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Apex Chemicals Plant, Kuantus Rings Industrial Sector, Nal Kuat
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The soft glow of the Mynock-mobile's dashboard instruments illuminated the concern on Gage Kuat's face. He sat slouched in the driver's seat, his cowl and breathing mask removed from his head as he looked out into the night.
The alley was dark and the stealthy matte-black finish of the landspeeder concealed it from all but a few species with extra-sensory perception. The Kuantus Ring ran completely around the planet of Nal Kuat, yet only had a single time zone carefully mimicked and controlled by the driveyards environmental control central computer. Right now was the middle of the night for the Ring. But with a war on the driveyards never completely stopped. Tens of thousands of third shifters still labored away building the sinews and might of the Empire's war machine. Weapons that would be needed to defend the remainder of the Empire and take back what the Confederacy of Earth Nations had illegally seized.
Amidst all this activity a single crusader strove to protect them, to seek justice for the weak and ensure that all beings secured the rights of freedom. At the moment, huddled away in the shadows, that particular dark knight was vexed. Gage voice activated his comms and called back to the person manning the advanced crime computer located at the large bunker underneath his mansion in one of the Ring's more elite neighborhoods. "Alferon, replay the holofeed one more time."
"Are you certain, Master Gage? You've already perused the interview footage at least a dozen times since Agent Cato sent it to us." Gage's loyal servant referred to the holoimagery Naval Intelligence had sent him by armed courier four hours earlier.
"There might be something we missed."
"As you wish, sir."
The image showed a young male Imroosian, dressed in a medical lab coat and scrubs sitting nervously at an interrogation table within a Naval Intelligence substation here on the Rings. He was un-cuffed and alone. As Gage watched the recording the Clawdite agent, Cato Succubi, in her blonde human form, entered the room carrying two cups of steaming caf. She set one in front of the Imroosian and sat down across the table from him.
"My agents have told me that you have an interesting story to tell." Cato said to the male. "Let's start with your name and occupation."
"My name is Naito, I'm a lab assistant at Seinar Systems Labs."
"What do you do there, Naito?"
"I help with the primate research duties feeding the laboratory animals. Also I monitor the body temperatures and vitals of disease-infected lizard-monkeys, mostly."
"So please tell me what happened to you this morning." Cato politely directed.
"I was walking to work from the nearby landspeeder parking garage, when a strange Twi'lek approached me. The tail-head did not offer his name but said he had something that would be of great interest to me. Some sort of vital fact that he would share only if I agreed to rendezvous again with him on my lunch break at 1300 at my landspeeeder. He promised it would be worth my while monetarily if I showed up." Naito reported.
"And did you?"
"My degree is keeping me out of the Legions, but it's not exactly paying my rent. Credits are tight right now and Senatorial rations don't always cut it, so I figured what the kriff and decided to just check out what he was peddling."
"So what happened when you returned to your landspeeder?"
"The git wasn't even there. Instead I was met by some sort of chittering humanoid in the strangest get up I've ever seen." The Imroosian stated.
"Did he identify himself?"
"Refused to do so. Instead he just climbed into my landspeeder's passenger seat like we were old mates."
"Can you identify his species?"
"Not really. Like I said he was a humanoid. Bipedal; I mean two arms, definitely not the tail-head from earlier. You see he was wearing an ankle-length overcoat with leather boots and gloves. He had on some sort of wide-brimmed hat and a balaclava over his head. The weirdest part is he had some sort of aviary mask to conceal his face. Must have had a voice scrambler inside too as it made him sound all funky and electric."
"Like a Stormtrooper vocoder?"
"Yeah, something like that."
"How did you know it was a male then?" Cato asked.
"Just the way he carried himself. Seemed, perhaps, like a middle aged man. Kind of reminded me of several of the older doctors we have on staff where I work." Naito admitted.
"What did this mystery bird-man say to you?"
"He told me he was working with a distinguished scientist at ChemFlex Laboratories, but he wouldn't identify him. He said their work had been stopped by the outbreak of war and the Senate had ordered their research halted for the duration. However, they had continued their sensitive research in secret but had recently come to a halt due to the shortage of a key material; a certain virus culture unavailable over at ChemFlex."
"And which virus did he want to acquire?"
