Viral Hemorrhage

[Vera Mina]

Oh gods, [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] was annoying her. She amused and annoyed the biot in equal measure, especially when the passwords to get into the ship came into play. What sort of professional scientist would use those specific phrases? When Karlie explained herself, Vera merely shot her a withering look. She wanted to get Karlie's data to use in her defense, not jaw around. She kept her peace. Didn't even sneer. Mother would be proud of her keeping her cool. Not that she wanted Nine's approval, but it pleased the biot for some reason to think she would have it.

Karlie dragged her feet getting past the security phrases, which made the sociopath roll her eyes.

Because her ability to read emotions was disabled, she did not detect the sarcasm in Karlie's voice that would have indicated imminent danger to someone with a capacity for reading the tension in Karlie's voice. The defiance in Karlie's eyes.

Instead, Vera could only hiss at all the battle droids as they fired on her. The little wench--! She was betraying them?!

There was also the fact Karlie had fooled her emotion reading processors. That wasn't easy to do.

It threw her whole earlier assessment out the window, Vera thought as she flipped forward like an acrobat on a natural fast forward, her white blade flashing through droid chassis ignoring their energy shields...

(Character Theme Song Power Up)

Theme: "Another Way To Die" by Jack White and Alicia Keys.

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/hM5UJvnbbuY

Vera was a blur with the speed and reflex enhancements in her dress, evading the machine reflexes of the battle droids by being just a second faster. Her blade had been sharpend by lasers aboard the Castle Morpheus, its cortosis weave durasteel variant the same mix Nine preferred in her own swords, and the biot knew Nine took craftsmanship seriously.

It was stun blasts she was spinning, running backflipping away from. (Because the amount of stun blaster fire coming her way was quite intense.) So Karlie didn't seem to want her dead? Why betray her then?

Vera remembered the profile. Karlie was prone to panicking. When she realized the lab on the frozen moon could implicate her in the Melida Incident, she set charges to destroy the lab. Karlie was being stupid and panicking again.

Vera's irritation only grew as she rammed her sword through a droid head, drawing her pistols and switching to full auto, firing in controlled bursts as droid after droid got two or three in the head, even as she continued her inhuman acrobatics, a swift bullet of white and blue ripping through circuits and targeting with a savage, bloodthirsty grin on her face as she dodged blast after blast, though a few came close as she fired in a three sixty pattern even using the blaster grips as a weapon on occasion as she tore into the now slowly retreating droid platoon.

The biot, no question wanted to wring Karlie's neck for her insolence. But Karlie was still Vera's client, and her programming forbade her from doing more than the absolute minimal necessary to restrain or detain her and, if needed, sedate her.

Vera took a stun blast right to the chest, flinging her backward into a wall. Because she was normally quite unable to feel pain, this did little more than slow her down, but it was enough to get her hit again. Another hit and she'd black out, underlay or no.

Vera targeted the droids weapons, shooting them as much as she shot the droids themselves. Burst fire hit blaster, causing minor explosions that spread through the droid's.

She would defeat the droids. She was a superior model, wearing top of the line equipment.

And then she would get Karlie under control. Even if it meant depriving her of oxygen as much as necessary to render her compliant. Then as soon as Mother got back they were going to pry the truth out of Karlie one way or another.

Vera continued, the programmed ancient philosophy of Nine's clan taking full reign. She had been created to embody the ancient philosophy of the house, a savage cruelty that was now discredited by the modern version of Clan Li-Ves yet which she had been embued with. Slowly, as her speed and reaction picked up, the platoon slowly whittled down.

Sure, they were not alive, like she would have preferred, but that didn't mean she didn't enjoy watching them explode...

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

What had she expected?...

Karlie expected Blueberry to put up a valiant struggle... maybe kick and stump her toes in defiance against Karlie's awesome chrome alloy droids,with her practical tactical boots that Karlie had taken note of.
Then of course Miss Blueberry would no doubt easily succumb to Karlie's battle droids, as they were pouncing on her in superior numbers, especially since they also had the advantage of their weight against the blue pop-tart.

Fraking gods! It didn't at all go at all as she planned..not one bit at all.

Hell, Karlie had never seen anyone or anything move so fast and with precision and agility against so many overwhelming odds. What she have in the transport..100 units? Oh god...HAD 100...there were piles of scrap now flying this way and that, clanking against the hull, the floor...bouncing off the ceiling too! And just one Chiss were doing that tio her droids?
Chiss didn't move like that!...did they? DID THEY?!!

Holy splattering poodoo sticks!... her battle droids were quickly being turned into recycled metal pieces ready for the shredders. Oh wait, they were being shredded right there on the spot as that Rom-Jim sliced and diced her way through them.
wait...
Pew!
YES!! Oh yes, there it was, the first round got through. Karlie seen the hit...seen it impact on Ron-Jin.

Yes, Ron-Jin whom Karlie had thought were just another blueberry, in her thinking, had been a pathetic attempt at insulting a well honed skilled fighter.
Even Karlie, despite the pending realization that she fraked up in this little stunt and would no doubt pay for her insolence with life or worse, limbs...she had to admit she were blown out of the sky impressed with the Chiss. Hey, credit given to those deserving, right? " Frak me.."
Karlie were peeking through cowarded arms which she wrapped around herself in avoiding getting hit by flying droid parts. She were squeezing her self in the corner of the airlock, where she had pretty much curled up into a ball...making herself as small as possible.

It were a definite hit that Ron-Jin sustained for Karlie saw the round impact and disperse, being absorbed by the woman's torso... ergo her nervous system.

Karlie could only hope that took care of it, as she were running out of droids...fast.
But wouldn't you know it, the gods again decided that Karlie wasn't going to get off so easily.
Nope, Rom-Jin didn't collapse.
Pew ...number 2 round found it's mark too....

Pew ...then the 3rd!
....yea?..yea?... and...and...

"What the FRAK!!!" The Chiss...Rom-Jin was her name, wasn't going down. Instead, she were intensifying her defenses.
No, wait, the woman weren't on the defense whatsoever...who was Karlie fooling?
HER DROIDS WERE!!

"Stop....Stop... of frak, please stop..." her shaky voice were nothing more than some whimper in what was a churning tornado inside the transport ship. The noise, the sizzling short circuits that metal blade sliced through and through.
She got up, now that the Chiss had drove the fight inward and pretty much out of her sight line, as Rom disappeared in the smoke that were mostly coming from the decimated battle droids and parts heard crashing and clanking on both walls and deck.
Karlie looked back a moment, considering making a run for it, at the outer door a second.
"Oh frak me..." She hadn't planned this too well in case her plan to capture Rom didn't go so well. Well, it had gone horribly wrong... There was no way back.
That route back lead to the other wacko...Magnus.
Oh she were fraked for sure.

"Stop it...HALT!" She screamed at the top of her trembling voice. Yes, she were scared now...really scared as to what Ron-jin would do to her. Still it were no sense in the Chiss decimating everything in the transport. Eventually, she'd run out of droids and then would have to face the inevitable...

.... clean up the sprawling junked battle droids off the floor.
If she were so lucky as not to get hacked to pieces herself for pulling a stupid stunt as she did.

It didn't take too long after she called the order to stop.
She even heard a partial "By your com- " before swish the sound of a singing blade through the smoky air....thrust clang sizzle spatter.. Ta-thump...the sound of the battle droid dropping to the floor.

The smoke obscured almost the entire passageway as Karlie timidly made her way forward...
"Uhm...Rom?
...Rom honey..." Yes, couldn't hurt much more calling in a sweet voice now..right?

"Gasp!... ta-thump....Ouch.." Karlie tripped over the debri and landed right on top of some of her droid parts.

A field of debris that as the transport's life support system and ventilation was clearing the smoke, it were exposing what that Chiss had done to just about all of the droids in this one transport. There right in front of her eyes, lay what was definitely a large expanse of what used to be battle droids..

... "Oh frakin shiet..." She laid there on the deck, on top of some of the many parts and pieces of those battle droids as the smoke were being pumped out and replaced with purified air. It were like a fog, lifting after an intense battle had been fought and apparently she had lost. had lost even before it had begun, by the looks of it.

Then those boots...
Rom's boots came into view as the smoke continued to be dissipated. And they were slowly and meticulously heading over to her. Naturally of course stepping over and around the droids she had dispatched, But nevertheless, Rom-Jin's boots were coming for her.

What could she do but put her hands over her head and bury her face in the debris... like that was going to lessen what was coming to her.
And yes, Karlie were trembling awaiting the inevitable.

"P...please...
I...I made a mistake." the boots were getting nearer.

"Rom....please, listen to me a second...
Please...
An...anyway we can fix this...Rom?....." She were now begging for her life as the boots stopped right next to her head, which of course was still buried under her arms and her face plastered to the deck.

 

[Nine Lives]

Came to Snow Moon in: Saotome Envoy

Wearing: Knight Obsidian Armor (http://starwarsrp.net/topic/129383-project-garuda-obsidian-type-strike-armor/)

Armed with: Hundred Handed Giant (http://starwarsrp.net/topic/140489-hundred-handed-giant/)

Knight Obsidian Lightsaber (http://starwarsrp.net/topic/30650-obsidian-lightsabre/#entry431421)

Akaagai (http://starwarsrp.net/topic/92398-akaagai-warhawk/)

Czerka Fighting Knife (http://starwarsrp.net/topic/27650-czerka-fighting-knife/?hl=czerka)

Equipped with: LK Spider Slicer (http://starwarsrp.net/topic/123233-lk-spider-slicer-droid/#entry1714986


Accompanied By: Meier (http://starwarsrp.net/topic/130353-saotome-commando-droid-meier/)

One Castle Knight (His name is Jerri!) (http://starwarsrp.net/topic/130418-castle-morpheus-knights/)


While Vera had been busy dealing with the antics of [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] , Nine had been busy being ferried to the cold planet where Karlie had found the strange lab that responded to her biometrics.

She had come prepped. Armed with blades, as was the way of a Li-Ves Warrior. She'd even brought a lightsaber, starting to reuse one after the death of her "Firstborn", Bobbi, first among her Morpheus Knights. It was really his death, more than anything, that had finally cut through her fugue state and caused her to try and go back to normal.

Because she knew, deep down, it was her own fault Bobbi was dead. Her own incompetence. She should have come up with a better plan to deal with the zombies overrunning that city. But there had been so little time to save all those civilians...she'd been too hasty...too hasty...

And for all her resources...she did not have enough of them. That was the real trouble in all this. She could do alot with well trained troops and a large ship, but there was only so much she could do.

She was risking a great deal doing all this, acting on her own initiative. She hoped Karlie didn't do anything stupid, and that Vera didn't do anything too sociopathic. Because her artificial daughter had an incredible bloodthirst and intelligence, and Nine was not entirely certain Vera could not find a way all the programming safeguards the thought vampire had put into her programming.

They had timed it perfectly, hitting the moon when the base was at night. Her sword, Hundred Handed Giant, recently enchanted by Nine, would function perfectly here. To think it had started out as some old katana she had found in a tomb. Albeit an incredibly sharp and deadly one.

Both had started out as nothing more than killers, and had been forced to evolve, and now were much more powerful...for whatever value that had in this day and age.

She'd been awake in this era nearly a year, and she still had no context for some of the stuff she was seeing. At least she still had most of her children to keep her company. And kidnapping First Order soldiers and drinking their birthdays. Even Sawa Ike was still around as Darth Shojo.

Jerri, Nine's hand-picked replacement as the first among her Knights, executed a dramatic forward flip and landed in front of Nine as she finished putting on her armor, startling the tall Vampire.

"Mother! We are close to landing!" Jerri said solemnly as he gave a short professional bow.

"Jerri, I know both back and forward flipping is cool...but this is much too confined a space...how did you even do a flip?"

"All of us got good at it after you authorized it. I have a question..."

Nine thought a moment. "Mother will indulge your curiosity..." she affirmed.

"A lot of us have been wondering about Vera...the evil biot lady?"

"Your sister. And yes, she is very evil. What about her?"

"Why'd you let her off the leash? She was bad enough even when she wasn't killing only on your say so. She's ten times worse now that she can kill whenever she is under threat of exposure. She is a liability."

Nine, her head twitching under the hood of her knight obsidian cowl, stained with the blood of the Harch Metus ordered purged, pondered Jerri's question. It was a decision she still supported. If she could help wipe out a rogue Harch colony she could create a vampiric android. It was also the first time she had realized just how willing she was to get her hands dirty. Melida had been business. Pest extermination. The Harch Colony had been a community. It still troubled Nine, deep down, how easily she could be an unthinking killer.

But Nine knew the price of inaction. She'd get to the bottom of this, and find the real guilty party. And if it turned out Karlie was guilty, Nine would have her promptly shipped to Metus, and deposit all relevant evidence back to him. But only if the evidence pointed that way.

Nine had considered whether or not it was some sort of frame-up job...but who would have it in for Destat? It'd have to be someone of either comparable or superior skill to Karlie. Someone looking to use Destat as a decoy.

But first, to Jerri's original question.

"Jerri...did I ever tell you how I became a vampire?"

"Painkillers caused a freak mutation from an alchemized disease in your blood."

"Close. End result, but close. But what really got me turned into a vampire was the fact that I decked Shojo, knocking her out cold in a fit of rage. I was impulsive, my point is.

"What about letting Vera loose isn't impulsive?"

