Galactic High

“So Sparrel didn’t have anything for you?” Nika asked, as the Clan Bharzum smiths were kept busy making some adjustments on their new armour.

“Nah.” Jack shook his head, and was gently flicked on the cheek by the old Hoduth for moving. “He said his friend got the message but left him on read. He assumes she’s busy at the moment.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Alora told them. “With everything going on I’d expect Sable Krynn to be involved in at least a few investigations.”

“Tracking the Klowns I reckon,” Sephy pointed out, as the two Hoduth carefully measured the gaps in the Skritta’s armour to be able to use her wings. “A lot of factions are bankrolling that shit hard, for damn good reason.”

There has also been a surge in murders recently, Chiyo added. She may be after them also. The Neural Reaper has been active again with at least 6 believed new victims, and the Crossroads Cudgel recently murdered a family of 5.

“Not just them,” Nika added. “Chillwalker is back too and getting bolder. Apparently he killed some Nyteskai workers and made a display on a roof close to their territory with a mocking message.”

“Huh, I’d seen some other whispers on the DataNet, but I didn’t really put any stock in them.” Sephy shrugged. “A few people are saying some others might have come back. The Rainstorm Razor’s come up a few times, The Shatterman, hell even The Bonestalker could be kicking around again!”

“By the gods!” Alora sighed. “Can we not jinx this weekend before it even starts by talking about damn serial killers?”

“It could be worse!” Jack grinned, having made a mental note to talk to Vanya about these names. “At least that dastardly Pooping Bandit hasn’t shown up! Nor that villainous Whipping Tom!”

The room laughed before one of the armourers spoke up. “Actually, my niece’s friend told her she knew someone that says they got spanked by Whipping Tom just a few days ago!”

“Oh damn!” Jack sobered up. “Sorry about that.”

“I wouldn’t worry.” The old Hoduth working on him shrugged. “Clearly it could be worse. The City’s always had problems but somehow we scrape by even if we don’t deserve to.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Jack retorted. “Just because society’s broken down doesn’t mean you people deserve any of this crap.”

“Sounds like Astara’s lot to me.” The Hoduth shrugged as she moved up to Jack’s shoulders, tightening the tough plates around his joints. “I hope you’re right. How’s this feeling?”

“I feel the weight, but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be,” Jack told her.

“Good!” The old Hoduth grinned. “Heavy Armor is a little bit of a misnomer, since we want our people to actually be able to move without much drag. Obviously many can’t handle that, but you and your Kizun friend should be fine.”

“Yeah, it’s kinda strange, but I can get used to it, especially when I have my exoskeleton too,” Nika called over. “Definitely weird on the tail though.”

“It’s hard to allow you your full range of movement with plates,” the male Hoduth working on Nika told the Kizun apologetically, “but some nanoweave we’re using for light armour should help somewhat.”

“I’ll take it.” Nika shrugged with a grin. “How’s the rest of me?”

“So far so good, though we’ll run a few tests to check your range of movement.” Nika’s armourer smiled.

“We’re done here!” The two women working on Chiyo informed them. “Fleki, Tolum. What about you?”

“Just doing the finishing touches on the neck,” One of the two armourers working on Alora told them, as they worked on the padding around the Eladrie’s neck. “Aaaaand done! Join your friend over there and let’s see how it works for you!”

“Excellent!” Alora beamed as she walked over to Chiyo. “How do I look?”

Jack now had a very good view of the both of them and had to admit that, though he was expecting magical robes or something similar, the light armour they wore looked far more practical, with something that looked like kevlar plates around the vital areas, with treated leather or cloth around the joints to allow for unimpeded movement, and as the two moved around and checked their range of motion, Jack could see that the armour didn’t seem to weigh them down.

This is very good work! Chiyo complimented the armourers as she floated around without a problem. It adds barely any weight at all!

“Though that comes at a cost,” the old armourer working on Jack called over while she absently checked his elbows, effortlessly checking them by feel before bringing out a wrench and tightening a few bolts. “It’s thin enough to let you wear whatever you want on top, but also thin enough that sufficient fire will penetrate through. So don’t get shot!”