"Xenovirus, especially the lethal Prime variant. Though he also asked if we had any Gobindi which is also quite deadly." Naito answered. "Both are locked up in a refrigeration vault at Seinar and handled with extreme caution by our research droids. The man wanted my assistance, as a technician, to access some of the culture vials. I refused of course. I tried to be polite about it and told him he should go through the proper channels and make a request through our facility director or head of research."
"And what did this masked man say to that?"
"He said such a request would be futile as Seinar was doing competitive studies against ChemFlex in the same area and did not want a rival lab to gain an edge. I told him I wanted no part of this end-run around my superiors. The man then offered a bribe of ten thousand credits."
"Were you tempted to take it?" Cato probed.
"Not anymore. This was all too blasted shady for my liking. I told him no thanks. Then the guy got desperate and upped it to thirty thousand credits. He told me that if the culture was locked in the vault and could not be accessed could I simply draw blood from one of the infected lizard-monkeys and deliver the sample to him, while he waited in my landspeeder. I again said no."
"What happened then?"
"Well I reached into the back of the landspeeder to grab my lunch and leave, I must have startled him into thinking I was reaching for a weapon because he suddenly grabbed the front of my lab coat and commanded me to be still. Then he grabbed my landspeeder ignition fob. He begged for a sample of the virus even as he held my stolen fob. When he finally realized I would do no such thing, he sprung up and leapt out of my landspeeder, ran across the garage and jumped into an emerald X-34 and made a fast getaway. I then ran back into my work and immediately told my supervisors what had happened. Next thing I know, I'm here talking to you lot."
"You did the right thing, Naito. We'd like you to talk to one of our sketch droids . . ." Gage cut off the interview as it ended shortly after that.
"Any new insights, sir?" Alferon's voice came across the vehicle's audicasters.
Gage thought for several seconds, filling the vehicle with contemplative silence. "It must be Fulcrum."
"So far Fulcrum has only delved into the world of intelligence gathering. An Infochant or a slicer, perhaps. What use would he have in acquiring virus cultures?"
"Biological warfare is a trick almost as old as warfare itself. If he could release a virus among the population of the KDY Rings here at Nal Kuat it could cripple the war effort. Perhaps fatally." Gage hypothesized.
"Even if there were only a few fatalities and an outbreak was contained, a mandatory quarantine would shut down the Empire's main driveyards for a considerable amount of time." Alferon's worry came across the comms. Gage felt it too.
"Alferon, access the BOSS registration records for all landspeeders currently located on the Kuantus Ring." Gage asked his loyal servant.
"As you wish, sir, but be aware there are nearly three-quarters of a million such vehicles located on the ring on any given day." Alferon warned.
"How many X-34s?" Gage asked, knowing it was one of the most common models of landspeeders anywhere in the Empire.
"Over fifty thousand, Master Gage. Naval Intelligence wouldn't have even bothered with this sort of search without a landspeeder operating number."
"Unfortunately, Naito never got that close. Emerald is a strange color don't you think?"
"Rather gaudy, sir. I would think it pretentious to drive what must appear as a hovering gemstone." Alferon replied.
"I prefer black." Gage stated.
"I am aware, sir. Here you go. There is actually a total of three emerald landspeeders of three different types currently aboard the Kuantus Ring. Oh, this is interesting . . ."
"What's that, Alferon?"
"They are all registered to the same individual, one Puzzle Princess. It must be an alias, sir." Alferon uncovered.
"Eila Neggma." Gage flatly declared as he pulled on his cowl.
"But wasn't she reported killed when the Crimson Dawn assisted the First Order's nefarious assassination attempt upon the Empress?" Alferon inquired.
"Perhaps that is what she wanted us to think. The Crimson Dawn is well prepared to fake the death of one of its lieutenants to further its own aims."
"You're not going to believe this, sir, but I've located one of the three vehicles registered to that name. It's a gravtruck and its currently located nine hundred meters from your present position."
Alferon barely sent the vehicle's location to Gage before the Mynock-mobile charged out of the alley and onto the main thoroughfare looping around the Apex Chemical Plant. This couldn't be a coincidence. Fulcrum looking into acquiring a biological sample and one of his allies, only a handful of hours later, sniffing around one of the major chemical plants on the ring. If Fulcrum was looking for information on weapons or wanting to do some sabotage of his own, those would be two juicy targets of opportunity.
The Mynockian quickly located the emerald-painted gravtruck in a quiet area of the manufacturing plant's loading docks. Its engine was still idling as if its driver was due to return any moment. Lamps were still lit throughout the majority of the complex as third shift toiled away meeting the ever-hungry demands of the Imperial military. The storage warehouse next to the gravtruck was silent except for one lamp lit deep inside.