"I was once little more than a killing machine that had no cause to be used until Kagamiri Academy. I kept that impulsiveness, despite it nearly getting me killed multiple times. But it was not until Darth Shojo that I truly felt the price of that impulsivity. Vera is likely one of the most advanced organic droids around. I want to see if my design can surpass its original parameters...even slightly. Also...if something happens to me, I need to know you will have an utterly ruthless, and more importantly, experienced replacement to guide you in the interim until a more capable leader can be selected from amongst you. And if Vera's methods as they stand produce far more favorable results than my own methods for the future of my children...than perhaps she will have to remain in command longer, and any leader after would do well to consider her methods should they prove the most suitable. You will likely have to kill her to get her to surrender leadership, so do not fret should you remain under her yoke more than you like..." Nine explained.

"You're uncertain of your leadership?" Jerri asked as the ship settled down in the snow, keeping non essential systems off to reduce any possible signature they might make.

"I'm uncertain of a lot of things, Jerri..." Nine confessed as Meier shut off the engines, grabbing her pistols, doing a quick runover of her power systems as she left the cockpit to join Nine, her masquer skin causing her entire appearance to take the texture and color of the snow around her. "Ready!" Meier said happily.

"What if we encounter CIS personnel?" Jerri asked, checking his yovshin-inspired armor over one last time before sheathing his bullpup submachine gun and drawing his short vibro-sword.

"We play it cool...but idealy none of us will be there long enough to be detected. Remember, we want the lab biometrics data and records. We also want to examine the biometric devices and computer banks for tampering. You got all the equipment, Jerri?"

Jerri nodded. "Not that I'd be any good at using it..."

"Good. Mother is pleased with you..." Nine said happily. "I will handle all necessary data breaches. Lets go..."

The three marched through the snow in single file to hide their numbers...

Meanwhile...

Vera delighted, was excited that Karlie was cowering before her, begging for mercy.

"Now, now, Miss Destat..." Vera replied in a cross between suggestive and contemptuous. "Being naughty simply doesn't suit you. You're sloppy at it. Up we go..." Vera ordered, lifting Karlie up by the arm, no harder than necessary. They would continue their trek into the starship free of pests.

"Still though...nice try..." Vera said approvingly. The blond surprised her continually, first with her deception. Now with her patience until the last moment. This cowardice pleased her also, but patience and cunning impressed her. No wonder Karlie hadn't broken. Her sociopathy almost wanted Karlie to try again, viewing it as a sick game now...

"Now...lead me to what we need...and I won't tell Nine what you tried..." Vera ordered, now with naked command as her red eyes stared at Karlie with intrigue, wondering how her blood would taste...

[member="Darth Metus"]

[member="Srina Talon"]

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

The smoke was still clearing despite the life support system had rampped up it's ventilation.

Karlie remained faced down with Rom's boots stopping not a few centimeters from her head.

She heard one tap..then two. Whatever was coming down on her had some serious thought behind it. Karlie stopped begging and braced for the impact.
One..two infinite seconds went by.
What gives?

"Ouwww...ouw..." The strain of the Chiss finally picking her up from the arm definitely sent more than a bit of discomfort to her roto-cup, it hurt!
"OK, OK.!..." Trying to scramble to one's feet when laying on scattered droid parts and spilled bearings were like getting up from a floor covered with glass marbles. Karlie had her arms covering/protecting her head, when Rom yanked her off the floor. As such it hurt for Rom pulled on her arm backward. Karlie refrained from crying out too loudly, getting up as quickly as she could to lessen the pain, lest her shoulder pop out of its socket...it felt like it would.
Her gig was up anyway and she knew it.
Besides, her little helpless act had done little to take the Chiss by surprise, backfiring on her.

For that first minute back on her two feet she were expecting at least a good backhand or a well placed knuckle sandwich to her nose.
Again, none came...nor seemed to be coming at any time, despite the anger and disposition of the Chiss. Odd that this one refrained from disciplining her, as that was what she knew of Chiss. They didn't fool around.

'Nice try' ...she heard the Chiss say as she finally let go of her harm. An arm that continued to hurt in the manner and ease that she had been picked up with. The smoke was nothing more than a light haze now and Karlie could see all of the unbelievable destruction this Chiss had managed to do with the battle droids.
This was no ordinary Chiss and Karlie were now well aware of that. Another sith?...maybe...maybe something else entirely.
What was she, and how had she come to be trained like that?
Karlie could not dare ask Rom now...not at this moment she couldn't.
But one thing now was finally coming to light. Maybe Rom, Vera and even that Nine Lives were really trying to help her. This thought had run across Karlie before, until Nine revealed whom she were.

As she stepped carefully around the hacked droids and their parts strewn about the floor, she sighed and shook her head.
"I lied..." her eyes met those enraged orbs of Rom. The Chiss' eyes seemed redder than red. Then again, she had played the pathetic submissive human female and had kept her eyes lowered to reinforce the idea that the Chiss was her domineering captor. Ok, so that fact was now real. This Chiss was the alpha queen here and in all aspect of what a said queen would be.
As Karlie came to realize she weren't going to get a fat lip or a broken nose, she starred into those fiery reds. Yes, still frightened, mind you...but not one who were cowering like she had been before.

"This is nothing more than one of the transport vessels for my battl-....ahem, for the droids..." Some battle droids they were, they all lost. Karlie were not blind. They had been no match for Rom.
Strange, as she looked over their carcasses, Karlie were quite moved, saddened even by their destruction. It were not like they were living things, no. Still, as her eyes moved away from the Chiss to over her droids, there was no denying that she expressed sadness for them, despite they failed in freeing her from the snare she were still in. But their fight under her orders to not use lethal force had been valiant, no less.

"The RD-IV is 3 million miles counter orbit..." Karlie gestured with her head in the direction the lab was located in the same high orbit of system Castagne. There was no sense lying to Rom anymore. Not now. All her droids in this one transport were destroyed-

"Gasp...
Heeee...... " She suddenly let out a slight laugh. It were one apparently of relief. There in the rear of the transport were the surviving B.O.B.s
They were there now visibly standing by...30 or so left, out of the 100 units she had gambled. Her plan had failed miserably, but at least not all of them were destroyed. They remained there with their red single red scanners eyeing them both. Karlie had yelled out for them to halt their attack on Rom and Rom seemed to have had no reason to continue on with slaughtering them all. the thread had abated and Rom ceased her offensive.

Karlie eyed the Chiss again before she continued.
"...they won't do anything.
I won't do anything... you have my word. " That much were true.
"But yea, the lab is well secured as I indicated and I will get us in..." it were no more 'try' or 'could' in her words now. Rom had somehow proved to be of a opponent that Karlie could not match in fighting skills with or without battle droids. And Rom also proved to be what Nine had promised...someone who would keep her safe and not harm her.

Karlie figured she had no other recourse but to take Rom and Magnus now to the lab. Chances were that Magnus was no different from Rom, as far as what it could do.
Well for one thing, Rom didn't right up and give her a good scoff for her insolence, as Karlie had expected. Although she couldn't bet on the other (Magnus) to be as reserved with her like Rom had, should she try something.

So it came to be that Rom didn't destroy the remaining droids, but allowed Karlie to initiate a clean up command before she was ushered back through the airlock to once more enter Magnus' ship and be on their way.
Karlie resumed her former seat, just starring out the port window, where there in the distance was her blue and white marble...Castagne. Oh how she longed for her world...her bungalo on the beach...the warm sunlight on her skin...

Karlie had kept her mouth shut upon re-boarding, despite getting a few taunts from Magnus. Strangely enough, Rom seemed to dismiss a few of those remarks herself, before she gave Magnus the new coordinates. There was nothing really discussed as to what transpired on the transport...just that they had new coordinates.

Karlie took that to mean that Rom 's word was being kept. She had been told by Rom that she wasn't going to report the droid incident to Nine Lives. But she didn't tell Magnus about it either, being certainly something to boast about.
"Sigh..." This was getting more and more confused as to what the frak was really behind the virus that somehow she seemed to be connected and blamed for.

"Rom-Jim..." Karlie's first words following a quiet shuttle to the remote lab. She had something to say, for she had a bit of time to go over what had transpired and not have a mark or two on her for it.
"I know I've been ...difficult.
I just want to say, thank you." her voice was sincere, but she knew it were just mere words to Rom coming from her now. Karlie had betrayed her trust...had misled Rom... had tried stunning her. No, Karlie figured her words carried even less weight than before. Still, she did appreciate Rom not disciplining her like she deserved.

In no time at all...

The RD-IV remote lab came into view.

And it definitely passed for a research facility as it was nearly 100 times the mass of the former vessel she had first lead them to. Besides, the telltale reactors bulging from its hull spoke of the generating power and of its ability to vaporize itself entirely along with anything within a 1/4 million mile radius.

Karlie rose out of her seat and started forward, toward where Magnus was piloting the ship. Rom came right up behind her. It was in a way making sure Karlie wasn't going to mess herself up with pulling something on Magnus. Karlie wasn't. But she also wasn't playing the part of a scared and frightened weak human cowering in her seat anymore either. Karlie gave her a quick glance, her eyes reflecting the fact that she weren't going to pull anything more. There were no words exchanged between Rom and Karlie, there was just an understanding now.

Docking coordinates were given and they weren't in the slightest silly as before. As a matter of fact, they were well encrypted to a point that it would have taken several weeks for top of the game slicers to pull off on the spot...if the entire quadrant didn't vaporize with three wrong pass-codes.

The ship was small enough to actually enter the main supply hangar once the blast doors opened. Magnus set her ship down inside and then powered down.
They had only gained access to the hangar. There were several other locks they had to go through, including a barrier sweep to make sure that anyone entering the research labs carried no foreign pathogens on their persons or clothing...




[member="Darth Metus"] ~ [member="Srina Talon"]

 

[Vera Mina]

Vera, after [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] had placated her and the remaining droids, seemed to get a little fire back into her and while she remained submissive (much to a strange delight that the artificial vampire found that her processors had neither name nor proper description for) she was certainly no longer fooling anyone that she was content. Vera wanted her to try again, again trying to figure out how her processors were fooled by Karlie's acting. She was usually really good at detecting lies. How had Karlie done it? How had this weak looking blond whose blood must be absolutely succulent fooled her?

Had Vera's vanity and sociopathy not hindered her objectivity it might have occurred to her that she had enjoyed being in a domineering position too much and Karlie literally panting for her civilian identity had played with that vanity badly.

The super lethal organic droid, taken by surprise by a mere scientist. A paper pusher. The thought was humiliating and stunning. So stunning she really didn't have the energy to respond to Magnus's barbs save a few requests for the red headed droid to shut up. The rest of the time had been spent looking at Karlie, smiling, without reply at her meaningless attempts to thank her. Vera didn't mind the betrayal but she 'would' mind if Karlie didn't try again. That had been fun.

Vera stole a look at Karlie's neck, wanting just a taste of blood. Just a little. Not to clasp the cute blond's neck and go om nom nom like she usually did. But one thing was for certain...she was not taking her eye off her. Not after that. The next ship seemed more legitimate at least, given its giant reactor. Still, she remained on alert. If Karlie did try something Vera wanted to be close enough to her that Karlie could see it. Why it mattered if Karlie could see it was something Vera wasn't fully clear on. As the ship docked and Vera escorted Karlie to the freighter exit she caught a knowing look from Magnus that basically told the Biot 'I'm watching you' without actually saying it. Vera at least suspected Magnus was partly there to keep tabs on her, make sure her programming restraints didn't slip up. Vera gave her sister a small sneer of contempt and followed Karlie out, at last choosing to speak.

"Well...all to ourselves again. How convenient. I cannot help but wonder now, how you planned to escape without confirming your guilt to every relevant party..." Vera asked as she escorted Karlie through various security. One taste, one little drop of blood from Destat was all she needed...just one...it would be delicious, she imagined.

Vera had never not wanted a meat sack not to die before...it remained to see if that attitude would hold...

How did Karlie's blood taste, again?

[member="Darth Metus"]

[member="Srina Talon"]

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

One barrier sweep followed another.
It were one subject matter/personnel at a time that the ship's security would allow to pass through, in and out of the research labs. And it were not for trying that it would not process them both through...

"Honestly....I can't much do anything to override these steps, Rom. It doesn't allow decontamination in pairs, in or out of the lab." She her record made her out to be a conniving little tramp to Rom, but it were the truth. Only now Karlie knew her word carried little if at all any weight. Rom narrowed what little space existed between them tow.

"Sigh..." Yes, she may or may not know of a way about the rule of two.
"... it's our clothing. one could cross contaminate the other and visa versa. The system could only truly process and guarantee cleanliness one dressed individual at a time.
Armor... well, that's one of the given no, no..." Karlie managed to take a step back away from the Chiss, her hands raised up in a manner of one surrendering.

"Computer...give full security access to guest, Rom Jin." She then said, with the security comp confirming that order. 'Subject Ron Jin granted full access'

"Ask it anything... procedures, exemptions, protocols...anything... machines are not deceptive. Computers don't lie..." Karlie then said, knowing most likely that Rom would still think she were trying to pull something off.
Well Rom didn't ask the computer, but questioned Karlie as to what she meant about one dressed individual at a time.

This certainly wasn't where Karlie had meant the questions to go, as there was a way for two individuals to be processed through the barrier sweep chambers at the same time. She had hoped that Rom would at least understand that individually they could, but no armor or weapons. Then of course there was the rule of two under certain circumstances. Both parties could not have any clothing. This rule existed in case one individual could not walk through on their own.

"Sigh...we go through individually clothed, excluding footwear and accessories, or two can go through...in the flesh." There, that would be a first for her.
What would that look like in the record files? ...one blueberry and a tart in the flesh. Yea, that would be a keeper for sure...maybe even get it printed and framed too.
No, that was not on her list of things to do. But that was the only exception in allowing two individuals to pass through the barriers at the same time.

