Universal War

Damyan brings the Illusive Shadow in low and quiet landing in a private terminal, "okay I have to go meet someone about a certain package aboard here, the less you know the better. While I'm doing that feel free to go to the main hub there are several outlets for various supplies should find you some clothing there."

He makes his way out of the Shadow leaving Libby and Groon aboard. As he exits the bay a small hover craft arrives and he boards it heading out to the far fringe of the domed city. He watches the lack of scenery as he rests his hands on the familiar grip of his pistol hoping this transaction goes smoothly.

Libby makes her way to the shops and finds some clothing that although not her normal style suits her just the same. She also invests in a couple of blasters and a few personal weapons and new boots. After spending a couple of hours buying what she will need for the immediate future her bags are heavy. When she gets back to the ship she boards and goes to her room and takes a shower and then a nap.

After her nap Libby awakes and dresses. She opens her door, walks into the galley and sees Groon with his leg on a chair and a razor trying to shave the multicolored hair off of his body. It was all she could do to stop snap a pic and back out of the room and walk out. Her hand covered her mouth and she ran off of the ship and burst into giggles so hard she had tears rolling down her face in near monumental amounts. She couldn't stop laughing no matter what she did. The image was seared into her brain.

When Damyan returned she was still laughing so hard she didn't notice his expression. When he asked she just held up the picture of Groon.

Damyan comes in past her with a scowl on his face and a score of bruises and cuts on his face and hands, walking in to the galley he pours a shot of Centaurian Ice Whiskey and downs it in one gulp as Libby follows in behind him. He goes to the sink and begins to wash off the crusted blood from his hands. Turning to Libby,"you get everything done? We're leaving asap!"

"Yeah I did. What happened to you? You look terrible. Are you alright?" She pushes the camera into her pocket and goes to get the first aid kit. She takes it to the cockpit where she finds him setting a course. 

"Well what happened?" She waits for him to finish and sit back in his chair. Then she pulls her jacket off and drops it into her chair and opens the kit. "Can I just clean up your face a little?"

Damyan pulls away from her hand, the smell of the alcohol burning his nose,"I'm fine, you should see the other five guys." A few minutes pass as the Shadow clears Luna. Before he can even think of a destination the com comes to life startling the pair.

"To the pilot of the Illusive Shadow...you will come to these coordinates or you will be hunted and destroyed...is this clear?"

"Well...I guess we have a destination." Damyan snarls as they pull away, after an hour passes they arrive to see a Newton Class Bulk Crusier the Nova Star waiting for them. Docking the ship Damyan begins to grab his gear including his weapons. :If you need anything grab it now." he then leaves Libby in the cockpit as he goes to locate Groon.

Libby jumps up, sliding on her jacket and follows Damyan. "What's going on? Who are they and what do they want?" She ducks into her room and pulls her blasters, knives and other personal gear and loads up. 

She found him in the galley and she stopped with a grin on her face as the scene unfolded. Damyan had found Groon alright. Groon was attempting to remove the hair on his butt. Damyan had startled him and Groon had cut himself and was hopping up and down.

Damyan just laughs at the little Vegarian, "Groon you can stay on board and...well don't know how to explain this one." 

He pulls on his leather jacket as Libby and himself make their way to the hatch,"remember how I told you I was ex-military...if we get out of this I will explain more about it...for now I think it may be one of the Admiral's I pissed off years ago."

The pair makes they way into the bay to be greeted by a small man dressed in officer gear and he takes them to the bridge. Once there they are greeted by a older man, tall and lean in his late fifties. ""Sorry to interrupt your trip but we just left the remains of the base on Europa and the logs showed your ship the last one to arrive, care to explain."

Libby stepped up and addressed the man. "Sir we arrived just before the attack and were in the process of getting a new part for our hyperdrive. We tried to help but there were too many of them and we barely made our own escape. We saw the aggressors burning it to the ground and took to the air asap." She felt Damyan tense up beside her and she thought maybe she overstepped. 

The Admiral looked at her a moment and looked like he was thinking hard.

Damyan caught Libby's lie about arriving with them but understood why she did. He locks eyes with the Admiral realizing its him after all this damn time. Clenching his fists tight he curses under his breath,"you son of a bitch...it was your damn order that caused their deaths." he snaps loud.

The Admiral's eyes snap open wide as he realizes just who is in front of him. "Look...we won't keep you. Guards please escort them back to the bay." he barks his orders with a nervous tone of voice.

Libby followed the guards back to the Illusive Shadow with Damyan and as soon as the ship doors closed they headed for the cockpit and she heard him muttering under his breath. "Okay spill it? Who was that and why do you think he ordered the attack on Europa? Did I say anything that I shouldn't have?"

"You did fine, and no I wasn't referring to the Europa attack when I snapped on him about the order...it was right before I quit the military...his order caused my squad to get killed." Damyan pauses as he pulls away from the larger ships docking bay and fires the engines towards deep space. 

"Look what I'm about to tell you cannot leave this ship...I used to be a level 9 assassin...my last mission we were ordered by that Admiral to take out a unit of Hatarii scouts, it was an ambush. If not for my enhanced abilities I'd be dead as well."

Libby listened and took in what he said. "I see why you would hate him. I think I would be the same way in that situation." She thought a moment. "I think I need to change my name so the military doesn't just decide that they want me back. I was thinking Bella Parker would work. Bella off of my real name and Parker is my twin brother's middle name."