“Sage advice!” Alora smiled as she began moving around a bit more while her armourers looked on, confirming the fit.

“They’re both fine,” the old armourer working on Jack told the others irritably. “Get your asses over here and help me work on the others.”

“Will do, Kessen!” one of the armourers nodded as they headed over.

“Just need a little help on the wing hoops for this one!” Another woman called, who was working on Sephy. “Then we should be done here as well, and then we can work on the heavys.”

Soon enough, after a lot of tweaking, they finally fitted Sephy’s medium armour, the wing hoops allowing the Skritta full use of her wings while offering the most amount of protection. Though Sephy’s armour had many of the same aspects as Alora’s and Chiyo’s, there were many more plates, bound together with a metallic weave that offered more protection around the joint. Though Sephy needed a lot of adjusting to ensure that the set was firm and afforded her all the range of movement and protection she needed, they were able to work it out.

“Almost done,” the old Hoduth, Kessen, told him reassuringly. “Though I’m pretty sure we could work on something even bigger for you given your physiology. Deeps, I reckon you could even rival a few megafauna with the right kit if my grandson, Ivar, is to be believed…”

“You’re his grandma?” Jack asked, and Kessen confirmed it with a grin and a nod.

“Yup! Glad to meet one of the new blood kin! But I’m being serious, I could probably turn you into a walking tank by combining some mech stuff into a good power armour frame since you’d be strong enough to move around with it.”

“I’ll think about it, but I like to be able to move around too,” Jack politely declined.

“Hah, that’s alright, you’ve just given me a few ideas is all!” Kessen told him. “And with that, we’re done. Take a walk around!”

Jack did so, feeling the slight drag on the armour but surprised at how well he was able to move around. He looked at his arms and saw the interlocking dark metal plates glare back at him with a slick lustre as he formed a fist. His hands were free, though he knew he could use his bracers to protect his extremities, while the others had something similar. Helmets were a possibility for the future, though additional shielding built into the neck components was considered an adequate substitute by Nika, who wanted to keep their armour as covert as possible.

“How do I look?” Jack asked with a grin as he moved around. Now he was able to look down, he could see that the interlocked armour plates were quite uniform all the way to his toes.

“You’ve got plates on your asscheeks.” Sephy noted. “How do we even take these off when we need to?” She asked Kessen.

“There’s a series of clip-points that start at the neck and work their way down which should be obvious if you know what you’re looking for,” the armourer told her with a shrug. “I’d suggest you get some practice with it when you can.”

“And in the meantime we’re wearing these until we get back to the house,” Nika warned. “So make sure you’re comfortable!”

“Hang on, let me run a test…” Kessen called to Jack, who quickly turned around, and was suddenly shocked as Kessen’s hand slapped the crotch plate with full force, causing the area to tingle slightly. “Excellent! Looks like the alignment’s fine…”

“Jesus Christ!” Jack cursed as he shuffled back. “Warn me when you do that! Or even better - don’t do that!”

“Didn’t want you to brace for it!” Kessen shrugged. “Any questions?”.

“What if need to scratch an itch?” Sephy asked.

“I would ask Chiyo nicely if she can help.” Alora chuckled.

“And are you all good too?” Kessen bent down and asked Dante, the ‘dog’ having some fitted kevlar plates comfortably attached to his torso.

“Woof!” The ‘dog’ barked enthusiastically.

The Head Armourer smiled warmly. “I’ll take that as a yes!”

*****

Now back into the bustling streets of the city, the group walked briskly, taking advantage of the light of the early evening while they could. Though they would soon need to pack up and get to safety for the night, the sounds of children playing in the nearby park they were detouring through filled the air. They were happy and full of joy, despite the fresh craters in the ground caused by the ongoing corporate war.