Surprisingly, Rom motioned her go through first, she'd follow on the second lock through cycle.
Karlie looked over to her in surprise. Rom would trust her? No way the Chiss was bashful of going into the chanber with Karlie and her in the flesh. Chiss had no such vanities...or did they? Karlie stood there not knowing if the Chiss were playing with her or not. But Rom did remove what were not deemed passable, including her boots, remaining fully dressed. Rom was serious. She would allow Karlie to go first then she'd follow second...one person at a time. Karlie just couldn't believe it.

It were after a few seconds went by without Karlie going through the barrier sweep that Rom asked her what she was waiting for.
"N..nothing. I'll go first." Karlie finally nodded.
And so she stepped through the first dura-glass door of the barrier sweep chamber. The door locked behind her and she turned to face Rom through the transparent steel as the velocity of air blast tossed her hair and clothing about like she were caught in a whirlwind. the exhaust were as powerful as the air jets. This whirlwind affect loosened any small particulates on clothing, hair and shin, and were exhausted out. This lasted for about a minute before the sweep was completed and the inner door to the next chamber unlocked.

Karlie were still facing Rom and looked into the Chiss' eyes a moment before she turned and went through the other door, then she turned to Rom again. As the inner door door Karlie just stepped through into the second chamber locked, the door to let Rom through the first barrier sweep unlocked.

Karlie's lips seemed to waver for a moment as the door behind Rom locked and the sweeping jets and exhaust fans decontaminated the Chiss of particulars as it had done Karlie.
At the same time as Rom's sweep started in the first chamber, Karlie's chamber lit blue and a gas compound completed the second phase of decontaminating her in the second chamber. All the while she were looking at Rom in the barrier sweep, the Chiss' hair blowing about.
Karlie's breathing became labored and she could be seen trembling somewhat, if the Chiss could take notice of Karlie in the second chamber.

The minute passed and both chambers read green, with Karlie's final door opening up to the interior of the labs. She stepped out and once more turned to the Chiss who's adjoining door would unlock to the second chamber once Karlie's door locked. But that door had to be activated and locked manually by the person inside...Karlie.
Rom seemed to wait for Karlie to do so, as the blonde just seemed to stand there in the lab area not doing anything but looking into Rom's eyes. Karlie then took a deep breath and with a somewhat trembling hand, raised it to close and lock her side of the chamber.
This action then unlocked the pass through between the first and second chamber and allowed Rom to enter the second chamber to finish her decontamination.
Karlie's eyes removed herself from Rom's orbs and she took a few steps back. There seemed to be something which had come over Karlie, as she couldn't look over to Rom...not in her eyes at least.

With the second and final phase of decontamination complete, Rom finally were granted pass through to the lab, and a somewhat distraught Karlie.

"Well...you're through....you're here..." Was all Karlie could say without meeting Rom's eyes.

"The lab booties are to your right if you wish to wear them. The floors are sterile..." She then said, again just gesturing to the lab's footwear cabinet, before turning and leading Rom inside the vast Bio research lab.

Perhaps the Chiss would not take notice of the panel on the inside portion of the lab that closed and locked the final door to allow her to pass through. Maybe Rom would notice the control options on their way out. Then perhaps she would know why Karlie had been staring at her through the dura-glass and seemingly trembling as if at odds with herself or her conscious. The emergency chamber flash blast and purge controls were clearly integrated on the lab side control panel for the chambers. Karlie could have flashed Rom at star temperatures, vaporized her, and venting her gas into open space...but didn't.

"I believe you know how to access the data files and what all transpired here in the lab the last few months. It also has the key in how to manufacture a near like programmable retrovirus to the one that had been deployed on Melida/Dan.
With a live host harboring the virus from Melida/Dan, I was able to de-engineer that particular virus and derive at engineering my own version of a programmable virus.
My virus can be programmed as a retrovirus to combat that of what was unleashed on Melida/Dan, along with the ability to be weaponized to combat swarm hive organics, along with attacking clone batch organisms.
Basically I developed a weaponized virus that cannot be deployed on natural born organics, just effective on bio-engineered batches like clone armies, swarms etc." She explained, offering Rom to access the computer files herself.

All the while she spoke, she not once looked into Rom's eyes, as she seemed to be struggling with some bit of guilt. Guilt in actually having considered vaporizing the poor girl, Chiss as she may be. Karlie was no killer, but for an entire minute or more, she had struggled with her inner demon...and she found herself in current remorse.

Clearly, if Rom would open the files, she'd see that all of Karlie's research and developments of her version of a programmable virus followed the acquisition of the virus from Melida/Dan.

 

[Vera Mina]

Yet more decontamination procedures. [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] apologized but Vera only snorted a little, pretending to be annoyed so Karlie would hurry up. But then Karlie explained at one of the final barriers that the only way they could both go through at once was if they were both naked. This made Vera grin suggestively, but her strategem processors and Lawyer programming forbade her from indulging. Her processors started to heat at the thought of biting the cute blond, and she could not properly address the sensation she was experiencing. It was not fully within her comprehension to do so. The blond meat sack presented a strange problem, and the only way to keep her processors from overheating trying to contemplate the unknown was to stop trying.

But her discipline still failed her, for as Karlie suggested it, the unknown sensation made Vera bite her lip as suggestively as she could smile. One drop of blood, just one. Her current form rendered her unable to read the nervousness and guilt on Karlie's face. The pulsing veins on Karlie's neck made her breath go short a little but she composed herself.

"Sorry, Miss Destat. But I'm afraid you go first..." Vera said, though she slowly removed her thigh high white boots and elbow length white gloves and dropping them where they stood, along with her weapons. The gloves and boots were the source of her strength and speed in this form, but the dress was the source of her reflexes and healing. Vera's vanity and and interest in Karlie's stare distracted her from this fact.

"Well? What are you waiting for?" Vera asked, waiting for her to try and kill her again and nearly shivering in pleasure at the anticipation. Karlie went forward and Vera fixed meticulous red eyes on Karlie as her hair billowed about, making her look striking. Just a taste of her blood, while her hair blew about. It would be perfect. Her processors started to heat as she contemplated the dangerous, unnamed sensation again.

Then it was Vera's turn, and the artificial vampire slinked into the first chamber, the air blowing her hair about luxuriously. The curvy, blue skinned woman stared at Karlie, smiling darkly as she was then let into the second chamber, enjoying the feeling of the gas as it rolled over her masquer flesh. But she still could not read the guilty stare of Karlie. Not until she spotted the controls as she exited...

Karlie had her dead to rights...and didn't do it. Vera assumed this to be common sense, but the idea at having been so close to death and helpless to prevent it. This sent a different, just as unknown sensation through the biot. One that actually slowed her run-times for just a second. Vera was silent, her programming clashing with her hunger and this strange urge to get closer to Karlie and smell her neck-skin.

Vera instead stayed focus, feeling her processors cool down as Karlie then directed her to the files, being granted full access.

She scanned the data, reading it all and commiting it to memory. The progression of the research was all very clear...no way Karlie had acquired this before Melida. But this still left the question of the other base.

"This all checks out..." Vera stated, downloading the files onto an encrypted holodisc..."It does not answer who framed you though. But we have what we need...unless you have any more droids you'd like me to scrap..." Vera joked. "Let us return to Castle Morpheus...your lawyer will find this most useful..."

Vera would lead Karlie out, going through the decontamination process again, and back to the ship, stealing looks at her blond hair and neck. One taste. One drop. Cunning, cunning blond. Cute blond. Vera would have a meal prepped for her.

"If you ever want to try and sic droids on me again let me know...I could use the workout...and the...meal...afterward..." Vera coyly suggested, yet openly looked at Karlie with naked hunger despite how restrained her bodily posture otherwise was.

The ship, piloted by a Magnus now eyeing Vera with a curious expression as she had entered with Karlie soon focused on getting back to the Morpheus. No doubt Nine was still on her own mission.

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

She pounded her fist on the printer control panel in frustration.
The lab was equipped with everything but a micro level synthesizer to replicate the intricate crono that was still on that blasted flotilla of a prison, the Morpheus. If it were one thing and one thing above all else which Karlie resented, and that was being controlled as she were. Up to this point she had been given no choice but to comply as her survival instinct dictated.
And without that crono or disposing of the blueberry, she was for the most part under Nine's control.

"Oh...nothing... just frustrated s'all..." She replied, eyes looking over to the Chiss, whom had been both going over the data files and keeping an eye when she could spare on Karlie. That by the way, seemed to be at almost every time she herself checked on the Chiss.

What was she frustrated about, she were asked? Well obviously being accused of something she had nothing to do about, if all this wasn't just a set up or all orchestrated by that psycho vampire to gain more favor and power from their so called Vicelord..the sith.
But that wasn't really it.
No, Karlie was frustrated at the moment that she were still their puppet on a string. A string she had hopped to cut by finally taking them to her lab. It had never been her plan in letting anyone outside of Castagne ever enter her lab. But that rouse with her battle droids had gone horridly awry. Then again it could have gone worse. She could have had a few marks and bruises if not altogether been terminated by the Chiss. But surprisingly Rom didn't so much as scold her.
Then what choice did she have after that, but to give them her lab. Her lab..her research..her developments.
yet there was still a bit of hope that if Karlie gained access to her lab that she'd be able to vaporize the Chiss, then flash blast that damn Magnus and her vessel in the lab's landing bay. That had been alternate plan 'F' as the others hadn't at all panned out.
But guess what? Plan 'F' due to her freakin frakin conscious was another big 'Failure'!

Still, there was a chance she could replicate her crono at the lab. After all the lab did have a molecular printer...only it were designed more for organics than ferrous, as what equipment existed in the lab was highly controlled. Weapons especially or anything that could be made or manufactured to disrupt the lab was forbidden. As such, that freakin frakin organic printer could not replicate her damn freakin CRONO!!

The lab as sophisticated and state of the art it were, just didn't have the means to replicate the intricate crono that she needed to sever her independence from these freaks. Well from blueberry and that other sicko Magnus...and of course that psycho vampire Nine. THAT freak especially really played on her mind.
"Brrrrr..." Karlie suddenly got the chills for one reason or other, not realizing it were vibes coming from Rom and not her thoughts of Nine.

The only person of the bunch that she somehow didn't have a place in the freak category for some oddball reason that Karlie herself couldn't put to any rhyme or reason was that counselor, her assigned lawyer Vera. Vera was not at all like the rest of the circus freaks. Vera was...
Vera was...

"Huh?" Karlie were jarred from her fantasy of Vera when Rom asked her again what was she frustrated about? She had never replied to Rom the first time.

"Nothing..." Karlie replied, giving a slight kick to the organic printer. She knew enough not to stub her shoe-less toe on that stupid printer.
"...just ...just... sigh....
Rom..." This was difficult for her to ask. It were exactly what she resented about being their puppet.

"Sigh.... I think I need you to check on my sugar levels. I'm not feeling right..." Was all she had to say before the Chiss came over to her and checked her pulse...via her neck.
Karlie managed to look at her a moment, as Rom had never done that. Well Ok, this was Rom's first time she had to check on Karlie as Vera had supposedly instructed.

"Vera, Vera, where did you go....frak...wish it were Vera than blueberry right now..." Karlie were thinking, closed eyes. She didn't at all like the idea of blueberry touching her. It were not of professional or of any justification reasons...she just wasn't feeling at all comfortable with blueberry. as thus, she closed her eyes during the Chiss' examination and readings of her bio.
"Ahhhg....." The penlight to her forced opened eye was unexpected and made Karlie slightly pull back. What was she getting, a full exam?

"Ahem...
So what's the story doc?..." Karlie just had to bust. "....any chance I'll make it to my next birthday?"
No, not funny huh? No Karlie didn't think so. Didn't think Chiss had any sense of humor. To her they were as dry as Mandos at times....well, most times.

Nope, she were fine. Her blood sugars were still normal. Maybe if she did more cooperating rather than conspire, she wouldn't be so exhausted, Karlie were informed. The only way out of her snare was to stop fighting nine...simple as that.
Then out of the blue, Rom informed her that the only reason Nine held on to her crono, was the fact that she knew that Karlie would make a run if given the chance. Karlie were told that Nine knew that she were prone to panic. Holding on to her crono meant keeping Karlie on a short lease. FOR HER OWN GOOD!

Well Karlie certainly didn't want to hear that...the 'short lease' part of it. She shrugged Rom's hand off her neck. If she was fine, then she didn't need her pulse monitored. Like, how many times did blueberry need to check her neck for a pulse, for Palpatine's sake?!
Karlie then stood up and walked over to the console that Rom had been using to access the data files. Rom went back to it herself and continued to read and go over the files.
There was nothing Karlie could really do other than watch and wait it out. Rom certainly didn't want her to handle any of the files as again she didn't want Karlie to do something stupid.

Hours later with apparently all of the data and evidence that Rom could gather, they were set to leave the lab and head back to Castle Morpheus. Rom instructed Karlie to go out first. no reason...just that she wanted Karlie to pass through the second chamber first..that's all.
Karlie swallowed hard, her peripherals looking, checking to see if Rom were at all noticing the flash options on the control panel. Rom didn't seem to have much interest focused on it. This was were neither good or bad, as Karlie wasn't at all certain if Rom knew of the emergency flash burn. it could be that Rom was as good a player as she was.

Har, har...so the Chiss could make an attempt at comedy. If only she had enough moxy to roll her eyes at the Chiss. But in reality she knew she had that coming. Blueberry beat her droids hands down. If she could do a slow clap or two, she would.
"You did well enough not knowing what awaited you..." Karlie shot back on Rom's teasing for Karlie to inform her next time she wanted some droids wasted.
God, Rom knew how to get under her skin....

