NorthernMage here with chapter 6 of Silence of Division! This chapter I'm just going to get right into it, and I'm sorry for not posting the chapter during the middle of the week as I sometimes do, but I was really unbelievably busy this week. Anyway, lets get into chapter 6!

Markus: NorthernMage doesn't own Pokemon or FTL.

Chapter 6: A Turn For The Worst

Previously...

I heard my door open and N came in, looking worried. 'Renina, there was a vote on what to do with the Fallen Angel's crew. Ghetsis managed to overrule me and, well, I tried my hardest and said everything I could, but...he's going to get them executed.'

Renina's POV

I stared at N in shock. 'What? But, surely he won't! Someone will point out they have important information, or maybe they could be used as hostages to make the Federation surrender-' N shook his head.

'I tried all of that. Most agreed that killing them would teach a lesson to the Federation.'

'But, I can't stand by and let them be killed!' I protested. N looked sad.

'Renina, there's nothing we can do this time.' I stared. He was giving up? He had never given up, no matter what it was.

'Nothing we can do, or nothing you've thought of?' I asked angrily. 'There is something we can do. There always is.' When N gave me a then-what-is-it look, I made an angry sound and went into my bedroom. There had to be something. I'd think of it eventually. I went back outside my bedroom, where N had almost left. 'N?'

'Yeah?'

'Do you know when they're planning to kill them?'

'In the morning.' N left and I sat on the couch in my room, frantically trying to think of something.

N's POV

I was just walking to dinner when there was a loud explosion and I was thrown to the side, crashing into the wall. What had happened? The Plasma Senate was on stabilisers, so that if something was launched at it, it had a chance of tilting the building to the side, so it could dodge it. I heard crashes. I started running. Everyone headed to the middle of the senate when a disaster occurred. This was enough of a disaster for me. As I hurried along the tilted corridors, I saw some large metal beams had fallen from the ceiling. It must have been enough of a jolt to knock down some of the beams. Feeling a little unsafe in an area where everything that held up the roof was on the ground, I kept running.

Climbing over a pile of stuff that had fallen, I saw dozens of people had already made their way here. I went over to a corner, slipped out my holopad and logged in, checking what was and wasn't working. A lot of supports had fallen, and power had failed in the prison area. Finally, Ghetsis turned up. I glared at him and he started coming over. Typical. I turned up and was already checking what was wrong and he probably had a shower then came. I looked back at the holopad, this time opening a live diagram of the senate. The senate was on three stabilisers, and it seemed one had suddenly broken, which explained how the building was tearing itself apart.

'Whats wrong?' he asked.

'You and everything you do.' I muttered.

'What did you say?'

'The leftmost stabiliser broke. If that's not fixed, the entire building could tear itself apart.' As I said this, a group of twenty Mark III repair drones hurried out of the room. I looked around at all the confused people and inwardly sighed. With Renina trying to work out how to save Rynhart, Markus and Nir, it was up to me to sort this out. 'I'll get you back for this, Renina.' I said to myself as I started calming them down.

Rynhart's POV

I was lying against the wall when there was a big jolt, crashing everyone into the wall I was lying against, crashing my head hard against the cold metal. A second later the itchy feeling that was electricity coursing through my handcuffs ceased, as did the energy bars. I got up and slowly reached past where the bars had been just a second before. I brought my hand back. So something had happened. I walked out of the cell, and just a few cells along I found Markus, who had been knocked unconscious. I shook him. 'Markus!' I hissed. 'Wake up.' He slowly opened his eyes.

'Rynhart?'

'Something's happened with the power. I think we can get out of here.' Markus shot up.

'Now we just have to find Nir.' he said. I nodded. Walking along the corridor silently, we found Nir, who had already woken up.

We were all set to go get a ship when Nir said "Rynhart, we can't operate a ship with our hands like this." I silently cursed. How would we get these handcuffs off? My eyes flitted to a sleeping guard and a slow smile spread across my face as I searched him for his Separator.

Ten years ago there had been a huge accident with twenty rogue Federation captains escaping a prison ship when they had been handcuffed with normal electro-handcuffs. The Federation had introduced better electro-handcuffs, but the rebels had improved on that with magnetic electro-handcuffs. The Separator could separate the magnetic connection between the many individual pieces of the handcuffs. It had then become standard for all rebel guards to carry a Separator at all times. Finally finding his Separator, I clicked it, holding it to the handcuffs.

It fell apart and I started releasing my fellow crew members. Markus rubbed his wrists, wincing as his hands went over the red burns.

'You angered your guard?' I asked, looking at the reasonably painful looking burns. He nodded wordlessly. 'We'll get some anti-burn cream on that the moment we're on our way to whats left of the Federation.' Seeing a Tastri, Zamto and a very familiar Aringa, I picked them up. 'Markus, Nir, found your guns.' I said, which was enough to make the two zip over to me. As Markus checked his Zamto to make sure it hadn't been tampered with, and Nir made sure his Tastri hadn't been sabotaged with either, I curled my fingers around my Aringa.

I didn't believe in keeping it shiny, since I had been spotted more than once on a mission because light had shone off the metal. Still, even though I didn't keep it shiny, no one would ever know how long I had had this Aringa. It was my very first gun, so I knew without looking it hadn't been tampered with, or somehow drained of all its charges. Suddenly, I noticed a soft glow and we looked around to see where it was coming from.

