Futuristic The Ghosts of Vega Prime {OPEN}

[DreamRider1]

✦ IC Rules & Posting Expectations ✦
“We run a tight ship out here. Don’t go rogue.”​

---

This is where the story unfolds.​

To keep things smooth, cinematic, and collaborative, here are the expectations for in-character writing and posting flow:

1. No godmodding or metagaming.
   You control your character only. Do not write another player’s character’s actions, thoughts, injuries, or speech without explicit permission. Don’t use OOC knowledge IC—keep the mystery alive.
2. Respect the posting order.
   We will follow a round-based posting system. Once everyone has posted, the next round begins.
   If someone is holding up a round, please let me know and we’ll work it out—life happens!
3. No double posting.
   Unless the GM gives the go-ahead, wait your turn before posting again. This ensures everyone gets their moment and prevents story jumps.
4. Minimum length: 2 paragraphs.
   Quality over quantity, but let’s keep the world immersive. Describe your character’s thoughts, actions, and how they respond to the environment or others. This is a detail-rich RP.
5. Use formatting to keep posts clear.
   Feel free to bold names or dialogue, italicize thoughts, and use headers if helpful—but no bright colors or hard-to-read fonts.
6. Character development matters.
   Whether your character is brooding in a corner or bantering mid-firefight, every post should push something—emotion, tension, story, or connection.
7. Keep things within the tone of the world.
   This is a gritty, mysterious, supernatural-tinged sci-fi. Ground your writing in the reality of Vega Prime. Horror, wonder, suspicion, awe, grief—lean into the vibe.

If you ever need to skip a round, pause for plotting, or step away, just let me know.
This crew runs on trust and communication.
​

---

✦ Prologue: Executive Silence ✦
“Some things are too valuable to stay buried.”​

---

The boardroom hovered in absolute stillness—silent, sanitized, sealed behind twelve inches of alloyed glass and reinforced egos. A long obsidian table stretched across the chamber, reflecting the hollow stares of NovaCorp’s most powerful: founders, investors, executive architects of sectors long devoured by expansion.

Outside, the orbital platform flickered beneath a starless void. Inside, numbers scrolled across translucent screens: energy surges. Movement in the mines. Resurrected signals in restricted coordinates.

And beneath all of it… the Heart.

"Containment failed ten years ago," said one, his voice as dry as the air scrubbers. "We’ve been hemorrhaging data ever since. Now the Heart pulses again—and we are blind."

“Send in a survey crew,” another offered, tapping a stylus against her teeth. “Standard protocol.”

A scoff. “The last survey crew bled out inside a cryo vault. We didn’t even recover the tags.”

There was no panic here. Only cold calculation. Greed wrapped in logic.

“Then we need something off-record. Disposable. Skilled, but severable.”

The word hung like a noose in the filtered air. No objections.

They reviewed files without names—just codenames, records, profiles scraped from forgotten military logs and redacted mental health assessments. Each one selected not for their loyalty, but for their lack of options.

The board approved the list without comment.

"They'll ask questions," one murmured.

"They'll die before the answers matter," came the reply.

A single command was issued. Silent, unanimous, final.

> Deploy messengers. Activate dead channels.
> Deliver the offer. Burn the trail.

And just like that, NovaCorp’s will moved through the void—
quiet, merciless, and cloaked in promise.

The hunt had begun long before they landed.

 

[DreamRider1]

⫷ Elara Vex ⫸
“The veil does not part for those who demand.
It parts for those who listen.”​

---

“Some call her mad. Others, touched by the stars. But none who’ve looked into those violet eyes forget the way the void looked back.”

She stood like a whisper in the dark — elegant, silent, and unknowable.

Elara Vex was not a figure easily forgotten. Her hair, a cascade of ink-black waves, shimmered faintly under starlight, catching threads of silver where the strands shifted with movement. It framed her sharp-boned face in windswept arcs, as if the cosmos had sculpted her to reflect the night itself.

But it was her eyes — brilliant, violet, and wholly unnatural — that marked her as something other. Glowing with an inner luminescence, they shimmered with flecks like broken stardust, always watching, always seeing more than what should be possible.