It were a harrowing 2 minutes for Karlie going through the two barrier sweeps, followed by Rom one cycle behind. The Chiss made no mention or anything of the kind about the sweeps.
Karlie followed Rom into the ship before taking up her seat again. As the ship lifted off and left the lab behind, Karlie set herself in dealing with Nine, whom she definitely had reservations about. But mostly, she were hoping to see Vera again.
Vera seemed to be the only sane individual among them....

Once more, the distant blue marble that was her beloved Castagne seemed to almost disappear into a pin point before all the stars became streaks of light. Karlie sat back in her seat closing her eyes.
Maybe she would dream of Vera...

 

[Vera Mina]

Vera stared at her openly as [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] closed her eyes aboard the frieghter, her processors heating as she licked her lips staring at the relaxed blond. Right next to her...so close.

That tiny, secret distress that she was fully experiencing the limits of her capabilities, unable to comprehend Karlie's effect on her, played out, quickening her heart beat. Staring at Karlie's lips caused one processor to start making her face twitch. Their return to the Castle Morpheus could not come soon enough. Vera had to force herself to look away, even as she salivated, trying to breath slower.

While Karlie kept her eyes closed, Vera got up to give her processors a chance to start functioning correctly and headed to the cockpit.

"Its official, Sister..." Vera spoke quietly. "Karlie is innocent...the documents prove it. When we get in range of the Morpheus, transmit that I want Karlie to be given new and better quarters."

Magnus turned, smiling mischievously.

"What are you doing, 'Rom'?" The disguised combat droid asked.

"Making sure our guest is well maintained."

"You're never this nice to guests. What gives?"

"I take my job seriously, Maggie, just do it." Vera ordered, knowing she was effectively second in command among Nine's clan. Magnus could not refuse her.

"You're salivating over her. Mom's gonna notice you know. Mom notices everything." Magnus pointed out impassively at her older sister's irritation, the blue tunnel of hyperspace the only thing to stare at.

"Just. Do it." Vera repeated, walking back into the main hold, examining her pistol to distract herself from Karlie...what would be a good way to get on Karlie's good side? Kill that lab assistant who'd ratted her out? No. Too soon. Slower. Vera wanted Karlie to like and trust her civilian identity, not to become suspicious.

Finally, her sister signalled that the Morpheus was in range and by this point Vera's anticipation was almost unbearable. She felt her processors heating again as she woke Karlie as they docked aboard the Morpheus. Vera escorted the scientist through dark yet luxurious passageways of the Morpheus, once a nearby kiosk informed her of Karlie's new quarters location.

"You've had quite a day, Miss Destat...nothing we couldn't handle on our own, eh?" Vera teased, winking at her as they stopped at her new room, which revealed a luxurious, circular suite with a high quality holo-projector, satin lined red furniture, and fully stocked kitchen and luxury bath with a gold and black checkerboard pattern.

"Feel free to relax, courtesy of my employers. And if you 'ever' want to hire me..." Vera said breathily, processors heating as she stared at Karlie hungrily. "You know where to look..."

The biot then turned and left, having flirted with Karlie as much as she dared. One taste. One taste. One taste. And maybe a kiss afterward. Vera shivered, masquer twitching and rippling across her face as her processors almost shorted out contemplating the fantasy as she headed back to her mother's room to shift back to her civilian appearance.

Three hours later...

She hadn't put her lawyer suit back on, instead selecting a white strapless dress that showed more leg then usual, tying her masquer hair into a ponytail and applying vanilla scented perfume to her neck and the reddest lipstick she could find. She could indulge at this point.

Vera spotted Karlie's chrono, its schematics having been copied by Nine, and took it. It was time to try and reel in the cute blond...


Stopping by the mess area, where one of the Psy-Pires quickly whipped up a vegetarian pizza, a paper box of Atrisian broccoli and rice with chopsticks and retrieved a two hundred and fifty year old bottle of Atrisian Sake from the back. Vera brought the pizza in a box, the Atrisian take out and sake on top and headed back to Karlie's luxury quarters, which opened up, and Vera brought the food in and set it on the counter.

"Karlie, I am so sorry I had to leave you with those ruffians. Especially Rom-Jin. My employer is really a nice woman once you get to know her but she has a tendancy to use mercenaries like that." Vera lied, faking intense remorse and distress on her face as she walked up to Karlie, making sure not to have the hungry, lusting stare her mercenary self had possessed when interacting with Karlie, instead making sure her face was every bit one of concern and sympathy.

"Are you alright, Karlie? Bah, I know all this must be so horrible!" Vera exclaimed. "But the data you recovered is a gold mine. It strongly points to your innocence. I'll be able to do a lot with that. Now we just have to wait for my employer to return and in the meantime, I thought I'd bring a meal to help pass the time. Oh...and before I forget..." Vera said, heading back to the counter and retrieving Karlie's chrono handing it to her.

"I believe this is yours..." Vera said in a warm manner, her heart quickening again in Karlie's presence.

Vera walked around the room.

"Are the quarters to your liking? I'm afraid these are the biggest ones after my employer's..."

There was a ringing at the door. Vera covered her homicidal fury at being interrupted and excused herself a moment, heading out of Karlie's quarters and running into Magnus, leaning against the wall opposite Karlie's with an ear to ear grin. She was wearing her usual choice of blue miniskirt, tank top and blue heels.

"What is it you infernal machine?" Vera hissed as soon as the doors to Karlie's quarters closed.

"You have a crush." Magnus accused, still grinning.

Vera huffed, folding her arms.

"I do not!" Vera denied.

"I knew it!" Magnus laughed, "You're totally crushing on her! You're crushing on her so hard!"

Vera turned her nose up at her mostly mechanical sister. "You're seeing chit, Maggie. You should get yourself checked."

"Meier is going. To. Rip on you so, so hard!" Magnus chuckled.

"I should have kicked your ass before switching out you insufferable little red headed wench!" Vera hissed silently, not wanting to cause a commotion Karlie might hear. The walls and doors were pretty thick and it was likely Karlie couldn't hear anything but there was no sense in taking risks.

"But it'd keep you from your precious cute blond..." Magnus taunted. "What is it she did that's making you go all crazy?"

"I'm not going crazy!" Vera protested. "I am simply being a good host."

"In that dress?" Magnus asked, pointing to how revealing it was.

Vera shrugged. "No reason I can't look sexy doing it..."

Magnus made an exaggerated 'make out' gesture with herself.

"Just remember, don't let your fun interfere with your job. Mother will get cross."

"Mother is locked in a love-hate relationship with Darth Shojo. Even if I were doing what you say, she's hardly one to be passing judgement."

Magnus shrugged. "Whatever you say, dear sister. But remember: you still serve Mother, not your whimsy..." the en-fleshed Commando Droid warned before walking off. "I wonder if Karlie's into redheads..."

"I think Karlie thinks you're a weirdo, so there!" Vera hissed in rage at the statement. Damn Magnus! Damn her!

Vera composed herself, retrieving her sexy-yet-sympathetic lawyer face before walking back into the room.

"So sorry we were disturbed. Is there anything I can get you?" Vera asked, making sure the lighting hit the sheen of her skin and lipstick...

[member="Darth Metus"]

[member="Srina Talon"]

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

It were undeniably the best lax sleep she have had in over a week. Not the best of all sleeps mind you, but one closer to normal and without so much a nightmare of those instruments and interrogators that had crawled all over her.

In all sense of the word, sleep had finally caught up with her...and since leaving the RD-IV lab and Castagne system, she finally gave in to her exhaustion. Well, truth be told, it hadn't been her plan to actually fall asleep. It had been more to avoid making eye contact with Rom Jin who seemed to be keeping her pilot Magnus at bay with all of her inquiries.
Karlie had gotten the creeps from the redhead the first time she had stepped in her ship. Rom, not so much as Karlie had somehow gotten to put some trust in the Chiss. Ok, there was a moment following the droid incident when they finally reached the real remote lab, where Karlie had contemplated flash burning the Chiss as Rom passed through one of the barrier sweeps. But that crazy idea was just Karlie fantasying as she couldn't do that to the girl, to anyone really, even if that someone were a blueberry.
Clones...robots, drones...hive organisms?... sure, maybe.
Well, that were yet to be seen, as she hadn't yet field tested the virus she had developed from the research on the Melida/Dan strain.

Karlie had actually developed a virus that could be used on clone batches...only she had never tested it. it were all theoretically feasible and the fact that she had programmed her strain to be a retrovirus to the original strain, there was no doubt that the weaponized programmable clone factor would not work as effectively.
The retrovirus tests she had conducted in the lab were successful on the subjects and organics tainted with the Melida/Dan strain. Even her once former science comrade 'Janis' whom she had brought back from Melida/Dan responded as expected when Karlie tested her retrovirus. Only that poor Janis had been too far gone/decayed in her zombie state to continue life once the Melida/Dan virus were eradicated from her system.
Janis had been humanly been released from the viral infection.
The operation had been successful...only that the patient were finally put to rest (died).

Well, that was what she cycled through the first few hours of flight in her dreams...going over her research.
But as dream may go, one dream melds into another and then another...
Karlie went through several anxiety purges, as that was most dreams do, relieve one's stress by playing it out and coming to some kind of resolve, however far fetched it may be in a dream sometimes... well, most times.

But the last two dreams that she would recall in flashes later on were total fantasies.
The first being that she had no recollection of what had transpired the last week or so, or ever...not even touching upon the fact that she had been cooped up in abyss of space in her lab for months. No, it were Karlie dreaming of her beach bungalow. She loved her bungalow and loved to lay out under the Castan sun...

That dream were one long overdue her, and set the tempo as to where the next one lead.

The dream flawlessly merged into one at a club when beach Barbie Karlie got up to quench the thirst she acquired tanning under the sun. But Oh, it had been heaven as her dream memory recalled, with the gentle and steady sound of the surf and of the seabirds gawking and gacking at a distant. She had gotten up and were heading inside her bungalow when that seamlessly became the entrance to a nightclub. she were then in her gold, form fitting semi-glitter dress with shoulder straps. Her hair done up just perfect, along with everything else she had been denied the past week in life. An ordeal that had no dominion in her dream, as it never happened...or at least not remembered.

It were an elegant night club, most likely in her capital, Constantine. It were cooler inside than the hot patio she had just gotten up from as that dream were still vivid in memory, but it had no bearing as to how she were at the club now and at night. Time had little dominion if any at all in dreams.
But night time it were, and her beach house and sunshine seemed to be somewhere else in the past.

The club lights near the dance floor was pumping to the beat of the music. She looked about at the crowd dancing..drinking..talking...
oh yes, her drink. She had it in hand...how it got there didn't matter..only the voice next to her drawing her attention.

"Excuse me, what?" She hadn't quite heard the question with all the music and distractions about.
It were Vera and she seemed to be holding her drink, as Karlie no longer had it in her hand. And the glass was full.
The woman repeated that Karlie looked parched and offered her the drink. It were Karlie's favorite and she gladly accepted it, drawing the tiny straw to her lips and taking a sip as the pounding beat of the club seemed to be in tune with that of her own heart.

How she found herself dancing out there on the floor with Vera didn't matter. All that mattered was the beat, the sweat, the foreplay of the dance and where it were leading to... as each beat, each uninhibited dance move were a clear language as to where they and the night would lead them. And somehow there didn't seem to matter or exist any boundaries... Karlie were sexually aroused.
A whispered word to her ear was all she needed...her name..."Karlie..."
"Karlie... we're almost there..."
No, dream Vera was wrong, for Karlie's lips were already there... there on Vera's lips just in time, before she were yanked from the dream, the dream that were suddenly collapsing around her.
No,no, no! Karlie weren't going to wait and managed to get her lips on-

Then the gentle nudge that ripped her from her dream.
A moan escaped Karlie's lips before her eyes shot open. before she could grasp that tail end of the dream, her eyes came upon Rom. Damn it, it were Rom...

"Uh-hum..." Karlie muttered, straightening herself out in the seat before she nodded. "I'm awake... thanks..."
Actually, 'no thanks' as she were somehow wishing to have completed that dream.
Her eyes were wandering elsewhere, but meeting Rom's...searching, trying to grasp what remnants of a dream that had her perspire as such.
Taking a deep breath, she fixed her collar then pressed her shirt. It had been her first erotic dream...and of all people....Vera. Karlie were heterosexual...but....but that dream... those feelings... her heart were still trying to slow down.
Damn, she were parched!

Karlie gave a little stretch, having slept for hours in her seat and got up to get that drink. It seemed to coincide with the hyper-tunnel collapsing into normal space with the stars seemingly grouping all back into place. For a split second she almost felt like she had momentarily gone backwards a few seconds, seeing the stars come to a near stop. But it were only her sluggish reaction coming out of sleep and hyperspace at the same moment. Her brain replaying that feeling..that kiss, as if it just happened again. Some even called it the 'Witching effect', much like the witching hour of a sleeper stuck between reality and dream, only this happened to her coming out of the jump.

The walk back from the hangar to the detention block were't as what she recalled. they were taking the turbolift up..up past the mechanical and main batteries of the ship.Kkarlie swallowed, not questioning Rom. Maybe the psycho vamp was going to reprimand her for her feeble attempt at dispatching Rom? Sure...
Sure, that made more sense. If anyone were to teach her not to frak with their authority, especially since they had indicated to help her, it would be the head queen, Nine. Karlie hadn't tried to make eye contact with Rom, since before they stepped back on the Morpheus. She really didn't know what was to be expected next, really. She just hopped to be left alone in her cell awhile...