"That should work, I know a guy on the outer rim who can forge a set of papers for you that the best agents in our military can't break...think that will be our next stop, it'll take a day or so to get there." Damyan replies keying in the coordinates as the Shadow streaks into hyperspace.
He gets to his feet,"you need a place to crash follow me." He takes her to the crew section of the Shadow. Unlike most freighters in its class this one has been upgraded. The rooms are larger and have actual beds vs the standard cots. Taking her to a mid sized room,"you can bunk in here, there is plenty of room for your gear and tools plus it ha a private shower."

Bella smiled at the room and appreciated that he was thinking of her and what she needed to start over. She wanted to do something nice for him. "Thank you, I'll go grab my things and get settled in here."

She turned and walked down the hall to go get her things and realized she had left two hefty bags full of clothes and things on the bed in the other room. She had to make three trips to move all of her weapons and clothes into the room. After she put her clothes away she found a footlocker to keep her weapons within easy reach.

After she finished her room she looked at it and got an idea. She knew that they needed to keep up on the training and she went to look at the cargo holds. She chose the smaller cargo hold and found a few things she needed and got to work. After about an hour she had set up a wall with all sorts of knives and throwing stars and spears and ropes. She opens one of the bags inside the last bag she brought from her shopping trip. She pulled out a few guns, lots of ammo, brass knuckles and a large first aid kit. After placing these things on the wall's shelves Bella looked fairly pleased with herself.

 She got all the way to the cockpit and she got a little nervous about it. 'What if he didn't like it and got mad?' Bella decided not to worry about it. "Damyan? I wanted to do something nice for you and I think I have. Could you come with me a minute?" 

 He walked with her and she opened the door to the smaller cargo hold. "I was hoping we could use it to keep up on training when it's not in use for cargo." Damyan looked at the new training room. "We need more weapons but we can add to them."

Damyan eyes the walls covered in various weapons and his mind races back a decade ago when he used these daily...as a assassin in the Naval Corp of Espionage he has seen his share of blood. Not wanting to hurt her feelings he forces himself back to reality.
"It'll do...good thing I don't use this bay much. So what kind of training have you had?"

Bella is unsure of how he feels about it. He tries to hide it but she sees the flash of memory in his eyes and she turns her eyes to the room. "I've had military training, self defense, archery and I'm a good shot with guns and blasters. I'm not as good with the spear or the staff but that is mostly due to my size. 5'6" is not that tall for staff fighting or fighting a really big guy." She nodded towards the ropes hanging from the ceiling and says, "I'm accurate and pretty strong for my size."

"Actually that is where you're wrong. You see using a staff equals out your size vs his." Damyan pauses grabbing a pair of staffs and tosses her one. "You see a staff is more about balance not power...you can use it to give you distance against the larger foes reach."

He begins to move around the room his form flawless and moves almost cat like. "You see the idea is to make the weapon a part of you, not a tool." 

"You feel like sparring a bit?"

Bella was thrilled to see him having a good time and nodded. "Absolutely, we need to keep on our game just in case."  She grabs a staff and moves watching his every move and waits for him to attack. Bella knows she is a little rusty with the staff and counters his attack.

Damyan shifts to his back foot a bit waiting for her to attack but he sees she is watching only, with a slight weight shift he lunges forward swinging his staff over head she quickly moves in time to block his strike. For the next few minutes they strike and parry until finally Damyan using a feint tricks her and with a quick flip sends her staff away.

"Okay a good start, now what would you prefer to use?"

Bella flips the staff up with her boot and catches it. She parries and drops his staff to the ground with a speedy move. She tosses hers away and goes straight into hand to hand combat. He immediately adapts smoothly and counters. Bella dodges and flips out of the way.

As the pair continue to spar Groon walks in, his head covered in band aids. "Any idea why the ship dropped from hyperdrive? Or who the ship following us is."

Damyan stops as Bella's punch lands square in his gut,"oooffff...What ship are you going on about?" 

The trio heads to the cockpit and trailing them is a Earth cruiser, "first off why did we drop from hyper too soon...second why is a America CLass Battleship behind us?"

"I'll check on the hyperdrive!" Bella runs towards the equipment and sees the problem almost immediately. She opens the toolkit she had nearby and pulls out the replacement sensor needed. After replacing it she ran back to the cockpit. "We should be able to jump now." She slides into her seat in the cockpit. "One of the sensors burnt up.We should be good now."

"Any idea who they are or what they want?"

"No clue, but Groon did a wide range scan and checked the logs...when we dropped from hyper so did they right behind us. I'm betting that Admiral is having us tailed. You'd figure they have more to worry about than chasing us...I don't like it one bit." Damyan replies.

"Got an idea, Groon remember that escape we pulled in Thanagor...do it." Damyan snaps and Groon runs to the gun turret and fires off a series of blinding flashes. As he does Damyan hit the hyper drive controls and the Shadow blasts back into hyper. "Wonder if that worked."

Bella wondered quietly if the Admiral had recognized her. She looked very different. Normally she would be wearing cut off shorts, a tank top and ball cap and be randomly covered in grease from whatever she was working on. Now she looked nice and neat, her nails were done and her skin was flawless and her attire was more complete with denim jeans, a tank top and a leather jacket with knee high boots. Her hair was still swept off of her face and now she wore a slight hint of makeup.

It had been a few years and a lot of things had happened since then. She didn't think he recognized her but she wasn't sure.

Damyan clicks a few switches then he yells it worked loud,"sent a tachyon pulse behind us it found no traces."

He eases back in his seat, "that son of a bitch is probably still mad about the leg he had to replace after I cut it off. Remind me to avoid Sol system for awhile."

Damyan looks over a Bella,"why you look so worried?"