Her skin held the faintest luminescent hue, as though some distant nebula left its mark upon her. Though youthful in appearance, there was an agelessness to her gaze—a knowing that made even seasoned captains falter under her stare.

She wore her leathers like armor, weathered and adorned with quiet, symbolic details:
• Binding knots of crimson thread
• Runic etchings worn smooth by time
• A tarnished emblem at her chest, half-forgotten, yet meticulously polished

A lone whisper among roaring stars.​

She was a contradiction — soft-featured and steel-spined, radiant and grim. And where she walked, silence often followed… not out of reverence, but out of uncertainty.

For Elara Vex was not merely human.
She was marked.
Chosen.
Or perhaps…
claimed.

---

“She doesn’t raise her voice. She doesn’t have to. Even the static quiets when she speaks.”
Elara moved with a kind of stillness that unsettled people. Not the awkward kind, nor the shy — but the deliberate quiet of someone who listened to things no one else could hear.

Every motion she made was calculated, graceful, like a dancer who forgot the stage and kept moving long after the music died. Her presence didn’t demand attention — it commanded it through restraint, through the eerie calm that hung around her like the eye of a storm.

She rarely smiled. And when she did, it was never at jokes or pleasantries, but at strange moments —as though she were remembering something you couldn’t see.

Some thought her cold, others thought her broken. But the truth was far stranger. Elara simply didn’t need the same things most people did.
Not comfort.
Not validation.
Certainly not small talk.

Her voice was soft and measured, always a breath slower than expected, as though she weighed every word against some unseen scale.

She spoke in absolutes or riddles, depending on the mood of the stars that day. And when she fell silent, which was often, the air around her thickened with the sense that something was listening through her.

It made others uneasy.
But it also made them follow.

She didn’t lead through charisma or force. She led because when the world turned strange — when machines sparked without cause, when compasses spun, when sleep brought visions instead of rest — Elara Vex stayed calm.

Because she’d already seen it in her dreams.

---

“Ask ten people who she is, and you’ll get ten different lies.
Or ten different truths — depending on how close they stood when the lights began to flicker.”

Among drifters, scavengers, and spacers chasing ghosts in forgotten systems, Elara Vex’s name surfaces like a warning signal in deep space chatter. No one agrees on where she came from.

Some say she was born aboard a derelict ship swallowed by the dark and walked out alone. Others whisper she was once part of some long-abandoned cult — one of the last surviving Oracles of a dead moon. A few claim she’s not human at all, just wearing the shape of one.

What they all agree on is this:
She is not normal.

She’s been spotted on stations right before power surges knocked entire wings into blackouts. Surveillance glitches out when she’s nearby. Radios pick up bursts of static that sound too close to whispers. And anyone who’s spent too long around her has at least one story they swear happened… but can’t prove. The kind that eats at you. The kind that doesn’t feel like a lie, but sounds like one out loud.

People call her things behind her back:
Starborn. Void-touched. Prophet. Witch.
Not out of malice, but uncertainty. Reverence. Fear.
Like sailors naming a storm.

There’s no bounty on her, no charges, no official record of wrongdoing — but captains still hesitate to let her aboard. Not because she’s dangerous — but because things tend to change once she’s there. And change, in the black, is rarely good.

Those who trust her say she sees things others can’t.

Those who don’t?

They say she brings them with her.

---

The messenger found her on Caligo Station—half-forgotten, dimly lit, and wheeling just outside the regulated grid. A place where things flickered out of sync and the air always smelled faintly of ozone and regret.

She was seated alone at a rusted-out observation deck, watching the starless drift beyond the hull, one hand curled loosely around a cup of something that had long since gone cold.

He didn’t approach at first. Just watched. Most did.

She spoke without turning.
“Tell your handler I don’t work for credits. Or threats.”

The man flinched.
Not because she was right — though she was — but because of how casually she said it.
Like she already knew who he was.
What he carried.
What would follow.

Still, he stepped forward, as protocol demanded.
“Elara Vex,” he said, voice clipped, sterile.
“You’ve been selected for CONTRACT 7X-BLACK.
NovaCorp authorization. Top-level directive.”