Her eyes shot over to Roms, when the door swung open to what looked like an executive suite. Hers?
Yes, that's what it were. And Rom were indicating that possibly what had taken place inside that little rouse of hers, that droid transport was to remain between them.
Karlie for a moment didn't know what to think or say...just simply nodded an acknowledgment to Rom's pitch of hiring her in the future. The future?...so there was a future?
Questions forming in her head as to the reasons for the changes had to wait, when Rom suddenly left her to her own means.
Karlie stood there, one..two steps in and looked about. The refresher door were open and she caught sight of the large soaker, a Jacuzzi size sunken bath.
Ohhh...how she were overdue for a good long soak.

Two hours later...
Despite the bacta infused bath which made for long soakings, she finally opened her eyes and initiated the warm rinse exchange. She just felt the random pulses of micro jets as the bath became a rinse, without so much as a degree of temp difference. The 5 minute cycle before moisturizers were applied to the bath completed it. She felt so renewed, so invigorated. She had missed this. Had missed a good relaxing bath for months now, ever since she had left Castagne for the lab.

Moisturizing base.., eyeliner... lipstick...Vera's color maybe? Oh she shouldn't. Karlie opted for a more natural one to compliment her hair... styled as she preferred,now that she had been given the means.
And of the prison garbs? Karlie weren't sure. But there was that closet she had passed before...

It weren't long when the suite announced a visitor. For a moment, her heart sank. Had these past three hours come to an end?
"...enter." She finally spoke, realizing she had been given such privilege to accept or not when her suite responded and opened the door.

There was a moment torn between excitement and fear when she seen Vera at her door entering. Before she had left, she had been playing Vera. The game had been up with Rom and there was no desire for her to continue the game with Vera. That minute followed with a slight feeling of shame. That game had been exposed and whether or not Rom had kept her notion as to keep whatever had transpired between them two, Karlie knew enough to be more frank with Vera...she somehow felt she owed her that.

Ruffians?,,
Rom?...Of course, yes.. Rom. No, no...not Rom though, no.
Maybe the only ruffian were that weirdo Magnus,,but Rom seemed to have been on the level with her all throughout the trip. The very fact that Vera was apologizing meant that Rom did keep her word. Karlie swallowed, it were a sigh of sort...something which she now had little to worry about. Rom had only reported on the findings and little else it seemed. Maybe she should thank the Chiss, if ever she ran into her again...

"Huh?... uhm, yes I'm alright..." Karlie had been too preoccupied in her finding herself at an en-pass as to explaining her change of behavior to have initially noticed her crono. The crono by which Vera was handing over to her.

Karlie didn't realize her hand was trembling when she went to accept the crono from Vera. It were then that she had given notice of the box of food that Vera had placed down...it's enticing odors now reminded her as to how hungry she was. Her tongue almost breached her lips...only it were not just for the food. Vera looked-
Vera looked very much like the Vera she had dreamed about. Karlie found herself taking in every movement of Vera, before realizing what she were not doing. And that was putting that damn crono back on her wrist. That same crono she had been harping on to both her and- ...and what was that psycho's name again?.. Frak... Her fixation on Vera at the moment had wiped her host's name for a moment.
Oh yes, Nine. Karlie had been harping both Nine and Vera for her crono and now she just seemed to plainly just hold it in her hand.
Good, good, her attention were then drawn on her putting the crono, finally drawing her eyes off the woman. Upon the crono's contact with her skin, it went through checking her vitals...diagnosing as to her well being. The crono was a micro med lab and dispensary.

That minute of distraction were soon followed with another announcement at her door. Karlie had only the means of giving Vera s small smile and nod as to the accommodations received. Why wouldn't she like it over that cell?

"Whew....pant...pant..." Her heart pounded deep in her throat.
It were a relief...a godsend that Vera had turned and exited. One more minute and she's be out of breath and panting like she just ran a couple of kilometers.
What was wrong with her?! " pant...pant..." Maybe she had played that syndrome way too much for her own good, as she found herself out of breath with Vera now.
That dream...that stupid dream... "Gah!...get a hold of yourself. Frak the dream...frak the dream.." She muttered to herself as she tried her exercises in calming her self and getting a hold of her pulse rate.

A few minutes later when Vera returned, Karlie was for the most part a bit more clear minded and doing her best at remaining focused on the situation she were still in.

"Uhm, Vera?.... I have to say thank you again. Thank you for keeping my crono....here." Yes, Karlie realized that if she had left with that crono, that things would have possibly gone out of hand...way out of control and not as Nine..maybe Vera had planned. Karlie knew she would have run...run hard..maybe to have become a real fugitive, as she certainly couldn't expect to go back to Castagne. Not if she had run and forfeit her chance at proving her innocence.
The chance of a strife...a civil unrest...Castagne resisting the CIS outright by her father-
No, that didn't happen. It didn't happens for she didn't have her lifeline, her crono. Nine..Vera even kind of saved her life again. It were clear now that Nine had kept her from making a tragedy out of all her mistakes.
Yes, Karlie had come to reason that for the most part, Nine and Vera...even Rom had kept her from botching this whole thing up.

" So..." takes to swallow "...my understanding is that I'm looking good as far as what Rom brought back, but still waiting on Nine to get back from that old research facility?" She could do this..yea, she could remain focused. Just keep her eyes on Vera's eyes....that's all.

Karlie had never experienced such an attraction to a woman before...especially one older than her.
She silently cursed her peripheral vision, as she continued to keep her eyes on Vera's own, without them wandering off exploring the woman.
They were giving her the hardest time.

 

[Nine Lives]

The old lab had definitely seen better days, Nine thought as she traversed the interior. Breaching the place had been relatively easy, given these neat little hacking spider-things she brought. She would have traded her left arm for some of the stuff this era had back in the old days, as Jerri and Meier followed close by as she entered one of the strange areas full of tanks with long dead specimens. She saw no signs of anyone, nor sensed anything amiss. "Meier, keep a lookout..." Nine ordered. The black haired combat droid gave a happy nod and stayed close to the entry point they had come through. "Jerri?"

"Yeah, Mother?" The Morpheus Knight asked with a happy chirp, still lugging a lot of the equipment around.

"Help me set up the equipment to examine the computers. We should work quickly..." Nine ordered.

Jerri nodded and soon, they were both hooking up small black modules to the various terminals, inserting cables and plugs from the modules into the ports.

Nine's background in lab research, curing diseases herself kept proving surprisingly useful. And familiarity with Castle Morpheus's bio-registry systems enabled her to make sense. Hacking was not her forte per se, but when one can design the complex personality matrices required to make someone like Vera possible meant she naturally understood high level computer design...it was inevitable she would understand precisely how to breach it.

In this case, [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] herself provided the key. Nine had had the good sense to preserve the data gathered from Karlie's medical scans and used it to fabricate the information the computer required. The computer screens flickered on.

"What are we looking for exactly Mother? This place...it is very spooky..." Jerri confessed, having already drawn his vibro-ninjato when he heard a strange sound, looking around for the source.

Nine looked around her, and felt the taint of ancient atrocities commited here.

"You are right...it is spooky. Very spooky. All the more reason to hurry..." Nine admitted, the glow of the screen reflected by her knight armor faceplate.

The faked biometric data worked and soon Nine was diving into the systems, going for the security records in particular, wanting to see how far back they went. A lot of it was blank prior to Karlie's arrival. Nine was not fooled. 'Someone' had used this lab before Karlie. Nine checked the subsystems. Nothing. She went to auxiliary systems, stuff that was non essential. She finally spotted it. An odd looking file named "Continuum.ARCHIVE."

Nine ran a scan for attached viruses to the file but it turned up clean. Nine clicked it.

A blurry, silent recording played out, with a number of technicians examining samples and autopsying what looked to be various bodies, all of them female. All of them deformed. The recordings spanned years, and Nine played them on fast forward. One face kept standing out, moving about the recordings talking, torturing people in front of others, sometimes in different outfits. Nine understood how it was the biometric system had let Karlie in. She was too close to the real deal.

The woman in the recordings looked startlingly similar to Karlie. But it wasn't her. The gaze was too cold. Too cruel.

Karlie had mentioned having an evil sith mother. And it seemed that their fates were not quite done intertwining. By sheer horrid, rotten luck, Karlie must have stumbled onto one of her mother's old attempts to find a more reliable method of transferring from body to body. What was wrong with her? Why could she not transfer to any body she wanted? Some defect of the spirit?

It mattered not. She was dead. Deader than dead, or at least, unable to affect Karlie.

"Mom, stop!" Jerri exclaimed. "Rewind it a bit!"

Nine did as her son asked. The recording displayed the woman who looked like Karlie descending into something at the center of the floor. Jerri, without needing to be told headed over to the section of the floor the recording showed Karlie's mother going into when it showed a control panel hidden underneath an electrical floor plug, manipulating the controls. The hidden floor section depressed further with a hiss, becoming a spiral staircase. It had been right under Karlie's nose.

Nine rose immediately and drew her sword, descending it with Jerri, who cocked his submachine gun and went in front of her, fearing there were zombies and determined to protect her.

The lights below, casing broken and emitting a ruddy yellow light that flickered intermittently as they entered this previously unknown subsection and stared at the tanks with failed life support systems full of dead, deformed women that all resembled Karlie in some way. Nine creapt toward one. Numerous failures.

"Mother!" Jerri exclaimed, pointing at a shattered, empty tank at the far end of the hidden chamber on their left. Nine turned to it, blood chilling as she stared past the silent clone corpses. The tank had been shattered from within.

"Getting that survival horror feel here..." Nine muttered as she knealt over long dried footprints...

"Jerri, prepare samples for me." Nine instructed as she raced back up the staircase to the security feed and checked the dates. They went back eighty years. Relatively recent. About the right time frame before Karlie would be born.

Nine began to download everything. It was important to get this all back to Vera. This was a gold mine...but Karlie definitely was not going to like this news when she heard it...

"Mom!" Meier contacted her on the comlink. "Another ship just landed! Looks like its from Castagne!"

"Chit. Jerri! This just got complicated!" Nine hissed as Jerri brought up the samples. "Hide! Hide!"


Meanwhile...


Vera had composed herself by the time Karlie asked her question. To the biot's delight, she saw the way Karlie forced herself to stare at only Vera's eyes. The biot found herself thinking of walking through decontamination with Karlie naked...such a pity it had not happened.

"Yes, its looking more and more like I will be able to tear apart what case they might have against you, Karlie..." Vera replied easily, giving a small coy smile she hoped would fluster Karlie. What did her blood taste like? One taste. One taste. One taste. A kiss before that.

Vera slinked towards her, her curvy frame tight against the white dress. She wanted Karlie to see every curve. Every artificial bit of exposed skin. Her processors were very warm. It made one of her pinky's twitch a little as she drew closer, Karlie's very prescence intoxicating. Though she kept a professional distance, there was no mistaking the way Vera's eyes slid down to Karlie's mouth and neck for a split second, her heart beating a little faster.

"As soon as my employer gets back, we will have all we need. So...after we clear you of charges...any plans? Vera asked, semi-innocently. "This ship has ancient hyperspace routes in its database not used anymore. We pass by a lot of beautiful places. I'd think you'd like some of them..." Vera suggested slinking a little closer.

"Warm beaches...lush forests. Ancient fields of flowers kissed by sunlight. You should take a long vacation after what you have been through..." Vera suggested, though her smile suggested far more. Vera looked down at Karlie's clothing.

"Would you like something to wear. Something not quite so...prisoner-y?" Vera asked, upset she had not considered this earlier. "I'm sure we could find something more complimentary to one so..."

The fingers on her left hand twitched involuntarily as her processors threatened to overheat trying to process the new sensation. The images playing across a sinister artificial mind that could not even think of bloodshed when the prospect of being alone with Karlie, of seducing her, was so overwhelming. Karlie needed Vera? Vera wanted Karlie...

Vera's fingers twitched a little again as she finished her sentence a split second after trailing off.

"Unique..." Vera finished, desperately trying to understand what it was she was feeling and failing at every turn. How did Karlie's lips feel? Vera unconsciously bit her lower lip without realizing as she stared at those lips for another split second. She caught herself and stopped a second later. The only other time she felt this way was when she heard the screams of her enemies. Her design was still a prototype in the end...

"I have a number of dresses I think would fit you nicely..." Vera mentioned off handedly as she stared right into Karlie's eyes, unconsciously biting her lower lip again...

[member="Darth Metus"]

[member="Srina Talon"]

 

[Ian Sade]

It had been the order for the resupply shuttle to restock the food stores on the RD-IV remote lab which had prompted the IBI to deploy one of it's SD's to go and investigate what seemed like an out of order-request.

No alarms nor intruder alerts had been initiated from the remote lab, just an out of order request to restock what according to records and logistics was already fully stocked.
But lack of establishing communication with it and it's occupants, had warranted a scout vessel to be sent first to investigate.
The scout vessel had arrived aprox 15 minutes after Magnus had jumped back to Castle Morphus with Rom Jin and Karlie. And unbeknownst to Rom, it had been Karlie whom had initiated the unscheduled restocking order just when her and Rom Jin were leaving the lab.

The RD-IV was found deserted but fully operational with little evidence of foul play. Yet, no researchers on board. This were immediately replayed to the proper Castan authorities which included the IBI (Internal Bureau of Investigation) at the same time the Castan Council was alerted.
As the first moments ticked away, the IBI came to the conclusion to alert the Council that there had been a possible security breech and warranted a full investigation. This were then immediately approved and the SD Tecknor was deployed.
It had taken all of 10 minutes after the Council and IBI failed to hail Karlie and her assistant that the SD Technor emerged at a safe distance from the lab. The proximity of the SD to the RD-IV followed protocol, a fail-safe distance should the lab go nuclear.
A Hazmat investigative team were deployed from the Tecknor, by way of shuttle..