Gage performed a quick thermal scan of the warehouse. Due to the various storage vats that needed to be kept at specific temperatures it was nearly impossible to detect anyone inside the building. He would have to go in and investigate himself. He unclipped his grappling hook and blasted the cable into a window frame on the fourth floor. With a flip of a switch the gadget pulled him upwards where he slipped silently into the building.
He found himself in the darkened gantries above rows and rows of stored chemicals. Gage held his breath when he recognized several of the tanks were covered in toxin warnings for Trivoris. There was enough of the lethal nerve gas in the pressurized tanks to wipe out half of old Coruscant, he feared. As far as he knew, neither Admiral Gentis nor the Confederate Admirals had deployed chemical or biological weapons so far in the Orion War, but that didn't mean they were going to be caught flat-footed if the other side dropped them first.
Something caught his eye at the rear of the storage facility. A figure stood under a solitary lamp bent over a computer monitor. From his position the figure appeared to resemble what he recalled the Lorrdian, Eila Neggma, to look like.
Gage dropped to the floor without a peep or rustle of his cape. He crept forward silently towards the figure. About twenty meters from her, he broke into a sprint with the intention of quickly subduing her without a fight.
As he ran a voice called out to him from the darkness. "How am I, like the Mynockian?"
Gage tackled the figure with the style and force of a Nuna-ball playing droid. He flipped the being over with his right fist cocked and at the ready, just to be startled that he was looking down on some kind of mannequin.
There was movement above him. He peered up in time to see a woman dropping on him with a raised vibro-arbir crackling with green energy. Elia Neggma laughed as she dropped. "We're both dummies."
The Mynockian dove out of the way a split second before the Lorrdian swung her weapon down. The blade missed his head by a hair and sliced into the mannequin, splintering it into dozens of plastoid shards.
Gage crouched down in a teras kasi fighting stance. Ela Neggma laughed at him. For the first time he was able to study her. She now wore a green spacer's suit with golden aurebesh symbols for the inquisitive sewn across its fabric. An odd get-up for sure, he decided, but he was hardly in any position to judge as he was currently garbed as a human-mynock hybrid.
"Greetings, Dark Knight. It's been a while since our last meeting on Next-1. I'm much more aware of your propensity for lurking about in dark places than I was then."
"Neggma! I thought you were dead. Double-crossed by those First Order commandos you smuggled into the Empire." Gage accused her.
"Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated, as you can see. I'm not ready to solve the grand question of the great beyond quite yet." Elia Neggma smiled like a holo-game host.
"Still working with Crimson Dawn I see." Gage and Neggma started to circle one another as he looked for a hole in her defenses.
"The only legitimate criminals still in operation. Especially since your beloved Empire freed that sniveling Brakatak the Bull and started working hand and hand with the Gran Kajidic. They can kiss Phasma's shebs but Crimson Dawn never will." Neggma swore.
"Instead you'd betray the Empire and work with a traitor like Fulcrum."
Neggma paused and gave him a quizzical look. It was evident he caught her off guard for a second. "We follow the credits. Do you know how much ransom we can get for a canister of this stuff from the Senate? They're printing chits on Muunilinst Secundus like play money. The Prime Chancellor doesn't want to lose control of even a spray can of this stuff. Fierfek, we're actually doing our civic duty by showing Admiral Gentis where his defenses are weak."
"Is that the line Fulcrum sold you? Fulcrum is a spy for the Confederacy. He's the one who sold out every life on the Kuantus Ring by telling them the path through the Almuhit. He gave them the location of the Martian shield generators and a complete map of the Bloodstripe."
Neggma looked confused and then angry. "Crimson Dawn wouldn't do that. We may be unlawful entrepreneurs inside the Empire but we've no love for the Confederacy or those scum in the First Order. Fulcrum is one of us."
"Are you sure of that, Neggma? How many Lorrdians were on your homeworld of Greejatus Minor when it fell? How many do you think are still alive?" The Mynockian sunk his barb deep.
Neggma's eyes went wide in shock and her vibro-arbir dipped slightly. It was all the gap Gage needed.
He flung a pair of mynockorangs that bit deep into Neggma's shoulders. The sudden piercings caused the Lorrdian to howl in pain as she shambled back several steps.