She didn’t answer.

He set the case down anyway.
Unlocked it.
Let the faint hum of sealed data cores break the silence.

Inside:
A dossier lined in black
An encrypted chip
A single holo-frame of a planet that no longer appeared on official charts

“I’m not asking,” he said, more out of reflex than command.

Elara’s fingers hovered over the image.
The planet flickered—unmapped, unnamed, its surface veiled in red haze.
There was something buried beneath the scan.
Something alive.

Her violet eyes narrowed, pupils contracting like stars collapsing inward.

“I’ve seen this before,” she whispered.

The messenger stiffened. “That’s classified. You couldn’t have—”

But she was already standing, the chair scraping back behind her, abandoned. The cup rattled. The lights overhead dimmed.

Somewhere behind them, a station panel shorted out with a pop of static.

She didn’t take the chip.
She didn’t need to.

“Tell your Corp I’ll go,” Elara murmured, already walking away.
“But they won’t like what I find there.”

 

[ZarbofftheFirst]

Roddy Belfort​

---

The din of unsavory conversation filled the air as beggars, thieves,
and everything in-between took their places among the steel tables and metal railings.
Gravity was a luxury, and some patrons floated upside down in the large keg shaped module
called Bottom’s Up. Or I guess right side up.

Perspective is relative after all, at least to the pirates and heist-men in Bottom’s Up.
The Free Station of Coronado welcomed such “free thinkers,” as long as they had money for docking fees.
A table of filthy upside-down reprobates shared a bottle of Auntie Shandy.
The horrifying swill, dehydrated rum and beet alcohol, was rehydrated from a powdered form into something drinkable.
Of course, that would need someone with good eyesight to actually make something non-lethal.
That takes into account if anybody cared about dying.

The table of Shandy drinkers weren’t concerned about that.
They had made away with some credits, and wanted to celebrate the joyous occasion.
Among them was a man, or a young adult if he lived in a civilized system.
His padded orange crew jacket floated off of his needle-like frame, and his high top boots clacked off of the ceiling panel as he stomped to the latest song to catch the gang’s ear.

“Roddy! Roddy! Tell ‘em about the Al-Shaddah!” one of the men said. His thick yet well shaped beard seemed to be the only thing he spent credits on, especially with the deteriorated state of his jumpsuit.
Roddy brought together his orange jacket and smirked as he did so. “Okay okay—so!” Roddy looked out with his hands out. The men fell silent. “Me and a couple of the boys get the tip off that some Saudis are gonna hyper jump into the Vekta System. They’re gonna inspect some colonies out there. They have to go into hypersleep, and get their ship, the Al-Shaddah, into position at the jump point just at the edge of the system.”

“The edge of the system?” One man asked, his clean shaved face showed many scars and burn marks.
“For where they were going,” Roddy said, “They needed it. So for us, we’d hit the ship when it’s in auto-glide, and take everything off of ‘em. A bunch of old fucks and a hookah lounge—not complicated, right? So we’re gliding to the ship, no tracker, no O2, no lights, just cans hooked to the recycler. We spot it. BOOM! The head man said he’s depressurizing. I float out and hook onto our boat. I spotted what looked like the emergency hatch. I aim and I jump for it. I was floating for a bit.”

Roddy continued---
“I said to the guys, are we sure we got the right boat? It didn’t even have markings. The head man says check for markings. I’m still going. I find a rail, and I grab on as I come up alongside it. Next thing I know, I see glass. I look up, it’s a view deck. I turn around, get my boots in—“ Roddy sized up his shoulders and his fellows. “I got my gun in one hand, the hook in the other. I walk to the glass and I look down.”

The men wait in suspense.