Though the group were now clad in their armour for the foreseeable future, they didn’t attract too much attention, as all of them aside from Dante were wearing their running clothes and other gear over them. Jack had gone back to his ‘Edgelord All-Black Tacticool’ for the Run, reasoning that they provided more tactical value if they had to sneak around, and that the nice clothes Vanya and Hessia had gotten him were far too good to wear for a mission anyway.

None of the girls could find a good argument for that, and they weren’t much better, wearing their own sets of dark tactical robes, hoodies or jackets, but fortunately they blended in with the crowd of people too busy with their evening to be bothered about others.

Jack was glad for the hour and a half walk to the Corvin Enterprises shuttleport they had chosen, for they were all still adjusting to the weight and feel of their newly fitted armour, and more than once one of them stumbled slightly when they weren’t consciously thinking about walking. It would be better if they got used to it now while they weren’t at much risk of danger, so they stuck with it. Nobody really said much as they travelled, other than the confirmation of directions, anticipating the mission to come.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Alora broke the long silence as she pointed to the playing children on the grass, running around and playing tag. “So carefree despite everything. I envy them for it.”

“Did you not get the chance?” Jack asked curiously.

“No.” Alora sadly shook her head. “Sadly, my early life was strictly controlled, mostly full of tutors teaching me etiquette and decorum, and I had few playmates, mainly the brats of those corrupt cretins who had dominion over me.”

“It sucks you had to grow up so quickly,” Nika told her sympathetically, doing a few jumps and stances as she walked, “but it made you into the person you are today, and I don’t think that’s so bad. These kids will all have to grow up sometime too.”

“About half an hour to go,” Sephy informed them, with the Skritta keeping an eye on the map while occasionally fluttering up with her wings, getting used to the movement in armour. “We’re making pretty good time, I thought the fitting would take longer.”

Say what you want about Clan Bharzum, but they have their expertise. Chiyo smiled as she bobbed up and down, also getting used to the armour. They had the measurements and a few weeks to do it, anyone else would have just called it a day after that without bothering to make it perfect.

“Yep,” Jack agreed. “I’ve gotta admit, having the armour does make me feel a bit better, but I really hope we don’t need it just yet…”

The park quickly gave way to some stable-looking residential districts, and they soon passed a neon-green CorvMart that looked like it had suffered some damage from the ongoing conflicts, but was still clearly open as the group saw desperate shoppers exiting with bags of food. When they soon passed another CorvMart several blocks later, they knew they were getting close, spotting a shuttle with the logo of Corvin Enterprises floating at low altitude to land somewhere nearby in the distance.

“Nearly there,” Alora told them with a sigh. “Heads in the game everyone!”

“Woof!” Dante agreed with a determined bark.

*****

“Halt!” One of the black-and-purple-uniformed guards called out to them on their approach, raising their guns. “State your business!”

“This is our business,” Alora retorted professionally as she stepped forward, flashing the express ticket the group had acquired from ‘Mr Johnson’.

“Let me verify that,” the neon-green-cloaked leader called out to his troops, holstering his rifle as he walked forward, examining the ticket thoroughly, occasionally looking at the members of the group with disbelieving eyes before pulling out a scanner.

“What the hell is up with this delay?” Jack asked with some pretend irritation, feeling the need to move things along with the random guards by unleashing his ‘Inner Karen’. “Clearly we have more important places to be than here.”

“My apologies sir, this is merely standard procedure,” the leader immediately replied, now sounding much more polite. “You’re confirmed. I’ll just need to alert the District Manager who will arrange your transportation. Please stand by.”

The group waited where they stood for several minutes while the guards urgently chatted among themselves, before the gates opened to reveal a black-furred horselike humanoid who stood slightly taller than Jack and had the look of a wizard, who peered at them with a set of six green eyes.

“Greetings!” The male began without any preamble, beckoning them to follow as he turned back around. “You have my apologies for the wait, protocol is very much in force when we’ve got Myrodin and Shaskasaki on the run!”

“That’s understandable,” Alora acknowledged. “However, we are on an urgent timetable.”

