, eyebrows raised. "Seems like you need to get your story straight."
The woman sighs. "Look, if you don't have anything to offer us, you'd better just get out of here. And I'm sure it doesn't need to be said, but I'll say it anyway... Don't tell anyone about us."
The male looks concerned, and shoots the female a glance. "You can't be serious, right? There's no way we can just let them leave."
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"Using your high-speed transport there makes one of our ideas alot easier. Specifically, the idea was to either rig or disable the transponder on Amaryst's ship and fly it down to the surface to pick up the people who couldn't fly up to the spaceport" Jin explained to the two Lashunta "Using your transport means we could land it far from civilian centers, making it much easier to make a quick pickup then book it into the Drift. Your craft doesn't look like too much of a cargo carrier, but it could probably transport a good amount of supplementary provisions in a pinch i'm sure as well. Speaking of which, what exactly do you have here in this warehouse?" Jin finishes, gesturing to the many stacked crates around them. These can't all be empty can they?
Jin forwards the information he deduced to Cross over commlink.
"I will put our cards on the table top. We have some plans, but all of them are risky, and we're short of cash. We were hoping to find help or resources here, but you're not offering much. Maldor was still holding open an offer to cooperate because he has a kind and generous spirit. But it's hard to tell if we're better off with you or without you. Or you with or without us.
In any case we are not each other's enemies. There's no reason for a fight that is likely to draw the attention of our common enemy. Oofeeah ) is a bee's nest that you poked with a stick. If they find us, there will be too many to fight. We will all die or be captured. Our first goal must be to stay small and unnoticeable like a burrowing bluewing at it's tunnel mouth.
Whatever you decide, I'll give you some advice freely. Don't stay here. Your leaders put this location on comms and computers. We were able to crack them and find this place. The humans will too."
The man starts to speak, but the woman cuts him off. "And if we were you help you get to your ship, and we were to survive the transit into the Drift, where would that ship be going? If, out of the generosity of your heart, you were to take us with you, could we be dropped off somewhere that we could reach our allies?"
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"I would be taking them to my home. It will be safe for them to stay for quite a while if need be while the proverbial hornets nest calms down. I'm sadly not really at liberty to tell you its location." Jin says to the more reasonable Lashunta woman "Obviously we will have to detour somewhere to drop you off. It's nothing personal, but a part of my culture. To bring someone to our home is a very deep sign of trust and it'll be my responsibility if anything goes wrong."
I'll have to make a rather sharp detour to avoid them figuring where our destination is, i can't risk getting the authorities on Cyrune in a tizzy with another coverup when I'm bringing outsiders in. Uggh, the contracts are going to be a pain to write up... Jin thought to himself.
"This of course, predicates on you being able to make the extra effort worthwhile and gather the extra provisions we will need for sustaining our total group on the trip, and load them onto the Hovercraft so we can be out as quickly as possible." Jin finished, reminding them that this is a give and take, and that they need to pitch in as well.
The lashunta man shrugs, finally going along with what his female partner wants. "If all you need from us is food and our hovercraft, we're game. Just give us a time. You got commlinks and wanna link up?"
"What about IDs? Rollo could use one, and I might too. I'm not sure if the police have discovered the likelihood that Rollo and I met."
That asked, Amaryst's businesslike demeanor softens. "I'm Amaryst. Rollo's been pretty reticent. How and why did you become involved in this?"
Korvan continues to silently listen to the negotiations, still uncertain of the other Lashunta, but desperate times and all...
The man shrugs. "We got passports. I'm sure you could pass for one of the woman lashunta we had. We can't give out the passports to non-lashunta, because the 'race' entry says 'lashunta'."
The two lashunta introduce themselves as Savael and Ayda. Their battle-bot is a rudimentary AI unit called C-8. Both are career soldiers that have been a part of the organization that they work for (though won't explain) for a few decades.
"Some of us might be able to fix the race entry, " Amaryst says thoughtfully. "But you haven't said why you're involved. It could be as simple as 'the money's good', or "A suicide pact compelled us to attack the well guarded headquarters of Earth's most top secret intelligence organization."
"I'll go first. I found Rollo and we could either kill each other or not. Not seemed far preferential. Then we found the others, and we all want to get off the planet alive."
There's no complex motivation behind the lashuntas' decision to raid the compound. They're soldiers, who were part of an army, who followed the orders of their superiors. That's what people do when they have loyalty and commitments.