Gage was on her in a heartbeat. He ensnared the shaft of the vibro-arbir in the small fin-blades of his gauntlet. With a twist of his arm he tore the weapon from Neggma's hands.
She gulped in fear as she watched his fist connect solidly with the bridge of her nose. The blow laid her out flat causing the back of her head to bounce off the hard permacrete of the warehouse's floor. She was seeing stars when Gage grabbed the front of her spacer's jacket and lifted her off the floor so that their faces were separated by mere centimeters.
"Where is Fulcrum?" The Mynockian demanded.
Neggma laughed. Gage studied her eyes for signs of a concussion but only discovered the slightly concealed mix of genius and insanity. "I can't make it that easy for you, Mynocks."
"If you don't tell me then he's going to get his hands on something a lot worse than Trivoris. How many deaths do you want on your hands, Eila?" Gage snarled at the groggy Lorrdian.
Neggma's face lit up in a mischievous grin. "Trillions of me can be good for you, but it only takes one bad fellow to put you on the pyre. What am I?"
Gage thought for a second and then realized the solution. "Bacteria. You fools. You stoopa, stoopa fools."
The Mynockian head-butted Eila Neggma squarely in her forehead, knocking her out cold. He bound her hands with mynock-cuffs and kicked her vibro-arbir away. He spotted an alarm mounted on a nearby wall and pulled it. A warning klaxon filled the warehouse as the Mynockian made his exit. Using his grappling hook to swing away into the darkness as security guards rushed into the warehouse where they would no doubt quickly discover the unconscious Lorrdian thief.
Gage leapt back into the Mynock-mobile and fired up its Radon-Ulzer 620D podracing engine. He wanted to kick himself. How could he be so gullible? He had been so focused on finding Neggma's gaudy gravtruck that he hadn't realized the Lorrdian was nothing more than a distraction. How could she have even moved Trivoris canisters to her gravtruck by herself? He should have taken Naito's report for exactly what it was; Fulcrum was after a biological agent. And if he really was a Confederate sympathizer, then it was no wonder he sought one that could take down every known sentient in the Empire.
Seinar Labs were much quieter than Apex Chemicals had been. Scientists tended not to work in shifts and, except for some die-hards on the edge of a breakthrough, most went home for the night. The place was occupied by a few lab technicians monitoring experiments on the lower floors and a handful of beings, too old for the Stormtrooper Corps, patrolling the grounds and main entrance as security. Gage spotted an unmarked black landspeeder on the roadway outside occupied by a pair of bored ISB agents. No doubt they had been placed there to watch the facility by Agent Cato after the strange report from Naito.
Gage parked the Mynock-mobile in a hidden alley several blocks away and then traveled by rooftop until he reached a perch where he could remain unseen and study the facility. A quick life-scan revealed a plethora of laboratory animals, primarily located in a holding facility on the first floor. The animal specimens were being monitored by at least four lab technicians who looked to be gathered around a HoloNet monitor watching a limmie game being played on Uvartia. A few security guards had joined them. Perhaps the late hour allowed them to get away with neglecting their duties while their supervisors slept.
There was a hint of movement on the third floor as a figure slipped past a lit window. The Mynockian switched between Life-Scan viewers and his thermal imaging to discover at least three beings making their way from room to room up there. With a quick check of the building's schematics on his suit's computer data base he discovered the culture vault was also located on the third floor, directly ahead of the three intruders' path.
He activated his cowl's ray shield. The energy field covered his mouth and nose and would prevent everything but purified air from entering his respiratory system.
Gage spread his cape out into the shape of a Mynock's wings and leapt from his lofty perch. He silently glided across the roadway and laboratory courtyard to land noiselessly upon the facility's rooftop. He cut the glass out of a skylight and dropped down into the top floor, startling a mouse droid in the process of buffing the floors. The small droid beeped several startled chirps and then rolled away as fast as its wheels could carry it.
He crept silently down the dimly lit halls towards the central lab specializing in infectious diseases. There he found the isolation blast doors had been jimmied open triggering a passable ray shield. Whoever had taken care of the blast door had been smart enough to disarm the alarms before the ray shield activated. The Mynockian slipped through the shield and into the brightly lit laboratory full of picoscopes, isolation fields, tractor beam suspension racks, myostim units, nanocam monitors, dermal regenator trays and dozens of other pieces of scientific equipment.
He spotted two figures near a large durasteel door at the center of the room. One of them was busy attempting to crack the vault door's electro-lock while the other stood over him holding a field security overloader. He couldn't quite recognize them from behind but they had the look of Crimson Dawn toughs.