"Rynhart, the lights!" Nir said worriedly and I looked up to see the lights were coming back on.

'We have to get going. If anyone sees us, we can kiss our currently non-tortured state goodbye.' I said.

"Over here!" I saw Nir waiting at the bottom of a set of stairs.

'Good work Nir.' We hurried up the stairs, double-checking our every move.

Just a few levels up, Markus suddenly gestured for us to be quiet. I had let him be at the front. I silently mouthed What is it? He came back down to us.

'Up there there's a lot of beams everywhere. Someone might be coming to clean it up soon, and there's a wall computer.' I nodded. Wall computers were basically screens and a keyboard stuck into a wall, hence the name. 'Also, there's a doorway along the hall. I couldn't see if it was open or closed though.' I nodded again, worried this time.

'Is the computer before or after the doorway?'

'After.' I sighed. If we were seen by whoever was in that room, we were gone. 'Well,' I said, straightening, 'we might as well get on with it. It's not like we can avoid this risk. I'll just stun them with my Aringa.' We crept up the stairs and right next to the door. Markus and Nir dashed across, with I coming last. I flicked my head to the side to see who it was, and that was when I heard a moan of pain.

'Not trying that again...when is someone going to come?' I froze and beckoned the others over to me. I recognised that voice. I walked up to the person trapped beneath a beam on the floor, the beam twisting their leg unnaturally and landing on their back. It was Renina. Hearing my footsteps, she looked up. 'Rynhart?' I didn't answer. If we captured her, we would have infinite bargaining power with the rebels. Seeing me flicking my Aringa to stun, she put her hands up, as if to shield herself. I knocked her out with the stun setting on my Aringa, and she slumped to the ground. I started to blast through the beam trapping her. I heard the door close behind us and I turned, to see Markus.

'I closed it so the sound wouldn't alert anyone.' he explained. Slowly and carefully I blasted through the beam, and Nir slung her over his shoulder. We reopened the door and hurried over to the computer.

'Its locked.' Markus hissed.

'Let me have a try.' I said. Markus gave me a puzzled look but let me through. Slowly but surely I hacked into it, the classes from my last three years at the academy coming into play. After a few minutes, I managed to discover the password: Plasmadadada. I decided not to try and work out what that meant. I quickly opened up a map.

It seemed that if we could make it to the top of the building, we could board the Fallen Angel, which was being kept up there. I took a deep breath. This wasn't the time to get overconfident. I looked behind myself to check Renina was still unconscious. Thankfully she was. This would be hard enough without her waking up and screaming for help.

As we headed up, I wondered what she had meant by killing her only real family. Were Renina and N orphans? I shook the thought out of my head. I had heard that they did have a father, but the mother had been killed. Hearing footsteps, we all jumped behind some fallen beams. As the person ran past, I saw it was Renina's brother N, headed for her room. We had to get off the planet, and fast.

I looked to see where he had come from and saw an emergency teleporter. I stared. I had never seen one of them before. The intelligence of the separate united systems was amazing me. Why they had wanted the Federation was beyond me. With all the different races the systems had, the equipment the Federation could make seemed simple in comparison. Next to it, I saw a much more likely form of transport, a hyperspeed elevator.

Checking again to make sure no one was coming, we ran for the elevator, Nir keeping up with ease. I quickly tapped the screen, selecting the top level as our destination. As we waited for the elevator to reach the roof, I wondered how long it would take for N to realise Renina was gone.

'Rynhart, the moment we get on the ship I'll get the engines fired up. We can probably power down the medbay to get more power to the engines.'

'Sounds good. Get there as fast as you can.' The thought of being recaptured was nagging me. How long would it take for someone to fire up the Captivity, for I had no doubt that was what we would be followed in, get a crew onboard, and get into space? Even if they realised right now, it could take hours.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the doors opened to reveal the top level devoid of guards. And, the roof was open, allowing ships to exit. I could see the Fallen Angel fifty metres away, at the front of the group of ships. We ran forward, my adrenaline racing. Markus shot inside and Nir took Renina to the medbay to administer a sleep drug while I headed to the bridge. I quickly keyed in my access code for the ship, and it restarted. I smiled. One more thing that had gone right. I praised myself for managing to deactivate the ship before that drone had knocked me unconscious.

I heard a few clicks in the future droid control room, right behind the bridge. It was probably Nir locking up Renina. As the engines roared, we shot into the sky, and eventually space. I activated the external sensors and saw that no one had seen our ship shooting out into space. I peeked into the room behind me. Renina was slumped against the wall, her hands locked above her head. I returned to the bridge. It looked as if we'd get to the Federation. I smiled. Finally, we'd be safe. Not to mention this war would end the moment the rebels realised we had Renina.

N's POV

I stared in shock. A beam had fallen in Renina's room, and something had cut through it and now both the Fallen Angel, its crew and Renina were all gone.

I knew this wasn't Renina's plan. This was a strategy, a tactic by the crew to bring us to our knees needing Renina back. Rynhart would probably have her revenge on Renina as well. This wasn't good.

While I cared about my sister, Ghetsis didn't so he wouldn't care and continue the war anyway. I closed my eyes for a moment. It hadn't even been a week since I had found Renina, and everything was falling to pieces again.

So the Fallen Angel is on its way again, Renina's captured, and there's an attack on the Plasma Senate. Nothing more to say, so see you in the next chapter!