Maldor offers some other alternative courses of action..."What if we tried to get hired on by an off-world company - you know, like the ones that mine asteroids? Or as private guards for some important shmuck looking to scoot around the galaxy? Would we need passports for that? Oh...and we still need to get away from here as soon as possible. I hear the Blue Ridge Mountains are nice, and pretty isolated in the right places. We could maybe find a nice place to hole up in this big hovercraft for a while..."
Generally you need some kind of ID in order to get a job, as well as a credit report, a job history, references, all things that MLE and Maldor don't have.
The male lashunta's nose twitches at Maldor's suggestion. "You want to go hide in a cave? If that's your plan, we are out. We're getting off this planet. I thought we just finished coming up with a plan. Why do we need another?"
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"He actually has a point. Loading up what you can take and vacating this place with the shuttle would be a sound plan so UFIA doesn't catch you. Then we can call you over comms with the rendezvous location." Jin says, pointing out the danger of their current location "We were able to break into those commlinks of yours. Who says we were the only ones like Amarayst mentioned?"
"I wouldn't say anyone's got a plan yet, at least not a good one. All we've got are some ideas, and we need to work on the details. But so far they all end with an escape on my ship. If we're agreed that we can work together, there's another option that Korvan and I need to check out."
The lashunta nod at Amaryst and Jin's suggestion. "We'll get started now," he says. "We should be able to stay out of trouble if we stay on the water. Any of you coming with us, or are we gonna be making landfall to pick people up later?"
Cross and K-Van show up to the place that his contact suggested - "Rocket Rogers". True to form, it's on the top floor of a large mall. It's got a refurbished jukebox, exclusively female waitresses, linoleum-table booths, old glass ketchup bottles, music from the 1950s, and all the other little accouterments to show that they're putting real effort into the atmosphere.
They have three flavors of milkshake - strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla.
K-Van is completely entranced by the mall. All the shiny lights, the advertisements with the hot women on them, the stores filled with so many different enticing products, and the crowds of shoppers.
Cross half sprawls into one side of a booth and flags down a waitress to get K-Van a chocolate shake. They probably had a moment before Steve showed up.
"So kid, what do you think?" He phrased the question ambiguously on purpose, wanting to see where his young charge's mind was.
"Alright Amaryst, let's go see how viable the other option is."
The Korasha nods, then turns to look intently at Jin, Emily, and Maldor. Her antennae sway toward them.
She leaves the weapons duffle and her pack with Jin. Then she follows Maldor toward the door.
Once clear of the warehouse, Amaryst tries to contact Smyrna over her armor's comm.
"Smyrna, we are going to check out the job we were offered. Can you see what electronic paperwork is required to do the job?"
Along the way she says softly, "What do you think about all this, Korvan?"
"A bit out of my wheel-house to be sure." Korvan says quietly before adding in his more normal, somewhat cocky tone, "That being said, what the hell, I'm always up for a challenge. If this bank job doesn't look too bad, maybe we do it just for kicks before getting off of this rock."
Amaryst and Korvan head down to the First Heritage National Bank. As modern banks go, its pretty normal. You need a bank card in order to get in the front door. There is an antechamber with ATM machines (which are biometrically locked) and then a larger area beyond. The area beyond is staffed by automated bankers, and is where you go to speak to a banker about services such as money-changes, new account set-up, wire transfers, etc. You know that stealing credsticks from such a bank is a useless endeavor unless you encode them while still in the bank.
Getting into the bank itself requires either a bank card or some hacking skill. Any cameras would need to be shut off or disrupted, the alarm would have to be disabled, and you would need to get into the vault in order to get the gold. That means getting through a fortified and locked door. Then, you have to have enough muscle to carry the gold away (because gold is pretty heavy) if you're looking to steal any kind of significant amount.
A swift getaway ride and a strategy for evading the police is also important, because nearly no robbery goes without any police attention.
K-Van takes a small sip of the milkshake. His eyes light up with delight, and he takes an extremely long draught of the drink, draining half of the pitcher in one go. He takes a deep breath after letting go of the straw, and says, "Wow! Mr... ah, Cross, thank you! This is really good!" Suddenly, he gasps in pain and grabs his head. Brain-freeze. As he blinks and shakes his head in discomfort, you notice one hand still holds the milkshake, and it begins to melt.