“This lady,” Roddy paused. “Is fuckin ELBOW DEEP IN THIS OLD MAN!”
The drunkards yell out in laughter.
“I grab my gun to get their hands up. This old bastard gets flung into the fuckin’ sun shade! BAM!
There’s shit flyin. UFOs, little fuckin saucers of shit.” Roddy gets two big slaps that send him drifting away.
“Just like this, like I’m floating now! Big halal lamb shits just floatin away.
I tell the guys, we’ve got the right people. The boys got to the hatch, we boot into the comms, the poor fuckers give up, and they hand over their jewels.
I swear I still have a gold hookah pipe to this day with some name, Fatma or something on the side.
Let me tell ya, lamb shits smell terrible in a boat. I mean it! The curry and nutmeg shits. Horrible fuckin’ uuugh.”

“They couldn’t pay you double for that?” Another drunkard says between disintegrated teeth.
“I wish they did,” Roddy said. “The girls weren’t even down for us, and they’d just finished with El-Mo,”
Roddy held up his hand and wiggled his fingers to the snickers of his fair weather friends.

---

The friends seemed to notice something before Roddy did.
Their faces became grave, and they grabbed the rails. They kicked their feet and flew away.
Roddy looked around, until his eyes fell on a man in a black beret. The man wore some heavy equipment to be on a Free Station.
Like he was with a real outfit, not just a couple thieves.

“Roddy Belfort,” the hatted man said. He moved himself closer using rails,
and continued to speak, even though he was upside down to Roddy. “I’d say it was nice to see you, but I can’t lie so boldly, unlike you.”

“At least my stories have truth to ‘em,” Roddy said.
“What do you want from me? I owe somebody, right?” The hatted man raised his eyebrows.

“You do owe services to NovaCorp,” the hatted man said. Roddy grimaced at the utterance.
Owing something to NovaCorp was like owing to the devil, at least to Roddy.
“Contract 7X-Black. Your eyes only. Fixed price, no bargaining. Understood?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Roddy said, Shandy still in his hand.
“No backing out,” the hatted man said. Roddy lowered his hands, but
he noticed the hatted man already had his gun on him. Better to accept the offer.

“I accept the terms,” Roddy said. The hatted man smiled.
“Good,” the hatted man said. He flicked his thumb, and a data stick flew in space.
Roddy grabbed it with his free hand, and looked at it. Corporate shithead, Roddy thought.
It couldn’t get worse than this. “Instructions are on the data stick. Read them, carefully. See you around, cowboy.”

The hatted man dipped into the crowd like a ghost. Roddy looked down at the data stick in his hand as his friends floated back to him.
“What was that all about Roddy?” the great bearded man asked.
“Maybe you’ve got too many haters,” the toothless man chimed in.
“Or lovers,” the clean shaven man chuckled. Roddy shook his head.

“I’ve gotta dip guys,” Roddy said. He set his cup in mid-air and took his phone from his pocket.
Roddy sent credits to his fellow with the flick of his thumb. “Don’t wait up for me.”
“Good luck man,” the bearded man said, “SALUD!” The men raised their glasses as Roddy made for the exit.

---

Roddy held onto the railing at the doorway to Bottom’s Up.
He clicked his heels and attached his boots to the station, allowing him to walk in a semi-normal fashion.
Whatever they want from me must be pretty damn important to point a gun at me, Roddy thought. Hopefully there’s enough credits in it for me.

Roddy walked up to a series of lockers in the dingy station. He put his phone near a control panel, and a wide locker opened up.
He walked to the door, to his large briefcases. He grabbed them, wheeled them out, then kicked the door back into place.
He walked down a long corridor, past a gunsmith, a doctor, a barbershop, a brothel, and a drug lounge until he reached the StarLine booth.
A supply barge was due to arrive, and he could stowaway to the station he needed to reach.

Roddy handed his credits over to the booth. In return, he got back a digital ticket.
He turned to the loading dock. He trotted over. After coming to an inconspicuous corner near an air outflow vent,
he sat down and waited. Roddy’s resting smile disguised his tired soul.

Credits, bullets, liquor, sex, sleep, then back again.
Roddy didn’t even remember the last time he ate something. Like an actual meal, that wasn’t dehydrated, or filled with salt.
What was an honest job in a dishonest world? Ship pilot? Engineer? Guard?
If Roddy’s memory served right, he had either bribed, threatened, or killed at least one of each.
Roddy didn’t know honesty. He knew just enough to count credits, read, write, and shoot a gun.
Even then, the latter skill was his most developed. So was his mouth, for getting him out of trouble.