The RD-IV recordings indicated Karlie's first excursion from the RD-Iv which lead her and the assistant to the abandoned lab on the ice moon. Then Karlie's return with what was evidently a Chiss female warrior of unknown identification other than what the barrier sweeps had picked up that had been shed off the Chiss.
The RD-Iv lab and documentary logs indicated the ice moon had been part of Karlie's investigation. But what of her assistant and of the Chiss inside the lab that was with Karlie days later?
And the fact that Karlie had prompted a low key clue to get the IBI's attention to the RD-IV remote lab.

Clues...

It took no time for the IBI agent Sade to extract the coordinates to the ice moon, from the data the team extracted.
Only, how were the two women able to make that jump on a short range lab shuttle?

That answer was soon discovered. In fact, it soon followed with an incoming report that one of the B.O.B. droid transports had been attacked and nearly all of it's droids ...wiped out?
"Show me." Sade ordered, before he received the holo feed from the transporter.

Droids...in pieces and parts all over the main hallway.

Then...

"Sir, the transport's recordings. They have been somewhat corrupted as the main circuitry had taken blaster fire..." One of the team members that had been dispatched to the transporter was reporting before Sade cut him short.
"Just play back what you got, goddamn it!"

"Yes, right away sir.."

The chopped and barely shape formed holo recording played out for a few seconds. But it were clear that someone were cowering in the corner..KARLIE!!!
And yes, the Chiss woman. She was the most likely culprit dicing and slicing her way through the ancient droids. The very last two seconds that could be made clear was the Chiss lifting up Karlie and walking-
The holo-recording stopped. It was evident that the Chiss was taking Karlie back to the ship that they had come in with.
"Why the frak weren't those droids using live fire? Their blasters are barely marking the paint!" It was obvious that the ancient battle droids weren't using deadly fire. But the Chiss was!
The recording time on the transport was just a few minutes short of the recording of the Chiss and Karlie entering the RD-IV remote lab. They had left the transport after decimating the droids and gone to the lab? It made little sense for now.

"Sir...we picked up something more of interest..." another report came in.

The mystery then further unfolded as what had been previously thought as unrelated intelligence the Bureau had come upon in interstellar CIS communication days earlier suddenly connected with their current investigation. These scrambled CIS secret service transmissions had been gathered by the IBI as part of their daily and ever monitoring of airwaves (long range transmissions)
The deciphered transmissions indicated that very same virus that Castagne (Karlie) had retrieved from that unfaithful event on Melida/Dan was now suspected of originating from one of Castan's own...Karlie Lynn herself.

"FRAK!!!" Sade shouted out his frustration. This was not possible. But whether it were or not, Castagne would seem to find itself in the middle of whatever it was that seemed to have triggered such events. It meant that the CIS could well turn on Castagne in a preemptive strike, if the CIS jumped the gun without launching a non-bias investigation. But would they chance trusting the CIS if the Vicelord's own son Riggs were said to have been killed as a result of these reported accusations against Karlie, thus Castagne?

"Colonel....should I inform the Admiralty to scramble and ready our fleets?" Sade's immediate subordinate asked.

Sade stood erect a moment, digesting all of which they had uncovered thus far. Was Karlie capable of such atrocities?
Was she?!
Yes.
Yes, she was.
Karlie was her mother's daughter... That is, if she were still a daughter, then that would relate to a definite 'No' , as to be capable of such atrocities.
Sade knew the history.... knew Karlie...oh how he knew her.
But he also knew she could not have done this. Karlie wouldn't create an indiscriminate killing virus. She could have, sure. Sade knew that she had the intelligence and finesse to do it, if she wanted to. But no.
No, she hadn't created the Melida/Dan virus, no. But as far as the records they unearthed on the RD-IV Karlie did create a retrovirus from the one she acquired on Melida/Dan. Only now the question still remained; who had deployed the virus on one of the CIS systems?

"No. Transmit all our findings directly to the High Council's office...Tarssin Destat. For his eyes only. He'll handle the Admiralty and the CIS.
" But I need to speak with him on a private channel. Get him on the horn, after he receives our data." Sade opted instead to see if they themselves could get to the heart of this rouse. That meant Castagne, hopefully Tarssin Destat himself could stay what could apparently be coming down on them. It meant they'd have to put some faith in the Vicelord [member="Darth Metus"] to wait for a full investigation before he'd rain down on Castagne. It were a gamble, but in reality how could Castagne go up against an entire CIS coalition force? There was no time for Castagne to rally allies and go against the collective.

"Sir?...get him to call you?"

"You heard me Lieutenant, have Cabinet Head Destat call me....we're jumping the Tecknor to that ice moon immediately."

"Y-yes, ...yes, colonel.." And the officer did just that, leaving the Tecknor's tactical planning room.
In turn Sade relayed the order for the Tecknor to jump to his said coordinates...leaving the hazmat team and shuttle. There was little time to waste.

"Sir...navigation got the coordinates. "

"Have them engage."

The SD Tecknor soon took to jump, speeding its way to the abandoned lab on the ice moon...

​

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~​

"Colonel, were approaching emergence point in 20 minutes." An ensign reported.
Sade merely acknowledged with a slight nod, as the few officers in the tactical conference room who were not busy piecing the smaller puzzle pieces together, gathered their holopads and left for the bridge.

" 2 squads of Castan Marines... landing here...there...and have i in the air as standby. Fighter air support flanking the landing shuttles. We're emerging 2.3 million kilometers from the moon. The orbital calculations should put our landing parties cresting over to the base with the star at their back.
We don't know what to expect...same with anyone down there, not expecting us." So the landing plans went...

During the jump, Sade were going over all of the data they had gotten from the RD-IV remote lab, assessing that whomever it was that had lured agent Destat and her lab assistant on over to the moon, had to be associated with the Chiss woman in the recordings whom had gone back with Karlie to retrieve data a few days later.

"Colonel... we've just received a transmission from Tarssin. The RD-IV's shuttle was found parked on Miss Destat's beach house. Her starship the LCX-L3 is not in the Castan system."

"I see...." Sade then put it together that Karlie had flown down to Castagne, her beach house and taken her starship to jump to the ice moon. The puzzle pieces were all fitting together...

The Tecknor emerged out of hyperspace at their predetermined location and immediately launched the Marines and fighters.

"Colonel... we've located-"

"No need Lieutenant.... I can see it on the monitors...Miss Destat's LCX parked near the base...." Sade were near the tactical command station, scanning the base and Karlie's ship. There were other ship structures scattered about, mostly under the snow and ice that they were picking up also. Most likely through the decades.

"Relay to Tarssin that we've located both his daughter's craft and seemingly one of the lost secret research bases we've been hunting down the last decade." yes, Castagne had been trying to clean up what the witch, Karlie's mom, Tarssins beloved dead wife had secretly conspired in not only taking over her daughter's body, but take castagne for herself.

"Sir, there' appears to be a vessel nearby at 34 degree, 4 minutes South, under Castle Morpheus' markings."

Sade didn't reply as he were already busy searching the system for the mother ship the Morpheus. It were nowhere in any of their sensor ranges.

"Change in landing orders; Have the marines hold position around the base.
Prepare me a transport. I'm heading down."
More puzzle pieces. How they would fit, he'd have to discover that for his self....

 

[Nine Lives]

Nine had Jerri take a position above in the support beams, while she had Meier camouflage herself outside, mimicking the texture of the snow while Nine used the Force to cloak her body and with great strain move outside, invisible, closing in on the landing transport, even as the base was surrounded. She didn't draw her weapons immediately, and went and observed [member="Ian Sade"] as he got closer to the facility from her place in the snow. She took a more circuitous route to him, making sure he was not going to spot her due to some dumb mistake, using the natural terrain as well as the Force to approach his group from behind stealthily, deeply disturbed still by the video footage she had uncovered.

It brought back another time in her life, of when she had had to face the consequences of her own mother's evil. With a start, Nine realized the uncomfortable similarities between her and Karlie were deep and significant. Both of their mothers had turned out to be very, very bad people who had to be stopped. Both had turned to medicine to bring order to a life that had gone insane and turned against them, forcing them through a scenario that neither of them had escaped unscathed. And Karlie had actually managed to retain her humanity...

There was some jealousy to that sentiment. No matter how much Nine was at peace now with her current situation, the fact remained that a lot of it hadn't been her choice. (Something that sounded increasingly hollow to Nine the more she repeated it to herself.) Oddly, when she thought of Karlie's solution--cutting herself off from the Force altogether--a half remembered quote from a film that explored the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, an offworld product she had seen as a child bubbled up:

The only way to win is not to play.

Nine had been the product of multiple generations of bloodthirsty Atrisian Warlords. She had never been able to fully shed that instinct to fight her way through her problems, even after becoming a Consular. She had thought the Force had been a boardgame: one only needed the right pieces.

Karlie had done the one thing that had never occured to either Nine or her human self, Ni-Ne...she had thrown away the boardgame. For anyone else, it might have worked, but the schemes of even a long dead Sith Lady are not thwarted so easily. Karlie had tossed the boardgame aside, but the boardgame had gotten pissed, grabbed a torch, and was coming back to try and burn Karlie's house down while screaming drunken obscenities in front of whatever cops happened to be present, which would then require them to violently taser the boardgame and drag it off to the drunk tank.

She wasn't certain who they were but they looked military. The thought vampire, not exactly certain that there might not be some shadowy party still in the shadows conspiring against [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] was not about to take the risk they were not going there to destroy evidence. It would not do to kill them but she was not about to walk around all safe and sound and not-fearing-thought-vampire-attacks.

Nine drew close, not using her weapons, keeping as inhumanely quiet as possible as she approached from behind. She would not strike until the final moment, when it was all perfect...

OOC: Feel free to have Ian spot her, Karlie.

 

[Ian Sade]

The cold weather gear although appearing somewhat deficient had actually heating elements that made the apparel very mobile and had little impedance than that of standard issue battle armor.
Sade trekked on over to the LCX, Karlie's starship. He knew exactly where on the strut the touch pad was. He knew the code.

access denied

"Really?" He sighed, as the first attempt failed, before punching in a master key code

access denied

"Come on..." he muttered as he tried another override code.

access denied

WARNING-FLASH DEFENSE SYSTEM ARMED-WARNING​

One more attempt remains, before ship defense is triggered.​

​

"Sigh... Damn you woman! How the hell- Gah!" He took a step back and got on his comm.

"Patch me up with the Cabinet Head." He transmitted to the Tecknor.
"Yes, immediately." he gave it a minute as he turned to look around him. He could have sworn he felt someone there. The tracks on the the wind swept snow were his and only his. Still, he had this feeling...
Sade eyed one of his detachment of marines not 40 meters distance that he could make out in the snow. The group remained poised and ready, all seemingly ready to go into action. They were all linked, as thus he had to assume the other groups were also in ready standby. Nothing but wind swept ice and snow were out here besides them. Whoever it was from the castle Morpheus had to be inside the facility.
So why was he getting the feeling-

"Yes..." He then suddenly turned his attention to the ship again, as whoever he had asked for was now on the comm.
"I'm in front of her ship now. She changed the codes, sir." He seemed to be communicating with someone of high authority, someone else familiar with Karlie's ship.
"No, no good, that entry got denied...
That one too, sir." He replied before quickly turning around again. Who the hell was there?!
His attention so focused on his whereabouts that he missed what the other person on the comm had said.

"What?...
Yes, still here, sir." Sade spotting nothing near him returned his attention to the ship and the person he were in contact with.
"Correct, it's armed...
No sir, don't know why or how she managed to change the primary codes." He knew though. No one could put a leash on Karlie. The damn woman was far more intelligent than she looked or came off as.
"Agreed, can't wait out the timed reset to try again." Sade seemed to acknowledge the weight of their current situation to resolve something as quickly as possible.

"Understood, sir." He clicked off kicking the strut of Karlie's ship before turning to head on over to the main structure.

"Tecknor." he then switched over to ship's band.

'Standing by' The SD commander replied.

"Tactical Order 3 Delta-" Sade spun around, with a drawn weapon in hand this time.

....tic-tock...

Again, nothing there.

This time he didn't stand down, rather his eyes scanned around him. He was in a sort of cove, a sort of canopy that shielded the entrance from the icy snow and elements. The air as cold as it were wasn't being churned like it was just a few meters out in the open. If there was any movement about in this shelter, he'd be able to see it. Something was out there...maybe closer than he could even feel it, as surely he couldn't see it. But something, someone was there.
He swallowed. It were apparent he was sweating, as his eyes blinked when a drop of perspiration irritated it. But it weren't of a cold sweat. Rather, he were triggered by something all too familiar in the way it or something seemed to be stalking him. Only that which seemed to be upon him had been destroyed years ago. Could such a ghost as Karlie once described haunting her years ago actually be here?
This base; it were one of many secret installations they were still finding dotting the galaxy, was by all accounts one of the beast's. The beast was as he had come to know it.
Only if it were... he'd be dead by now.

'Tecknor to ground command, didn't receive full order...repeat, orders not received' the transmission from the SD in orbit rang out in his ear.
Right...he had not completed that order when he sensed what he did behind him.

"Tactical Order 3 Delta 8 Tango Initiate." Yes, that would do it. It were the only option, if him and the marines were lost.

'Affirmative, order received.' The Tecknor's commander replied then closed transmission.

