Chapter 3: The Warrior's Code

"I see that the path I chose through the maze makes me who I am"-Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

SYTEM 4-Sahara-High Orbit-Onboard Icarus-3/8/2435

"…Frag it! Listen to me I know we can't return to Hillys with her in tow, just get me a hyperspace vector to somewhere friendly to Iris we can take her!" Sev snapped at Nino over the vidcom "now" he added menacingly. Nino looked way for a minute at another console.

"Got it!" He said triumphantly "There's a small landing bay on planet Atlas in the Andromeda system, its unregistered and not on any maps so Iris use it for smuggling people and supplies into the hideout there, I'll e-mail you some maps of the Andromeda system, planet Atlas and Jurgen city. Vector is 44-32-1256 to 65-72-860, once you're there use he maps to locate the landing pad, Jade knows the Iris contact there so don't worry about IDing him. 'Lovely, we have to go to Atlas and meet another mystery Iris contact, last time I did that I got stuck with these two' Sev looked back down the cockpit at the trio sitting together talking to Jade, he took the time to examine her appearance more closely, she had large green eyes, shoulder-length black hair, green lipstick and had donned her usual gear, a white tank top, green jacket and jeans, and white trainers. He didn't know why but he felt protective of this woman, who was clearly capable of taking care of herself, she had been ready to gut him back in that prison. And yet… Sev shook his head to clear his mind of whatever he was thinking 'Snap out of it, you're a mercenary not some knight in shining armour, she's already got that Hub guy. Stop thinking about her and start thinking about getting your paycheck and getting yourself out of this mess' Fortunately Sev had a chance to purge Jade from his mind, according to his computer they were almost at the jump vector "Ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking, please find the nearest chair, fasten your seatbelts and prepare for hyperspace. When he was sure the whole team was firmly strapped into a chair he maneuvered Icarus around to the correct vector and hit the jump button. Icarus with its gleaming hull vectored towards the distant star of Andromeda and, with the sun at its back and the purple gas giant Lanos hanging lazily nearby jumped into hyperspace with a loud boom, leaving three long white vapour trails in its wake.

ANDROMEDA-Atlas-Inbound space lane-3/8/2435

Icarus came careening out of hyperspace, precisely, the computer informed its crew, where they wanted to be. The ship lost velocity faster than a falling brick, coming to a full stop, minus drift from solar winds within three seconds of leaving hyperspace and entering realspace. Sev looked out over the view from the cockpit and checked his co-ordinates again, they were exactly where they wanted to be, the hyperspace exit vector for planet Atlas. Unfortunately the exit vector charts didn't take into account the trio of Alpha Section police cruisers floating around the vector, one thought raced through his mind, unfortunately it wasn't particularly helpful 'Alpha cruisers! What the frag!'Sev took one final look at the trio of bullet shaped Alpha cruisers with long downward sloping wings had surrounded his ship, as good as Icarus was, three cruisers had him sufficiently outgunned. Sev snarled at the cruisers "Nino!" he snarled at no one in particular, seeing as Nino wasn't present.

"I wasn't his fault Sev" Hub said consolingly "He must have assumed you knew about the garrison on Atlas.

"You don't assume anything when you're dealing intelligence Hub! You of all people should know that!" Sev replied.

"When you're finished arguing, you might want to answer that comms before they decide to blow us up" Pey'j said, smoothly inserting himself between the two.

Sev swung his chair around, put his headphones on and pressed the flashing reply button on his console.

"This is Alpha Section police cruiser Indomitable to unidentified craft, you have fifteen seconds to transmit you're identity, license and registration and flightplan."

"This is personal yacht Icarus to police cruiser Indomitable. License is 2234667801009 and rego is 443556011, I'm on my way to Atlas with a shipment of power cores for a friend of mine who runs a junk dealership there, want me to call him?" That was the golden word; police hated dealing with small business owners, especially ones who were most likely involved in something that was technically illegal.

The Alpha on the other end of the comms channel sighed and said "Alright, proper procedure is that we check your contract and your hold but it's been a long day. So just move along and don't tell anyone I let you through or they'll have my ass."