Roddy took the rare peaceful moment to nap in the Free Station. Maybe he would find fortune in this new, involuntary mission.

 

[Ayama]

NATASHA THRYM-VOLLR

Click-clack. Click-clack.

The comfortingly repetitive sounds of the knitting needles echoed slightly in the metallic room, little reflections flashing on the wall in time with moving hands. There wasn't much to do during the lull while the ship was traveling to its latest destination in the vastness of space, so the mercenary had decided to take up knitting to pass the time.

Click-clack. Click-clack.

"Wotchu got there, Bolts? Makin' yerself a friend?"

The voice floated through the merc's open doorway, nasally and grating as always. The crew's engineer had decided from the off that his favorite pastime on this job was going to be to make snide comments at every opportunity, trying to get a rise out of her. It was juvenile and tiresome, but nothing she hadn't dealt with before.

"Hat," the cyborg grunted, not bothering to turn her head or stop her work. The engineer let out a bark of derisive laughter.

" 'Hat'? " he repeated disbelievingly, examining the cluster of yarn in her hands. "You might wanna get your eyes checked there, Bolts- I think they're starting to go. Heck, I'd be happy to take a look for you if you'd like..." he added menacingly, brandishing some sort of jerry-rigged, battery-powered soldering iron. Ominously, the thing was emitting showers of sparks at random intervals. The mercenary shrugged, and the engineer clicked his tongue, disappointed once more about not getting the reaction he'd hoped for. He flicked the switch on his disturbing device to the 'Off' position.

"Anyway," he resumed, pivoting to the real reason he was down by her bunk, "Cap' says we'll be topside in a few, so put down whatever it is and get your ass to the bridge."

Before Thrym could even grunt an affirmative, he'd gone.

The mercenary stuck her needles into the dowdy, drab-colored ball of yarn by her leg and held up her work to the light, evaluating the misshapen lump with a critical eye. Okay, so maybe that asshole had a point- you couldn't exactly tell at first glance that it was supposed to be a hat. But hey, at least she was getting better- there was definitely a recognizable shape to this lump, even if it wasn't the shape she wanted.

Sighing, she put her masterpiece down next to the yarn and rose from the cot, groaning as her joints creaked in protest as always.

Wonder if I'll have enough left over for an oil rub after this job, the merc thought, catching her reflection in a metal panel on her way out the door. Two wide, unblinking, unnatural crimson eyes stared right back, empty and dead as they always were.

*****​

The ex-enforcer had been running with this crew for a few months now. A ragtag band of crude, rude grifters trying to cobble together a living on the frontier, taking any odd job they could find. Transport, escort, salvage missions, theft... whatever got them enough credits to keep eating and flying for another month, another week, another day.

They'd hired her on as added muscle since, despite her 'netics' outdated tech, there wasn't much out here that could match her for sheer firepower, and she'd definitely pulled her weight. Their tolerance had been stretched nearly to breaking point on the last job, however, when her utter lack of stealth during a delicate retrieval operation had nearly gotten them all caught by the Aegis.

Luckily they'd all gotten away with their payday intact, and the crew reasoned that they could afford to keep her around for at least one more job (since they couldn't exactly do this next one without her).

Mind you, it wasn't easy. For all that she liked to keep to herself, the merc's placement on the spectrum and general awkward demeanor when it came to dealing with people and pretty much any social situation known to man made having her around anywhere from uncomfortable to downright infuriating.

Like her tiresome habit of wrinkling her nose at the smell of pretty much any cooked food in her vicinity. She said she couldn't help it- a result of the damage caused to her olfactory receptors by the back-alley quack who'd done her implants-, but that didn't stop the chef (proud of his creations as all artists were, even if those creations could most generously be referred to as 'greasy slop') from popping a blood vessel every time she 'disparaged his art'.

Adding insult to injury was the disgusting, malodorous ooze that she consumed at every meal- a revolting, tar-colored mixture of essential nutrients and what one could only assume to be motor oil, wafting noxious fumes into the surrounding air.