Sade had given a fail safe order. Should ground operations fail, orbital bombardment to base and vessels, including their own were to commence. It would encircle an area of 50 or so kilometers surrounding the base. So much for ice and snow, as it would turn the area into a lake before it all would all boil off then make a new crater nearly a half kilometer deep in the moon rock. Something not seen on the surface of the moon for over a few million years.

He then turned as calmly as he could, signaling his troops to remain on standby before he made his way to the one of the sealed doors, but not without another good scan of the immediate surroundings. If the beast was somehow down here, however improbable, he kept telling his self; they'd be useless...complicate matters. He had experienced her before and had lived. Maybe that was the reason he could be at this moment too. Familiarity?

Sade then cracked his neck and holstered his side arm again, returning his attention to the door. It seemed to be a standard blast door. He started to feel around for an access panel.
"Now how in blazes-" he were stopped mid sentence.

The blast door had swished open on its own, leaving quite a startled Colonel looking into a lit interior. Had there been someone behind the door waiting to ambush him-
"Yea, nice..."
He cussed his self before stepping to the side, kind of after the fact, and peered in.

"...way to go with a blaster bolt to your head already..." He muttered to his self as he cleared the entrance way, weapon in hand again and in a forward tactical readiness. The anteroom was empty.

The inner door was interlocked with the outer. Both could not be open at the same time. He knew that and stepped in further into the anteroom. This activated the exterior door to close before the inner door could be opened.
Only that it took a bit longer than it should of before the outer door closed. Something had followed him in.
Sade lowered his weapon down to his side and removed the cold climate breathing mask, slowly turning around. Yea, his heart could be heard like a drum beating in the dark dept of a jungle.
There was no one there that he could see. But his intuition told him otherwise.

"I'm dropping it." His breathing were that of one expecting something to jump out of thin air.
"If you were going to kill me, I know you'd have done it by now..."

Ta-thump...his side arm dropped to the floor.




[member="Nine Lives"]

 

[Nine Lives]

Nine dropped the camouflage field for [member="Ian Sade"]. Skittish one, this type. Very skittish.

Cute, too. Like a puppy. Nine liked puppies. So furry. Woof woof.

Nine was not about to drop her guard. But her hand rested on her sword hilt, ready to draw it in less than a heartbeat.

"I did not come here to make corpses, which is why we are speaking." The Vampire replied, drawing to her full seven foot height, her face concealed by that strange Knight Obsidian Armor mask as she got a good look. If he was from a shadowy conspiracy seeking to undermine Karlie he sure didn't act that way...conspirator would have tried to shoot her on detection.

"Who are you and why should I believe your answer?" Nine asked in her heavy contralto, her somewhat inhuman nature giving itself away in how her shoulders drew to a haunched position. Fingers growing crooked and twitching the bird like movements of her head, which made an already intimidating figure look positively unnatural as well, despite remaining in place and non-aggressive. If he made trouble he was getting a concussion...and possibly a few birthdays of his would be eaten also.

Bet he's got a nice cake memory in that skull of his... she mused privately. I just hope he's not a vegetarian...I HATE spinach memories!

If it had been up to her, Nine would have preferred to have a nice, thick bowl of rice once a day. Memories were the closest she could get to even getting the taste. But after eating thousands of memories, Nine often had to settle with what she got. It astounded her to no end that in a galaxy as large as this, where the cuisine of millions of cultures was available, just how boring some diets could be. (She gorged herself on pizza memories when possible, however. She loved pizza.)

Nine waited for Ian to answer or to fight, whichever came first, and her thoughts drifted to Vera, and wondered if Karlie was driving her nuts. Had she been aware how much [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] was getting past Vera's 'armor' she might have been more eager to return...

 

[Ian Sade]

His gamble had come to fruit.
Actually, it spurted like one... it revealed itself like a giant stalk of a figure.. and with a saber to boot.

Sith?
Unlikely, as it offered him a chance to speak.Good call on dropping his little toy sparkle gun, he realized. Whether that were the factor in the figure revealing itself, or that they were isolated in the anteroom and away from his troops outside, that was soon to unfold.

It were difficult to assert whether it were male, female, or other behind that mask. Sade couldn't take the mask for what it were as it could well be duplicated. Hell, he had infiltrated those ranks on more than one campaign with one of his own making. One thing his bureau discovered, was that the knights were indeed loyal to the Confederacy.
Only the question remained; was this creature one of them, or mimicking one? Oh yes, and the other question; how many more were there of them outside?

Sade kept his hands clear and in plain view, remaining where he stood.
"Who I am, or aren't, could put us at an impasse..." His hesitation were cue for the creature's name before he would give his. Although it appeared the question had to be first answered by his person. The figure was just remaining behind it's mask in a kind of stare down...or so Sade had to assume.

Given the fact that whoever this person or creature was, it had offered him, or they as in his marine detachment, enough quarter to state their purpose and intentions here. If it were the hand of the witch, then he certainly wouldn't have made it this far.
Still, Karlie's LCX-L3 was parked there and so far, no sign of the little rascal.
What to do...what to do...
He certainly wasn't about to divulge that if he or his team were somehow cut down that the SD Tecknor had orders to lay waste a good chunk of this ice moon. No..that should come when and if talks broke down. The creature was curious and had not lit it's saber. Talk..truth were the better option for both right now.

"Colonel Ian Sade, Castan ICI... " He began. What else were he to do? It were a 33% risk that it would pan out. One was that the creature would see him and his forces here as enemies and attempt to kill them all, if that were the gambit. Yes, most likely he'd be the first down. Not that he had dropped his weapon, but the fact that he knew it would have been ineffective to begin with.
Two, should his marines be successful in subduing this creature and or whatever else was out there, he would still be killed, no doubt.
And three the 33% risk he were gambling on that this could very well be one of the Obsidian knights and something could be worked out as to why everyone was suddenly here on this forsaken ice moon.

"...currently standing ground under the SD Tecknor." he didn't have to let the creature know about the fail safe order he had given. if it were an Obsidian Knight, it would know that as Castan forces were not unlike them when it came to such matters. And here on this forsaken ice moon, it made all the difference. Whatever was here or was assumed to be here in the facility could never leave.

"The ship out there.... the other Castan vessel. One of ours, so you know. Was the woman here or gone before your..." his eyes did another once over. "...presence?"
Well, now were his turn to see how much this creature knew, if it knew anything at all. He didn't give a name as to whom the woman was that had parked the Castan LCX-L3.

"No chance you'd know her current status?" He did his best not to project his concern for the wildcat. Yes, Karlie could be most times, if she weren't a pussycat.




[member="Nine Lives"]

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

Meanwhile back on the Morpheus...

"Would I?!..." Karlie nearly spun a full pirouette at Vera's invite to put on something less institutional.

"Uhm...yea, sure....what do you have in mind?" What a question. The present drabs she had on were standard detention clothes, if and when they would be issued to a prisoner. In actuality , the uniforms hardly got circulated as most if not all prisoners, and unknown to Karlie, never got a chance to even change before their demise on this floating castle of horrors.
Incidentally, the prison clothes she had been privi to wear upon her rescue were fairly new and unused, despite they had several years of locker cell storage. But the blonde wouldn't know that. Not yet anyways.

Karlie's emotional state was for the most part on the fragile end overlooking a steep drop...or cliff, if one would need to use a metaphors to describe it.
As such, the blonde was in a kind of heightened state. Something like one would have upon finding out that they had just received a stay of execution. Well, mostly due to the fact that she had been accused of the death of Riggs, [member="Darth Metus"] son. As she understood the way sith were was that innocent or not, those monsters would end life and all those which stood in their way of what they perceived as divine balance..life for a life. And in most every case, one life weren't ever enough.

So yes, aside from getting through the interrogators and their crude means of extracting what they wished for one to confess to, whether true or not, did she consider herself lucky? Oh hell yes. She were still breathing on her feet, and that was a plus and the only thing keeping her sane. That and Vera's offer for some change of clothes. Yes, Karlie missed the entire 'unique' comment which had been surgically aimed at her. All the blonde heard and registered were the opportunity to change into something more than prison drabs.

She followed Vera out of her cell and off the entire detention block, giving a few once over passing the intersecting hallways.
The Morpheus was certainly a huge, if not an enormous mobile fortress in the category of what many would compare to an SSD or a Juggernaut. even. It were difficult for Karlie to gauge as to the exact size as mostly she tailed Vera's own unique method of walking, if they weren't using the transports to cut the distances in a timely manner.
For a trek, Karlie got to noticing as how Vera could move so...so unique as she did. Yes, Karlie were following Vera slightly behind but to her left. It was at an angle and gave her a good vantage point to occasionally shoot her eyes over, making like she were occasionally looking to her left or right, coming to a slow turn of her head watching Vera's unique way of making a simple walk eye candy.
The blonde even gave it a shot or two herself trying to mimic the sway and smooth rhythm of Vera's hips in her walk. Karlie never really knew women could walk so...so mesmerizing as such. It were difficult for her to not notice... and notice...and notice.

"Ooh!.." She nearly bumped into an officer rounding a corner, as her focus had been transfixed on the Vera.
"...I'm sorry... I..." But there was no need for apology as the officer himself quickly apologized for not anticipating her presence in the hallway...then quickly scurried off.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~​

"This is your suite?" Karlie's first impression were one of awe, as she had not seen such comfort in months. The remote research lab had just basic quarters and her beach bungalow was just humbly practical, nothing like the manor and estate her father had. Ok, it was also hers, but it were not earned she felt, as thus her beach bungalow was her own personal empyrean...her castle.
"Nice....all...all the white..." She turned to Vera, nodding.
"I mean, I like it...it's very clean..." Well what had she expected?... Actually she hadn't thought about it. But it fit Vera, she were thinking. Clean...wholesome...white, like the awesome business attire that Karlie was now used to seeing on her.
She then looked down on the white carpet she were standing on... at her prison issue loafers, hoping she didn't trek some prison grime along.

Needless to say, the loafers didn't remain occupied much longer. Karlie slipped out of them on her own, being drawn to Vera's open walk in closet.
"Oh my God... " the little yellow haired bee were drawn to honey...Vera's wardrobe and shoe collection. All...all in just off the designer's personal models that they use to size their designs around.
"...you mean like one of these?" She tore herself away from the rack just long enough to ask.

"Aaach!..." Karlie were surprised in finding Vera right behind her like that, almost stepping on the woman's foot. It had given her quite a jump...a good kind of jump.
"I didn't think you were right there....got so lost in your collection..." Lord she wouldn't mind maybe slipping in a hot bath awhile, then maybe ask Vera if she could try on some of her exotic perfumes. God she smelled... smelled so wholesome... delicious if she were to describe it in hush silence to herself.

Karlie stepped back a bit from Vera, her heart were racing again and she were afraid the woman would sense her peaking arousal. It were a strange sensation. Something which she rarely approached due to some earlier experiences which somehow evoked some earlier childhood conditioning...mostly from her witch, ugly-ass mother. If Karlie could dislike..no, HATE someone; it were her own mother.

She turned her attention away just in time from Vera, lest she lose herself and went back admiring the inanimate clothe line. It were safe to do that. Safe as in a means of diverting deep down sexual desires to materialistic things. It had been many years past since these emotions would surface a counter reaction. But Karlie had somehow already been conditioned, despite her connection to her mother being severed. There were some sleeper trigger mechanism which were difficult, if not at all impossible to pinpoint that occasionally surfaced at some heightened sense of arousal.

As much as her natural curiosity and desire to discover her sexuality, she were afraid of the ensuing consequences' the flashbacks of her mother instilling what were to be taboos.

"They are all....all very beautiful.." of course she weren't really meaning the wardrobes.

 

[Vera Mina]

Vera was only too "happy" to lead [member="Karlie Lynn Destat"] out of the area that had been set up. With a precise, well programmed feminine walk as she flawlessly navigated the halls of a ship that she had been created on, she guided the blond for whom she had developed something that would later be described to the horribly murderous fiend as a "crush".

She was strangely excited as she passed through the halls, the odd Morpheus knights that would occasionally pass by her giving looks of concern behind their gas mask helmets at her small smirk. They never liked it when she smiled. The detention cells gave way to the more gothic architecture of the ship, little mini bronze Atrisian Oni Demons brandishing miniature Kanebo loomed over the archways, the ancient lights sheathed in wroght iron sphere cages glowed a dim red light, held by statues of naked men and women in demon masks. Boxy cameras installed at key archways and junctions swiveled as they focused on Karlie, controlled by the primitive ship A.I.

Vera's new room, its furniture, walls, and lights in the same gothic style as the general ship architecture but in a stark, clinical white with a silvery floral pattern at the corners of the room. Thousands of credits had gone into decorating it. Vera did not use it often due to her travel requirements...and nocturnal habits.

Karlie complimented her on the room. "Thank you. This place can get so doom and gloom thanks to the architecture...having this little loft be a small bright spot is a major tension reliever. Its actually thousands of years old, but we don't know who built it..."

That was a lie. Anybody with even a cursory knowledge of biometric security could have taken a look at even this ancient, primitive, but effective system and realized it was geared to vampires. That didn't leave many guesses as to who built the powerful starship.

Karlie then looked at the dresses and shoes. All designer gear, all needing to be fitted with microwave shielding.

Karlie had her backed turned, admiring the dresses and Vera focused on her neck, feeling her metal fangs suddenly slide into place. She pushed the fangs back in. Not just due to her programming but because she for some reason did not want to.

Still though...

She rose, slowly walking towards Karlie, her X-Ray vision noting every detail about her skeleton, old fractures, aberrations. Karlie's chassis had held up well...for an organic meat sack.

