Shasta Quicksilver's page

"OH COME ON!" Shasta yelled as the maneuver she just finished put her on a course toward a virtual wall of pyrozoa so wide that it would cost significant time to go around it.

"Orion," she called to the uplifted bear currently stationed in the gunnery turret. "Can you blast a place in that mess I could pass through?"

The Wintermourn flew suddenly close to Black Butterfly and blasted the ship with a pulse from a magnetic rake. This changed the Butterfly's course and threatened to take a hit from an enormous pyrozoa spewing lots of plasma into the ship's path.

Shasta did not bat an eye. She piloted the ship right at a zone of plasma, but she did so knowing the plasma was in motion. Just as it seemed the ship would be bathed in the stuff, the plasma swirled past and Shasta powered away, unslowed.

"Please tell me that's an illusion. It'll put us back if we have to steer around it!" Shasta yelled. Keeping on course toward the swirl while Benny sensitized his eyes to pick up magical auras.

Shasta nodded and scanned the clot of strangely glowing creatures. Scherzo was expecting her to skirt around the swarm to avoid the heaviest concentration of creatures, but Shasta headed straight in. She was not going full speed, but she was hoping that by taking the shortest route, she could make better time than going around the swarm.

She did masterfully, avoiding contact and making steady progress.

Shasta yelled, "We've still got to disconnect the power!"

Shasta did not know enough about how the engine was constructed to attempt to depower the manifold, but she had been learning about the mystical ways of magic from Benny and Zeph during the drift time, and this allowed her to notice that there was a magical element sustaining the leak as well. She reached out with her mind and found she could perhaps break this connection to the plane of air.

Her effort paid off. Deprived of the mystical energy that was also empowering the leak, the leak sealed and the wind and electricity die away, leaving Shasta's fur and Zeph's silvery hair standing on end and dotted with sparks as the charge in the air began to normalize. Shasta and Zeph embraced and then began to double check everything to be sure there would not be a return of the leak.

Shasta remained at the control panel and endured another blast of wind and lightning. This time she anticipated it and ducked her head and torso out of the path of destruction. Then she initiated the manifold shutdown program. It remained to disconnect the power to close the leak.

Shasta rushed into the drift engine. She spotted the problem with the drift engine, a thermal sensor allowed energy from the elemental plane of air to leak into the material plane. She could not attempt to fix the problem without getting in range of the sensor, so she did her best to avoid the blast of electricty and debris blown by blast of wind that erupted from the damaged containment manifold. Most of the damage was not serious, but the space goblin, Goog, hiding to one side of the manifold where the heat sensor was blocked, got zapped as well, although the worst of the blast hit Shasta.

Shasta yelled at Goog to get out while she tried to work the computer controls to shut down the part of the program that powered the manifold. The controls were not familiar to her, so she wasted some time hitting dead ends, knowing the leak would send another blast her way in a few seconds.

Shasta cleared her throat. "The Butterfly's a fast ship and we got the space to haul a lot." She seemed interested in a job that required her skills as a speedy pilot.

"I don't think there's any way Sinjin will pay us anything but a hail of bullets and laser beams. Why pay us when for he can just have some assassins on site to take us out as soon as he has the ship? Maybe he'll try to track us down, but it's a big universe, and even the Golden League can't keep track of everything everywhere. We stay out of the light until the heat blows over and keep this nifty ship in the bargain."

She lifted the ship gently off the floor and nudged the controls forward. A large opening had a force field maintaining the atmosphere of the room, but the large ship could pass through it. Moments later, they were free of the facility and able to fly away.

Shasta picked an area with no traffic in it and zipped just far enough from the ship to make the jump to the Drift. She did the navigation calculations in about 45 seconds. Before the blip on the facility traffic control area was noticed by anyone, the Oliphaunt was into the drift.

Shasta used Reisora's key card to open the door to the next room. There they saw the Oliphaunt resting on the floor like an obedient dog waiting to be let out for a walk.

It looked about one and a half times as big as the BD514 freighter. It had a T-shaped design with blocky rectangles extending to the left and right of the main crew area and bridge near the front. It appeared to have a second level also above the front-center.

"It looks like they refitted a Sledgehammer," Shasta said, referring to a EJ Corp freighter that would be a step up in quality. It had roughly the same cargo capacity as the BD514 but it had several weapons mounted on it and was faster with a more powerful core.

Shasta took advantage of her cloaking field to fool the dustar's sensors. Then she fired her semi-automatic and dinged it, further damaging its vital functions.

Shasta fired two shots from her pistol at the small black disk on the floor, but it was a difficult target and her shots only bounced off the floor nearby.

Shasta ended the fight tumbling past the remaining guard, did a back flip away from him before the could react and fired her semi-automatic pistol. The slug hit and the android dropped.

Shasta discovered which of the five was the one with the secret starship. As she moved with the tour near one of the prospective spots, she saw a woman dressed in white. Scherzo had showed everyone a picture of her step-sister Eline Reisora so Shasta recognized the woman in charge of the project. She was an attractive human with light skin, golden blond hair piled up on top of her head in a bun, crowned with a golden tiara. Her white robe was also trimmed with gold cord. She was in the company of an unusual large mantis-shaped anacite. It had four silver legs, a red body, two arms with scythe-like blades attached, and a head like a shirren with a glowing red emblem on its head that looked like a plus sign or a targeting cross.