"You're earlier than expected." A voice said from behind him.
As he turned he just had enough time to make out the butt end of a yellow fire extinguisher rushing towards his face. He had studied a tremendous amount of Earth culture in his hunt for Fulcrum, yet was surprised to see the figure was not just wearing black leather and robes with an aviary mask as Naito had reported. Instead he was garbed in the gear of a medieval Earthling plague doctor.
The fire extinguisher impacted and everything went dark.
The Mynockian woke up a few seconds later with his arms bound behind him as a pair of figures jostled him about. One of them spoke to the figure in the ancient medical mask. "Sorry, boss. Looks like he's awake. I barely had time to get his hands tied up."
"Here, hoist him up on this." The masked individual told his lackey as he handed him a suspension hook used for moving large biological samples around the lab.
The man did just that. He placed the hook on the Mynockian's bindings and heaved him up so that he was dangling with his feet a meter above the floor. The man grinned creepily up at him. "Now you'll know what real fear feels like."
Despite the fact that the two henchmen were wearing rebreathers in case of a biohazard leak, the Mynockian was able to identify them now that he had a closer look at the two of them. The one who mocked him was failed Zeltron psychiatrist by the name of Jawnton Cring, who was wanted for a series of kidnappings on Mars before the war, in which his recovered victims reported he delighted in making their biggest fears come to life. The other man, who had gone back to work attempting to crack the vault door, was Xervis Teach. Teach was a well-known safe cracker known for his signature neural wave relaxer helmet that he wore on all his jobs, including this one. His most famous job had been a near successful attempt at breaking into Mount Home's Yos Palace on Palpatine Prime and almost getting away with a full set of Royal Guardsmen armor. A feat which had earned him five years on Nal Kessel several years back. It seemed his skills, as well as his connections with Crimson Dawn, had only grown stronger while in prison.
The leader of the burglars walked up to the Mynockian and looked him over. With a gloved hand he rubbed the bottom of his mask in contemplation. "I thought you Justice League types went out of fashion back in the late 2020s?"
Gage didn't know what a Justice League was but he liked the sound of it. The time reference was oddly in the Confederate style, as it was currently only the late 20s in the 2nd Galactic Empire, based on a new calendar which measured the orbits starting from the 'big jump' twenty-seven years ago. Gage grunted at the man. "You are Fulcrum. Don't deny it."
Fulcrum laughed and gave a theatrical bow. "And you must be the Mynockian. We meet at last. Too bad our first meeting will also have to be our final one."
"Give yourself up, Fulcrum. ISB is on to you. You can't escape the law forever."
Fulcrum looked to his two compatriots. "You hear that fellas? We better give ourselves up. This trussed up bat is going to send us back to Nal Kessel."
Cring and Teach both laughed at the idea. Gage could see the vengeful stares behind their masks. Fulcrum shoved them towards the vault. "Get that thing open. There's no time to lose."
Both of the Crimson Dawn villains nodded in compliance and went back to their task. Teach restarted his safe cracking while Cring handed him various tools of their nefarious trade. Fulcrum looked up at Gage. "Now what to do with you, my interloping friend."
Fulcrum looked around the laboratory for several minutes before discovering a new toy to play with. Gage recognized the large disintegration tube as Fulcrum manhandled it out of its assigned spot and back across the lab towards him. Standing two meters tall the waste disposal unit was a large vertical pipe that blasted a flame of disintegration energy another meter into the air. The tech was used in medical and scientific laboratories to dispose of contaminated biological samples at the atomic level.
The spy placed it about two meters in front of the Mynockian and activated it, sending its white beam of energy into the air above it. The machine's sound covered their conversation from the vault crackers. "Been a while since I've worked with a Bunsen burner. And never one this size."
Gage had never heard the device called a Bunsen burner. The way that Fulcrum threw about Earth terminology proved his Terran origins. But how did he end up in the Empire? Had he been smuggled in years before the war as a deep cover espionage agent? There had been signs of him going back for over a decade and ISB had never come this close. But how? The Earth didn't have the means to reach beyond Mars until only a year ago, and that had come as a total surprise to everyone in the Empire.
"What do you expect to get out of all this, Fulcrum? If you release a biological weapon on an inhabited planet you'll be the worst murderer the galaxy has ever known." Gage pleaded with the enemy agent.