“I understand.” The mage lazily nodded. “You have a look of mercenaries about you despite your age, which means I don’t know who you’re working for, so I’ll assume the worst and say someone who outranks me. What do you need?”

“We all require expedited travel to Cypherport,” Alora told them bluntly, not wanting to waste any time with niceties. “Covertly.”

“We have a shuttle due to head out in twenty minutes, but I’ll mark it as urgent.” The horselike manager nodded, suddenly all-business. “The pilots will be aware and you can stay in the cargo hold. Anything missing can go into the next shipment, it’s almost packed anyway. Follow me.”

They all followed the manager in silence towards the parked shuttles in the distance as he pulled out a dataslate and began typing away, presumably to accommodate for the sudden change in schedule.

Looking around, Jack noted many similarities to the Shaskasaki distribution centre that they had robbed a few weeks ago, with the flat central warehouse building, crates of product waiting to be unpacked and redistributed, and the workers constantly milling about on some kind of schedule.

However, there were clear differences too.

He remembered the screeching Fotonato running her workers ragged in a desperate attempt to improve productivity, but here he didn’t get any sense that the workers were under much duress. This district manager at least seemed to be the more laissez-faire type, and it likely helped that Corvin Enterprises could allow itself to be confident in its dominant position, so as to not need to push their workers too hard.

Another difference was that there weren’t any trucks or ground vehicles of any kind. While the Shaskasaki distribution centre was attached to a surviving road network that connected to a motorway, this place had no such connections, instead relying purely on VTOL shuttles and the like, though the shuttles appeared considerably larger than trucks, which supported what they knew about Corvin distributions visiting multiple places in a single trip.

The security Jack could see was immense, and by the way Sephy was peeking around in the local Matrix, he assumed there was immense security he couldn’t see as well. Though the guards at the entrance felt like the bare minimum, there were many more within the complex, almost like a trap set with bait for their enemies. The guards that he could see on standby looked disciplined and professional, and if their weapons and armour were as good as they looked, they were likely formidable as well.

Along the walls and building looked to be artillery guns of some kind, or perhaps anti-air? Jack couldn’t really tell, but whatever it was, he was very confident it was the real deal.

“This is it, just waiting on the staff,” the manager told them with a quick nod as they approached one of the shuttles, a particularly chunky purple model with the neon-green of Corvin Enterprises. “Better wait for them first to give them the situation, they’re on their way.”

“Very well.” Alora nodded, and sure enough three individuals quickly speedwalked out of the main building towards them.

“What’s going on, Sostos?” one of the workers asked as the manager waved them over.

“Guys, I know you’re on break, but something’s come up,” the manager, Sostos replied, raising his hands in a placating manner. “We need to bring the delivery timetable forward to now. I’ll allow you to make up your breaks after the circuit and then some, and you can get an extra hour of overtime pay on top for a special request: no questions asked.”

That immediately halted any whispers of protest the workers were about to consider as the three of them paused to listen to the details.

“Extra passengers?” the oldest one of the bunch asked nonchalantly, clearly a veteran who had done this kind of thing before.

“They’ll be in your cargo hold, departing at Cypherport,” Sostos told them. “Tell them when to get off, but otherwise don’t bother them and treat them with the same respect you would me!”

“Understood.” The older one nodded. “I’ll show you where you can settle. Zhan, prep the shuttle, Rook, go get our snacks and haul ass back.”

“Got it!” The younger one perked up as he rushed off.

“Follow me.” The older man sighed, waving them up the open ramp. Surprisingly, despite the stout crates, boxes, and pallets stacked high to the ceiling all around, there was plenty of room to move around in single file, with several colour coded square sections measured in lines along the floor, which Jack assumed were for different stops. One of the sections was free, which the older man nonchalantly flicked his hand towards with a quick shrug.

“Make yourself comfortable I guess. It’s about six hours.” He sighed. “There’s some cushions and stuff around if you need them.”

“We’ll be fine, thank you.” Alora smiled with a nod.