No...not a meat sack...a sack of cuteness...perhaps. Vera did not know how to react to cuteness-sacks.

Maybe just...sniff the hair, at a distance. No need to be creepy about it. Karlie happened to turn around and got startled. Too late.

Vera maintained that composure as Karlie went back admiring a number of dresses that got more revealing as one went through them.

"Feel free to try them. I have many...I admit I have yet to try most of them..." she said. Her white dress was specifically designed to tank microwaves and the stuff to which she would be most vulnerable but the technology required was ultra sensitive and required time and patience to develop and customize for clothing, made doubly difficult by the need to conceal the technology from sheer visual detection. Nine had labored day and night modifying this dress alone. That was why Karlie often did not see her out of it.

While Karlie went through the dresses Vera took a seat on the couch, making sure Karlie could see how curvy she was even when sitting.

"Rom Jin showed me the research you did on the vessel. Very impressive. I mean, I'm no scientist, but I was able to follow some of the detective work. A programmable virus...the thought terrifies me...how do you handle the fear, being near something so deadly. I know how Rom Jin does it...she's a mercenary...but how do you? I'd be nervous being in a room of all that stuff." Vera lied, at this point in her life fearing nothing.

Vera suddenly had a problem. She was not used to small talk for such extended periods. She tried to think of something else but her files had nothing that could help her. Vera decided to try anyway.

"What do you like to do in your spare time?" She asked.

Meanwhile...


"Karlie Lynn Destat was taken into custody aboard my vessel..." Nine answered, sensing no deception in [member="Ian Sade"]. "She hasn't been harmed. Not by me anyway. She had a nasty three days at a CIS Blacksite. I was convinced she was innocent so I dispatched an...employee of mine to retrieve her..."

She at last signalled to Jerri and Meier to come out. Meier stopped blending into the environment, her masquer shifting back into a voluptuous woman with a skin tight black catsuit and black hair, with a pale skinned face and blue eyes. Jerri forward flipped out of the darkness. Nine rolled her eyes under her mask. She would never live down permitting dramatic back and forward flipping on the Morpheus.

That said...it DID look really really cool...

"This facility belonged to someone else. Someone with Karlie's DNA, or at least close to it. The computers biometric scanners must have degraded enough that they got Karlie confused for a relative. I will take you to her but she must remain in my custody until I can actually prove her innocence officially. If not, she'll be a fugitive wanted for high treason and murdering the son of [member="Darth Metus"] himself. You may keep your weapons. But know that any attempt to remove Karlie from my custody will jeopardize her chances in court. Even with what we've uncovered it could take us a while to truly secure an airtight defense, and as long as she personally cooperated with an Obsidian Knight that could go a long way to credibility in court." Nine argued. She hoped Ian saw reason. She was personally walking into a powder keg of CIS internal politics doing what she had done.

"Boss, I went over that busted tank we found in that underground chamber. Some one broke in and removed the body. Recordings captured it..." Jerri told her.

"Who was it?"

"They were wearing a hazmat suit. Came in with a team. Body was removed."

"What did the body look like?" Nine asked.

Jerri shivered visibly.

"You'll wanna barf when you see it..."

 

[Karlie Lynn Destat]

How long did it take for a girl to right up and snatch the first designer dress fit for a vixen off a rack?
For Karlie it seemed undecided. Only it weren't that. No, she had glanced back over to her host when she were about to pull the first one off the rack...but then the vixen sat herself rightly facing Karlie...crossing her legs like so....
Oh dear... she found herself once more struggling to control her every breath.

Two...three... maybe five outfits already that she were apparently going through, before they were slid aside. All the while, Karlie were making like she were just looking over to Vera after each one, to get the woman's take, her reaction, on the particular one she had in hand. Only that Karlie weren't so much sweating over the clothes anymore, but the very way Vera had taken to sit to the couch...
The woman's one arm stretching over the back of the sofa...the other, modestly keeping her dress from creeping up on her posture, teasingly revealing more of her legs...the slit on business attire was Ohhh so well designed. It was prompting Karlie to subconsciously bite her lower lip...something which she really never did before.
..seven...eight...whatever, she weren't really looking over the outfits anymore, just going through the motions, sliding one after another, looking over to Vera each time. It wasn't long before she realized Vera was talking to her.

"Huh?...w..."
Ron and Jane?... her mind took a moment to reboot before she realized it were Rom Jin whom Vera were talking about.
Virus?..
"Oh right...yea, the virus..." She nodded, not at all comprehending as to what Vera was talking about, but a good nod and a "Hmm..." certainly covered some ground.

Karlie couldn't really answer as she weren't in that scientific frame of mind at the moment. Yes, she had to be in a kind of focused state of mind to shoot off her thoughts on mundane research..uhm stuff. Ok, so she did get passionate about her research and stuff, but she could only be in one arousal state of mind at a time and right now...right now...
Well, right now she were standing there like a dum-ass in Vera's mind-blowing walk in closet, looking over at an almost amazing older woman who was mesmerizing her with the way she were slowly rotating her suspended ankle ever so hypnotic.

What did she want to do in her spare time?
Hello?..knock knock, KARLIE?!
"Oh, yea...." she remembered to draw in a breath of air, as it were essential to breathing...so she read somewhere.
This broke her trance and she-
She were out of outfits on this one rack to rummage through. She missed so many outfits that were in fact so her style, if not tailored to fit her as they did Vera.

"Uhmmm.... you know..." No, Vera didn't know. Come on Karlie, don't blow it...

"I like sunning." Yea, see, there you go. Come on, tell her about it...

"On Castagne, mostly.
I...I have this little bungalow right along the sea side...on the beach really..." She moved away from the whatever those things hanging in the closet were. Her interest were no longer on the designers and all those foot things. She were subconsciously drawn like a fly to a spider's web...or den in this case...to Vera sitting there semi sprawled out, inviting her on the couch. Well, she had one arm outstretched over the couch...Karlie catching her finger once, trice drumming impatiently on the sofa 's trim. Were it an invite, or was Vera like bored of her and was just abiding her time...being nice?
Well, maybe if she paid more attention and less ogling...

"It's so nice...the rhythm of the surf, the sea birds ...the wind and the smell of the ocean..." God, she could smell the salt in the breeze, closing her eyes a moment and actually being there, if only for a fleeting moment. By the time she opened her eyes, she were in front of Vera.
Karlie imagined herself under the Castan sun and with Vera there no less.

"Mind?" She then asked, not at all waiting for a reply before she were sitting next to Vera.

"I...don't...ahem...haven't really gone out much... you know, socializing.
Not that I haven't wanted too...just that i was wrapped up in studies...and other things. Training...the academy.
Officer training doesn't get you a whole lot of friends...just more competition.
Thinking back on it now, I outrank most all of those looser now...lol" Yea, well maybe best not talk about military mambo jumbo, as certainly Vera wasn't the type to really know anything about tactics and fighting..

"Yea...anyway, I once met this girl...strange girl really... " Karlie then looked over to Vera, realizing how it could be coming out.
"No no, not that way. I just found her different. You know, different like me in many ways. I think her name was like Sherry Winters...no...no, that was some holo-network actress.." She thought back a moment.
"Hmm... winters winters...ah, [member="Scherezade deWinter"] ...yea, that was her name." A kind of disappointment came over her features.

"Nope, try as I might, I just couldn't connect with her. She just didn't have any interest in even talking to me.
I was just looking to make a friend.
Sigh...well maybe if I didn't put a lump on her head..." Yea, maybe that, if the poor girl were to gauge Karlie as a potential friend.

"Listen.... I...I'm sorry if I may seem a little off.
Just got through a couple of rough days, like i have to tell you that..lol
Ahem... I don't know, I'm usually pretty....snobby...pft hahaha..." She burst out laughing. Oh yes she was...sometimes.

"No no...I'm not really. I just don't have any friends really. Not women friends. Got a lot of Colonels and drill Sargent that kinda look after me. I guess they're friends..they are tolerant of me at least when I get into some moods..." Somehow, aside from the attraction, it was easy to talk to Vera.

"But I haven't had a woman friend since... sigh...since my mom, really...
Winds up she weren't at all a friend, much less a mom...psychopath!" She looked over into Vera's eyes when she said that.
...that last word.

 

[Ian Sade]

'Her vessel?
Why yes, yes of course.' ...Sade were putting it all together. He hadn't at all figured it'd be none other than the queen of the Castle itself. But if she were here, then where was the Morpheus? His ship's sensors had not picked up any trace of ionization..nothing that would have indicated a massive vessel anywhere near this sector.

"You're Nine Lives, I presume." Yes, that were a 95% probability on his part, as thus it were more a statement than a question. One could never be 100% sure about anything, but he were sure enough.

Sade did his best not to even bat an eye to the sudden appearance of an acrobatic performance out of the fold, by whom he asserted to be a subordinate. The thought of whether or not it were done to impress him or warn him, made little sense. He had after all dropped his weapon.
'Hmm...female too...' Sade observed.
He had gone over many reports as to her main proteges...preferably all had been females. And the two whom had just uncloaked attested to those facts.
Besides, she fit the profile to be Nine. All which the ICI had gathered on the woman... the one factor which tipped the chart was that she was one tall drink of water. It were one of the main power points which had stuck to him. He hadn't yet decided on her physical appeal yet, for even a beautiful venomous snake could look appealing and beautiful...like that of a coral. But once you know it's nature, it's beauty is what instinctively repels you. Sade figure Nine were no different than the coral.

No, he weren't interested in her retinue escorts, it were she whom held the hand to this game now, for she supposedly held Karlie. he had no reason to doubt her, for Karlie's ship was out there and certainly not on the small transport by which these three...maybe a few more hidden in the shadows by which they had come down in.
These other two were easily avoidable distractions. Sade weren't one to be so easily distracted.
Ok, say for one good peripheral take on the acrobatics. That couldn't be avoided. Although Sade did wonder how long one would need to practice that routine, to be so sufficiently confidence as not to trip it up and land on their ass. 'Wouldn't that be something.' ...he thought.

His eyes scanning their immediate surrounding confirmed Nine's conclusion that she had most likely discovered as to whom it may have once belonged too.
Still the main fact was that she had custody of Karlie...on the Morpheus no less.

"Seems you have left me with little room to wiggle..." No, he couldn't dispatch of her two minions, let alone Nine herself of his best day. not one on one. But his life at the moment weren't forfeit and thus neither were these three. The Tecknor would no doubt make a sink hole of this place through ice and whatever rock composed of this moon.

It were then that one of her knights came forward, disclosing her find to both nine and him. Someone had somehow discovered the old station and had retried one of the experimental specimens. Sade could only guess at what it were, as he had been given knowledge of the witch and her plight to retain her immortality. That could explain Melida/Dan...an old weapon thought long disposed of, had been found and deployed. The only thing was...it had once been a Castan developed weapon...long before they took to joining the CIS. Seemed their skeleton had been let out of their closet so to speak.

Sade, along with the Castan Cabinet Head Tarssin Destat knew of the implications, especially since it had indirectly caused the death of [member="Darth Metus"] son, Riggs.
through the years following the demise of what they had come to learn was Darth Rigor, Castagne had made every effort in hunting down all of the witch's minions and destroying all of her diabolical research in an effort to remain immortal. Her last attempt and ultimate downfall had been when Tarssin discovered her plan of taking his daughter for the sole purpose of possessing her body. He had been blinded by his passion for her, not realizing who and waht his beloved was until it were almost too late. But his love for Karlie broke that spell and thus, he went to break her.
As far as Sade knew, Tarssin had Succeeded...Darth Rigor had been destroyed. All which remained were her ghost and THAT too had been taken care of by her own daughter no less. So who had taken the specimen from this lab?

"I'll take your invite." he nodded, looking down over to his discarded sidearm.
With a precise tap of his boot on the weapon, it snapped up in the air just high enough for him to catch it...and then holster it in what appeared to be a seamless move. Ok, so he had a few practice moves of his own which he placed down on the game table.

"Seems we've got a lot of notes to compare." he nodded to Nine.

"Only...allow me a few requests...
One being for me to stay the air strike for now, and two...if you indeed are hosting Karlie...then you take me, and only me back to the Morpheus..." he eyed the other two knights.

" We'll go in Karlie's ship to the Castle." Obviously he meant just him and Nine. He knew Nine's knights weren't going to like it, being separated from their master. But then again, so were he from his men and SD. It were an even standoff if it were anything at all for them to weigh...50/50.
Her other two knights or whatever they were could take the ship they had landed with.

Sade then gesture a moment as he activated his comm. "TO3 Delta 8T abort, and have Tecknor stand by to flash this site on protocol six..." he cut the comm.

"There's nothing here which we don't already posses in one form or another. This site needs be eradicated like the many we found before it. I don't need to tell you what you already have deducted, as to the origin and once benefactors of this facility.
Only thing I can assure you, is that Miss Destat had no previous knowledge of its existence till she came upon it." His word was his life, and Nine would have it in her grasp, for it would be just them two in Karlie's LCX.

But whatever the outcome, this site had to be destroyed. Even if it meant disposing of actual evidence that would alleviate Karlie's guilt, this site HAD to be destroyed.
And of Karlie's cooperation by which Nine spoke of which could clear her in the courts?..the CIS Supreme Courts?
Well, Nine had already answered that aspect to Sade, when she made reference to Darth Metus's Blacksite that she had Karlie rescued from.
Sade had as much faith in the CIS as the young female Destat had.
He, like Karlie and most on Castagne had a bad taste of what sith were really are. And the CIS were found teeming with them...all the way to the top...

"Should others come upon this site...." He left it at that.
What was here was hot as refined plutonium, and could not be allowed to fall into anymore hands.