Shasta went into her stealthy mode and shadowed the two while eavesdropping on their conversation. She heard her anacite companion say to Eline, "After so much overtime, employees are discontent and are beginning to pose a security risk."

"Give everyone a few days off," Reisora replied. "We’ve come in on time and under budget. They deserve a chance to celebrate."

The anacite monitor answered, "This is satisfactory," as they exited the hall through a secure door into a restricted area marked with the EJ Corp logo.

After reporting back to her partners in crime, they took turns keeping an eye on the area, counting the number of sentients going in and out, until the estimated all the staff was off duty other than whatever security presence remained inside.

Something in the Sinjin said this made Shasta skeptical. "Why should we believe you will do any differently than EJ Corp or the Kalistocracy? What's your source of income? How do you maintain your standard of living?"

"I've boosted a few starships before," Shasta put in.

"Whoa! Hold tight!" Shasta shouted. The road was turning right with the drop-off to the left. The cliff on the right hid the fact that the turn got much sharper and then entered a narrow tunnel. The enercopter who had been keeping in front of the truck just above the road to give the now deceased sniper a clear shot almost crashed into the mountain side. A hard bank and a burst of speed were all that saved it from a violent crash. The trailing enercopter had an easier time avoiding the mountain. Both of the vehicles paused and observed the fate of the trucks.

Shasta made the turn but just barely, with the truck tilting to the left but keeping over the road. As the truck entered the tunnel, the pilot of the trailing truck lost control and the vehicle and all the hobgoblins and weapons cargo plunged down into the chasm. By the time it exploded against the ice and rocks below, the sound that reached the crew on the truck in the tunnel was no longer audible.

Orion watched out the back to see if either enercopter tried to chase into the tunnel, but both apparently thought better of it and turned back.

The sharp turn caused Emersohn to tumble off the crate he'd been standing on, while Benny fell off the truck. Or so it seemed. When Zeph bounded over to where he had fallen, she found him dangling from the side of the truck and was able to pull him back up.

Shasta got the truck back out a little in front of the other truck. She shot the sniper again, but although the bullet hit him in the chest and he was bleeding and burned, he was not finished.

"These hobgoblins are tough, I'll give 'em that," Shasta commented.

Shasta had to slow to negotiate a narrow section where part of the road had fallen into the chasm. The truck behind rammed into the truck, setting everyone off balance. Her pistol shot missed.

Shasta continued to keep the big rig ahead of the trailing truck and a sweeping left turn gave her a clear shot on the sniper. She fired her semi-automatic and hit the sniper for a second wound. Unfortunately the slug hit a tough part of the armor and did minimal damage.

Shasta kept up her aggressive driving and maintained her lead on the hobgoblins in the other truck.

Shasta's skill at piloting became clear as she expertly maneuvered the hovertruck past rough spots in the road and around sharp turns. The other truck was now hundreds of feet back and completely out of view. However, the truck radio picked up a transmission indicating the troopers on the other truck had reported to the base and the base indicated they were sending troops to deal with the problem.

Shasta saw the hobgoblin truck catching up. She decided to try to contribute to the fight by trash talking at the sergeant. "Guess what scumbag, we've sided with the resistance. You're going down!"

The words did not have the intended effect. The sergeant just sneered.

Shasta continued to accelerate, moving far enough ahead of the other truck that they couldn't see the fighting going on and get suspicious.

Shasta tried to accelerate the truck to pull away from the second truck, but she couldn't quite get the sluggish vehicle to go faster.

Shasta wriggled furiously and managed to dislodge herself from the mouth of the hobhound. "Bad puppy!" she yelled at it, as she stood ready to attack it with her pistol and knife.

Shasta drew her knife and tried to stab the creature holding her fast, but could not get a good swing.

Shasta tries to get to a new position and surprise one of the beasts with a semi-auto pistol shot, her target was aware of her and her shot went low.

Shasta lived up to her nickname of The Ghost by slipping out of Spirzaer's field of vision and stabbing him with her knife. He was dripping blood and nearly out of options.

Shasta puts a hand stealthily on her knife, pretended to be ready to surrender, but then drew the knife and slashed the Spirzaer's face, leaving a line of blood.

Shasta shifted along the wall, barely visible and put a bullet in the doomed creature, which was then so badly wounded, just one more strike would end it.

Shasta fired another shot at the same fiend just wounded by Orion. Her aim was off.

Shasta utilized her skills in moving about unseen to shift position over to the west side of the room. She fired her semi-auto pistol at the nearest crate fiend and drew blood for the first time from the creature, who had lost track of her position. The drow fighting it swore in the drow dialect when the shot went off.

The room had become a war zone.

Shasta held stock still and activated her cloaking field, causing her to be much harder to be noticed.

Shasta fired her pistol, hitting Horizon in the chest. He was caught off guard, not spotting her.

Shasta aimed her semi-auto pistol at the last leech and squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit the brain stem and put the creature out of everyone's misery.

"Boo-ya! And then there were none," she proclaimed with pride.

Shasta slashed at the leech between her and Scherzo and cut it enough to kill it.

She then moved toward the middle of the hull, looking for another target.

Shasta followed Zeph out the airlock and attacked the one the sylph had just wounded. The plan was to try to clear out any near the airlocks and then pick off those more distant with ranged attacks. She tried to stab the leech, but missed.

"They're based here on Akiton. But they're also rumored to have ties to the Golden League." Shasta said softly.

When Scherzo did not appear comprehend, Shasta added, "Organized crime syndicate. We need to watch ourselves."