"Right, pleasure dealing with you Indomitable, this is Icarus over and out." Sev cut the channel and let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, that had been tense his heart was hammering. He swung the yacht around to face Atlas and resisting the temptation to floor the throttle flew towards the looming city planet of atlas at the marked speed limit the whole way…

ATLAS, GIANT CITY PLANET-Iris landing pad-4/8/2435

Atlas was a gigantic Copernican planet, meaning it was rich in natural resources. All this wealth had led to huge amounts of construction on the formerly beautiful planet. Atlas was now covered in one un-ending city that covered every hectare of the surface. The only green to be found would be in hanging baskets and artificially made nature parks. The city was comprised of over forty discernable 'levels', each one another layer as the builders, lacking the ability to expand, instead went up building new levels on top of old ones and new additions to spacescrapers. In fact the highest buildings on Atlas, in the Upper elements were over 100 kilometers tall.

The secret Iris landing pad was well concealed underneath a giant exhaust fan, complete with steam. After confirming their identity with the suspicious sounding control officer Sev brought his yacht down for a smooth landing on the 120 foot round tarmac. There were already a pair of cargo skiffs being unloaded on the circular landing pad; the entire landing bay was cylindrical, with black wall broken only by vents and the enormous control room window. The pad was concrete and covered in boxes, a generator stood growling at one end while a pair of tanks sat at the other, their long pipes leaking fuel onto the already dirty pad. Sev landed and lowered the gangway, wincing at how long it would take to clean his ship after landing here. He grabbed his nano-sheath from its rack and checked that both his sword and newly acquired O.I.C.W were still in it, he slung the strap over his shoulder and walked down the ganway, Jade, Pey'j and Hub having already marched across the pad and were waiting at the door with 'lift' painted on it in peeling yellow letters. Sev joined them "This is the Iris base" he said, giving the dirty setup a dubious look.

"We'll since were terrorists we don't have much choice in real estate" a shark in grimy orange coveralls snarled at him.

"So who is it that you know here?" Sev asked Jade.

"I don't know who Nino was talking about, it could be anyone."

"Oh great, so you don't know who it is your friend sent us to meet and you're dragging me along for this?" Sev asked incredulously.

"Well it'll do you some good to think about someone other than yourself for" Jade replied calmly, with a trace of strength in it.

Sev didn't notice the warning "Oh, I don't 'think about anyone other than myself do I?' Frag and to think I agreed to do this for 5K!"

"Money and yourself, you're a typical mercenary that's all you care about!" Jade snapped, the air seeming to crackle with her energy, it was.

Sev stepped back, cowed as the life arrived he remained silent, obviously unwilling to risk another outburst from Jade, it was apparent that he had just acquired the slight fear of Jade everyone had, never argue with a woman, why hadn't he learned that yet? Stubbornness, Sev answered his own question. The lift shuddered to a halt at a grimy steel door marked 'Control' the four companions stepped through to meet a familiar face sitting in a chair surrounded by banks of consoles.

"Hahn!" Jade, Hub and Pey'j yelled in surprise. Hahn hadn't changed a bit in the few months since he disappeared. He still had the orange turtleneck sweater, was still wearing the friendly expression he always had and was still completely bald.

"Hello everyone" Hahn said, clearly just as happy to see his friends as they were to see him. He saw Sev standing in the shadow "Ah, you must be Mr. Caravera, the mercenary Nino told me about, he tight-beamed just after you left for Sahara." Hahn said as if it were common knowledge.

"Caravera?" Jade asked incredulously.

"What about it?" Sev replied in a just-watch-where-you're-going tone.

"Nothing" Jade said cheekily, causing Sev to scowl even more.

"Now, I have something you might want to see" Hahn paused, holding his hand to his ear "There's an urgent call for me from Hillys, I've got to answer it." With that Hahn bustled out, a moment later he reappeared and said "Pey'j they want to speak to you to."

"Alright, tell Iris Ah'll be there in a moment.