There was also her exasperating tendency to bring any living organism she took the slightest interest in back onto the ship with no regard for safety or common sense. That acid-spitting mole thing with the bottomless appetite had nearly destroyed their entire payday before they caught it eating its way through the cargo. And who could forget when that weird, slimy fungus had gotten into their food and the entire crew was sick for a week?

These and many other such delightful quirks made Natasha Thrym-Vollr a... challenge to be around at the best of times. Of course, as with all things, the flip-side of these less pleasant traits was the mercenary's more positive qualities. She was kind, generous- the least judgmental person you'd be likely to meet, and loyal to a fault, only her lovely crewfellows never got to see any of that because they treated her pretty much like a robot, and they honestly couldn't have cared less.

Luckily for all of them, this was their last job together, after which they would gratefully part ways with the awkward cyborg, happy and relieved to be well-shot of her.

*****​

The job went surprisingly smoothly. Other than the slight hiccup in the middle where she froze up right as they were taking heavy fire (she never could control when a flashback decided to pop up), everything pretty much went according to plan. It was only a small jump back to Alpha from the pickup, and within hours of landing they'd gotten paid and gone on their merry way.

Thrym watched them walking away, laughing and patting each other on the back, with a familiar feeling in her gut- a feeling she'd felt many times before, but still hadn't quite been able to identify.

Sighing, the cyborg shook herself out of it and checked the number in the bottom right corner of her display. The pay for this last job was meager at best (she wasn't much of a negotiator and always got the short end of the stick), but at least she now had enough credits for a place to stay and a pint of that smooth, synthetic oil that made her mechanical joints feel like butter on hot toast. It wouldn't last her long, but it would do until she could find herself another job.

*****​

As it turned out, the job found her.

A nondescript dark alley in the dead of night. A mysterious, shadowy figure holding a briefcase. All that was missing was mood music, a trenchcoat and a fedora.

"Natasha Thrym-Vollr," the voice announced- it was not a question. Thrym flinched at the sound of her full name- she hadn't heard it (or thought of it) in years.

"Please don't use-" she began, but the man simply continued his recitation, ignoring her completely.

“You’ve been selected for CONTRACT 7X-BLACK. NovaCorp authorization. Top-level directive," the menacing, robotically-rehearsed voice intoned as he thrust the case into her hands. The merc's eyes went wide- she hadn't heard designations like that since...

"I've been disavowed," she protested in confusion, "why would Nova want me to-" But the man had already let go of the case, turned, and disappeared into the night.

Thrym blinked in utter consternation, wondering what on earth this could be about. Whatever it was, she wasn't going to get to the bottom of it simply standing there staring into nothing, so she sat herself down on a crate and cracked open the case.

Well, at least it's not a bomb this time... she thought ruefully as she was met with the sight of a standard encrypted chip, a heavily redacted file, and a holo-frame of an ominous-looking, hazy reddish planet. A most familiar-looking planet.

"No..." the cyborg breathed, a wave of memories threatening to rise up and engulf her. Bodies dead on the ground, gunfire and explosions, dead, unseeing eyes staring up at her...

She shook her head to clear the visions and held up the file. Objective. Secondary Objective. Known Hazards. Protocol. And then that last one, familiar as well, that sent a chill running down her scarred and grafted spine. Termination Clause Authorized. The merc shook her head again- in denial this time.

"Why me...?" she bemoaned, flipping to the back of the file to find the answers- she'd thought she was done with NovaCorp for good.

Necessary Expertise... Previous Experience... Relevant Skillset... The words blurred in front of her eyes like so much gibberish.

Why in the 'verse would they think I would do this?

But there was the answer- right there on the page.

Records Expunged. Permanent Blanket Wipe. Words she'd thought she would never see. And then, just below, a number. A number larger than all the jobs she'd pulled since leaving NovaCorp put together. A number large enough to finally get her home.

Half upon signing, half upon completion, the paper read. Thrym turned the chip over in her hand, inspecting it closely before tucking it away and reading the final directives.

Get in. Find the Heart. Extract if possible. If not… don’t come back.