As the shuttle ramp closed behind them, the space dimly lit up automatically with a few fluorescent lights along the ceiling casting harsh shadows along the metal walls. As they all heard Zhan flick a few switches in the distance ahead, the additional sound of machinery began to hum gently all around them.

“Should quieten down once we’re in transit,” the pilot called back.

“And we’ve got a privacy screen too,“ the older man added. “If we leave you alone and you leave us alone this’ll go a lot smoother. We have about four stops before we get to Cypherport, but we’ll do this as quickly as we possibly can.”

“Appreciate it.” Alora nodded, as they heard the sound of the team rookie running up to the shuttle as the sounds of engines grew louder.

“Don’t spill the drinks!” The older man called out and chastised the young man as they climbed aboard via the cockpit.

“Sorry Captain!” The rookie called back, and Jack saw him shift about, holding what looked suspiciously like a six pack of beer…

“Alright, well we’ll be off soon. We’ll leave you be, knock on our door if you guys need anything.” The older man nodded as he headed to the front of the shop.

“Sephy?” Alora asked.

“Already done.” The Skritta chuckled. “Tapped into their systems and comms and I can hear everything they’re saying, including the lewd remarks they’re making about you!”

“I did not need to know that.” The Eladrie sighed as they all settled in their bay.

“Well, not the best accommodations, but at least we can use these cargo points to hook up the hammocks.” Nika shrugged.

It would be best to get as much rest as we can, Chiyo agreed. We’re making very good time so far, I hope we can keep it up.

“Find the skipper we need and hope they can haul ass in the middle of the night.” Jack chuckled. “Though they should be expecting us to show up at some point, right?”

“According to the information the client gave us, yes.” Nika nodded. “Though they don’t know when and we weren’t exactly given a number to call.”

“So we resort to the old fashioned way.” Jack nodded. “Head straight to the docks and start checking the ships for our guy?”

“Makes sense.” Sephy shrugged as she quickly hooked up her hammock successfully. “We don’t want to hang around in some boring-ass frontier town.”

“Yeah, we’d rather hang out on a boring-ass boat instead.” Jack shrugged, unfurling his own hammock, before having an idea. “Actually, I wonder if I could summon a fishing rod?”

Would that really make things less boring? Chiyo asked rhetorically. Also I’m sharing your hammock, I want to get the rest I can.

“If you want.” Jack chuckled, as Chiyo helped him set it up, quickly floating into the canvas and beckoning the human to join her.

“Sephy, what are you doing?” Alora suddenly interrupted, calling out in a panicked, hushed whisper to not bother the crew.

“What?” The Skritta shrugged, as she began rummaging through the crate of sweets behind her. “It’s practically free food!”

Alora looked mortified “That doesn’t mean you should-”

Yes please, Sephy! Chiyo exclaimed, raising her hands for the Skritta to throw a few bags her way.

“Any packets of crisps?” Jack asked with a grin, as Alora gave him an annoyed look.

“See if you can find some of the premium stuff!” Nika grinned, deciding to just roll with it. “Fill your pockets and we’ll munch them on the boat!”

“Just make sure it isn’t obvious.” Alora sighed as she eventually managed to get on the hammock with Nika, who held on for dear life. “The last thing we want is Corvin Enterprises coming for our heads!”

“Sure!” Sephy agreed as she kept rummaging. “Looks like you’re joining me Dante! Even better, you’re nice and warm!”

“Woof! The ‘dog’ agreed, as they tried to get up onto the hammock.

“By the gods you’re heavy!” Sephy grinned as she wrapped her arms around him and hoisted him up with all of her strength, settling him down before she, and many packets of sweets eventually joined him.

Jack chuckled to himself and settled down as the rumbling of the shuttle intensified, before he felt it gently rise up above the busy city and start to drift forward.

Satisfied, he closed his eyes and tried to relax, though it was still a bit too early for him to sleep. Still, he was happy to cuddle up to the warm body of Chiyo, through their armour, and take the chance to rest.

They would need it.