Ten minutes later Sev heard the sound of the skiff back in the docking bay take off and a new ship arrive, even muffled by the durasteel that both separated this room from the docking bay and covered the entire surface of Atlas, Sev had a faint sense of recognizing the sound. It took him a moment to place it, his suspicion was reinforced when he heard the sound of T-Hammers, a brief scuffle and a laser blast. Sev looked at the others, they all still remained unaware, and it was clear that only Sev had heard the sounds. "Hahn! That fraggin' human tricked us and I think Pey'j is in on the deal!". His companions didn't get a chance to reply with anything other than scathing looks as, at that moment the door blasted inwards, kicked clean of its runners by the power armoured boot of an Alpha Section Elite. The Alpha Elite was the most dangerous of all Alpha infantry, they were the most highly trained soldiers, heavily psycho-indoctrinated, given the best equipment and were the veterans of a hundred wars, the Alphas most trusted soldiers. All in all the Elites were more than a match for a mercenary, an ex-soldier and a reporter and they knew it. 'But there's one thing their not a match for' Sev thought, it was time to reveal who he really was, no more hiding his past, no more running from it, no more fear "Do you really want to fight me?"

"What can you do pup?" The lead Elite growled.

"This" Sev replied, his appearance began to change, his skin slowly turned gold and his eyes began to glow a blue turquoise , slowly, he drew his sword from the nano-sheath, he calmly walked towards the lead Elite the shouts of warning of his allies and the jeers of his victims meaningless noise. Soon sound had no place at all as it faded from his existence, his vision tunneled and only his target was visible. Without warning he leapt silently over the first Alpha, dealing a deathblow to the neck going up and slicing his gas tank of as he landed, odd trails of an insubstantial red mist followed his every move as he decimated the Elites, striking down all but one in a single fell swoop. Then the dream ended, the world resumed its normal state, sound came flooding back into Sev's ears and his vision returned to normal. IT seemed however Murphy's Law was in effect and the sole survivor was carrying a permanent state energy shield and large double sided T-Hammer, this was clearly the heavy weapons man of the group and appeared to be the true leader, his enormous, eight foot suit indicated that he was of high rank, leaders get the best gear after all. This one soldier alone could best Sev Hub and Jade in a fight and there was no way to run, there were only one option: die fighting.

Sev stepped forward to die like he knew his father would have wanted him to, fighting to the last drop of blood in his body. It never came to that, a small gun mounted on the Elite's shoulder pad rolled forward and powered a dart into Sev's chest, he knew at once what the sudden paralytic feeling meant 'Tazer darts! So they mean to take us in as prisoners!' the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness was another squad of Elites piling in and the forms of Hub and Jade lying on the floor, then it all went black…

LOCATION UNKNOWN -Time, Date unknown

Sev regained a kind of foggy sense of existence; he knew instantly that he was being drugged and that he was securely strapped down to a surgical table by heavy leather straps. He overheard the conversation being carried out apparently next to his bed, his eyes still shut.

"…All the more reason to dispose of them all" the first voice said in a tired tone, this argument had obviously been going on for some time

"But this is a chance we will never have again!"

"The DomZ have plenty of Furion prisoners from when they attacked Furia."

'Plenty of Furions, prisoners!'

"Yes and they don't seem particularly willing to let them go, those Furions are like a banquet to them."

"I can always turn to General Kh…"

"Don't say his name!"

"Alright alright! Don't go off the deep end, we can still see what high command can do can't we?"

"The Alphas are a puppet show for the DomZ and High C are the main characters." The first voice replied cynically.

"You just watch what you say, better people than you have disappeared for saying things like that"

"Oh really, I'm not afraid of the Alphas, they need us too much, why without us the girl would be nothing but a trouble maker and they'd never get her to the DomZ, no my friend, job security is very good here"

"Oh that's what you think, but one day I'll wake up and have a new partner!"

"You sound li…"

Sev lost his grip on reality there and then, fading back into a haze and then into a deep, drug induced coma, what happened in the next few weeks Sev felt or sensed nothing of, but the project continued…