Some things never change, she thought, rolling her eyes.

Burn this channel after launch. You’ll know when to contact us again—if you’re still alive.

She hesitated. If she was going to back out, now was the time to do it. She could run- head to an even more remote corner of the 'verse, live out her days farming Thorium for a pittance and dying in obscurity. She didn't have to go back.

The mercenary heaved a sigh. In truth, she'd already decided- it was pointless to pretend otherwise any longer. She waited a beat for something- anything- to happen; to tell her not to do this. But the alley stayed dark, the universe stayed silent.

So much for signs.

Slowly, deliberately, she reached forward, her fingers inching towards the little red 'Overload' button on the bottom of the case.

⤪ ──────────▹◈ ☢ ◈◃────────── ⤨​

Location: Alpha alleyway
With: The shadows and the rats
Mood: 'I can't believe I'm doing this...'​

THE EX-CORP MERC

 

[noil]

It had picked up the two tails on surveilance scan back in the commercial district. It was kind of hoping they would get bored and wander off if it played things cool, but that was looking less and less likely as they remained close behind coming in to the shipyards. They were NovaCorp, there was no second-guessing that. The woman in front wore crisp business attire that stuck out like a Xargian in a zen garden amongst the battered and grimy populace of this freeport, and the heavily armored man stomping along as security escort just behind her was unmistakable.

Ace stopped abruptly in an open area, whipping a modded bolt-pistol from its holster and pivoting to train its barrel on the closest of the pair. An unfortunate mechanic walking by on the way to a patch job yelped and picked up her pace, stumbling a bit as she half jogged away from the sudden face off.

"I don't work for boot-licking corpo dickheads," Ace snapped, squaring up with the rep, "Fuck off."

The NovaCorp representaive smirked, seemingly unphased by the confrontation, "Come now, there's no need for hostilities. We just wanted a friendly chat. But, if you insist."

The representative motioned to their escort who had remained standing just behind her. He stepped forward briskly, placing a battered haptic screen in the representative's outstretched hand. It was by and large nondescript - no shiny details or pleasing aesthetic design shapes - aside from a scuffed logo etched into the backing. The same logo Ace had seen time and again on the walls of-

Memory recall:
It wasn't a NovaCorp rep holding the Command pendant, it was -
Log file data alteration detected; subject identification not retrieved;
Limbs jerk to stiff attention as fingers tap across the screen, sending code packages flying in to smother rapidly expanding learning code. Scrambling to staunch the free will wound in their perfect tool.

"Where did you get that." Ace took a half step back despite itself, momentarily thrown.

"You know, you can acquire all sorts of interesting prototypes when research companies go bankrupt." The representative flipped a switch on the side of the hap screen, "Shall we see what this one does? We're offering employment, but we could just make you work for us."

"Bitch."

She hummed thoughtfully, chin tilting up in regard. "You would, of course, receive this device as part of your compensation upon completion of the contract. And I think you'll find that the digits on that compensation more than adequate."

She slipped a holo-interface from a sleeve and with a press its projection blinked to life, throwing a flat blue-tinged curtain of text into the air between them. A light on Ace's faceplate blinked as it connected to the feed, scrolling through the data and stopping on the number. That was a lot of zeros.

"Well you should've fuckin' led with that, lady." Ace immediately holstered the bolt-pistol, holding out a hand for the data clip.

The representative exchanged a look with her escort before tossing it over. She waited patiently as Ace caught the data clip from the air, plugging it in to a port in its wrist. Its interface indicator blinked some more as the data stream connected, and as it scanned through for relevant markers its posture slowly relaxed.

>OBJECTIVE: Retrieve or verify continued existence of Subject A (‘The Heart of Vega’).
> Secondary Objective: Survey anomaly behavior and remaining kyrellium concentrations.
> Known Hazards: EM storms, hostile terrain, Echo-class manifestations, rogue AI systems, potential hostile survivors.
> Protocol: Infiltrate. Investigate. If possible—extract. If not—contain.
> Termination clause authorized.

"Ohoho yeah, this will be fun." She got the sense that the bot would be grinning if it had that functionality. "When do we start?"