Fulcrum let loose a bitter laugh. "You're an idiot if you truly believe that, Mynockian. I could slaughter every person on every world in the Empire, and I'd be no worse than Emperor Yos when he ordered the orbital bombardment of my world. An act that wiped out a billion souls in the blink of an eye. Hell, I'd probably have a smaller body count than that bitch you Imperials call an Empress. A couple devastated worlds of the Empire will hardly be a drop in the bucket of blood that's already been spilled." Fulcrum argued. He walked around the Mynockian and held his kicking legs together.
"These fools think you're doing this for the ransom credits. What is Crimson Dawn going to do to you when a virus starts killing their families?"
"Ha. This gang of scum and villainy will be pleading for the antidote. I'll have them eating out of the palm of my hands. That is if I even need them. How long before Space Force is kicking down the gates of Nal Kuat if I release Xenovirus among the Imperial Fleet's naval yards here on the KDY Ring?"
"You're a sociopath. An eye for an eye will leave the whole Galaxy is blind. How many lives need to be lost until the scales are even?"
Fulcrum gave the Mynockian a mighty push towards the disintegration ray. "They'll never be even."
Gage was grateful Cring had failed to bind his legs together and with a mighty squirm jerked his body to the left of the flame. Like a macabre jester, Fulcrum laughed at Gage's struggles. "You want to play it that way, huh?"
Fulcrum grabbed the Mynockian's boot once more and then spun him in a circling arc around the disintegration flame. The vigilante jerked one way and then dodged another as his body closed with the elimination device. If only his hands were bound in his front, then he could keep this up for hours, but the exertion was exhausting him and the momentum of his circle was slowly decreasing as he got closer to the center.
"Hey boss, we sliced it." The pink Zeltron shouted in glee.
"What do you mean, 'we'?" Xervis Teach complained as he stood up and put away his scomp link in his back pocket.
"Well, I held the lamp up so you could see better." Cring declared.
His goal at hand Fulcrum shifted his attention from the swinging Mynockian to the slowly opening blast door covering the Bio-Temp Vault. The masked spy nearly ran over to wait beside his two associates as the barrier crept open.
It was all the distraction the Mynockian needed. Gage had not only spent the past decade training with some of the best fighters in the Empire, but he had also honed his skills in the gymnasium and possessed the flexibility of a Gados acrobat.
As he swung towards the beam, instead of jerking away, he flexed his core muscles and lifted his legs up and over the danger. He swore, in his mind he could feel heat from the device as his body passed over it. He flexed his wrists to separate his hands as much as possible. The resulting move exposed only the lowest part of his bindings to the beam. It was enough to cause the entire rope to disintegrate into a puff of ash. The release of tension and the momentum of his swing carried the Mynockian several meters where he crashed atop a table, scattering a collection of electron microscopes and deactivated laser dissection kits.
He instantly recovered and rolled into a fighting stance. As the three criminals turned in his direction he retrieved a handful of smoke pellets from his utility belt and flung them inside the vault. Fulcrum shrieked in anger as the rising clouds obscured his vision. The spy rushed into the vault and frantically started searching for the object of his quest.
Cring and Teach, for their part, were more focused on the Mynockian. The vigilante was crouched and moving from one lab station to another as he closed in on the Crimson Dawn scum. Both of them unholstered their side arms and started blasting away. Gage, for his part, bobbed up and down, unleashing a storm of mynockorangs at the two thugs. One of which struck Teach in the head, knocking free his neural wave relaxer helmet. The headgear rolled away and disappeared in the smoke cloud pouring from the vault.
The safe-cracker was furious. He ignored Gage's steady approach and dropped to his knees to scramble after the device. "My hat! My hat! My hat!"
Fulcrum emerged from the vault carrying a small camtono of cultures in one hand and a beaker filled with a violet-colored liquid. He kicked Teach as he exited. "Ignore your damn hat, man."
Fulcrum tossed the beaker towards the last spot where he had seen the Mynockian. The fluid was some sort of experimental bio-fuel made directly from oxygen coral. As the beaker burst the fluid splattered across another lab table. Fulcrum took Teach's blaster and fired upon the spreading puddle which ignited it. He handed the blaster back to the recovering slicer. "Burn it all."
Jawnton Cring didn't need to be instructed twice. The Zeltron let loose with his blaster, setting other lab experiments alight. One of his errant bolts pierced the lab's viewports and compromised the facility's isolation protocols. A blast shield dropped instantly over the cracked glass resealing the room, but it was enough to trigger the laboratory's security system. An alarm klaxon began ringing outside in the hallway as strobe lamps dropped from the ceiling. Seconds later, the fire-suppression system activated filling the room with falling plumes of retardant foam.
Fulcrum ran towards the back exit, leaving the other two to cover for him. Cring, seeing the result of his work, laughed in maniacal glee and started blasting the other viewports as smoke and foam filled the room.
Gage had to decide quickly. Fulcrum was escaping with an unknown agent in his camtono. But at the same time Cring and Teach were causing enough damage to rupture the lab and cause highly lethal bacteria and viruses to spill out and contaminate the ring. The security rushing up the stairwells towards the sounds of the commotion in the lab and the thousands sleeping in the Kuantus Ring would die by morning if he didn't act fast.
"Fierfek." The Mynockian growled to himself. Fulcrum was going to get away and cause untold damage. He might even cripple the war effort, he feared.
But in the end there was no real choice. The immediate danger was right before him. The time to act was now. "You've run out of time, Cring. Your night of terror is over!"
"Aren't you terrified of all the bugs we've released?" Cring fired at the Mynockian as he sprung from his hiding spot. The two bolts narrowly missed Gage and pierced his cape.
As he dodged the blaster fire he unleashed a barrage of small sonic disrupters which crashed into Teach. Unprotected by his helmet the safe cracker grabbed his ears and howled in pain from the stun weapon before collapsing unconscious to the floor.
"Fool was only in my way." Cring said in response to his comrade's incapacity. He started to run for the main door, blasting wildly over his shoulder as he fled.
"It's over, Cring." Gage realized if he opened the main door then the dying flames would reignite and possibly cause a massive release of biological agents.
As the Zeltron reached the door, the Mynockian hit the locking mechanism with another mynockorang, causing the door to jam. Cring turned and looked up. A vacuum duct above his head engaged its powerful emergency purge routine. The force of the device activating pulled off Cring's mask and sucked it upwards into its bowels. The vacuum drew not only the smoke from the fires and free-floating flecks of foam towards its maw but also the escaped bacteria and viruses from dozens of smashed isolation containers across the lab. All of the debris and agents had to pass by the flailing Zeltron as he gasped for breath.
Gage wasn't sure what Cring was seeing but the criminal's eyes were gripped in fear. As the mix of deadly agents warped his mind he fell to his knees. "No! Get away from me!"
The Crimson Dawn thief fell catatonic and wrapped himself up, shaking like a leaf in the fetal position. His whimpers could barely be heard above the sound of the vacuum system above him.
Seeing the two thugs had been dealt with, Gage noticed on nearby security monitors images of dozens of masked security guards as well as a pair of ISB agents were charging down the outer hallway. They would be here in seconds.
Gage scrambled towards the rear exit where another vacuum system was pulling in all the contaminants near the door. He didn't have time to slice the door controls and instead crashed through it with his shoulder. He fell in a cascade of door splinters in an empty hall. The breach caused a durasteel blast door to slam down behind him and seal him off from the lab. Thankfully the guards were approaching the front entrance and not the rear. Though if they had been, perhaps they would have been here in time to capture Fulcrum.
The Mynockian eluded security as he made his way to the roof top of Seinar Labs. Below him on the roadway KDY Guard cruisers were arriving by the dozen. In the distance a large RescueOps tanker airspeeder was approaching to assist the firefighting effort.
Gage hid in the shadows, away from prying eyes as he circumnavigated the rescue effort. A quick self diagnostic from the sensors in his suit indicated he was clean of any pathogens that might have been released in the fight. He scanned the crowd but didn't notice anyone that fit the description of Fulcrum. No doubt the agent had ditched his disguise as soon as he had left the lab. Gage wondered what had been in the camtono. Had it been one of the deadlier viruses as Fulcrum had been seeking, or had he flailed about in the smoke screen and grabbed the first thing that came to hand? For all anyone knew he had stolen some Festering Plague, which was easily curable with a good bacta injection. But somehow, Gage knew, the Empire was never that lucky.
The night wasn't a complete failure. He had finally come face to face with his enemy. He knew much more about Fulcrum than he had a mere hour ago.
Two things were certain. Fulcrum would be stopped. And second, there could no longer be any doubt. Whomever he was, Fulcrum was definitely an Earthling.
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Up Next: Setting up the board