[Zasz Fenris]
- Unexpected Reunion -
Zasz Fenris found himself in a tight bind.
Though his eyes were open, darkness enveloped him, and while he could not see his surroundings, the slaver did understand that he was currently in motion. Not of his own volition, as his limbs were about as useful as his helmets optics; his suit had been locked up. Through force of will, he pushed down the urge to retch as it would only exacerbate this terrible situation to cover his face and neck in bile. Nausea accompanied by a consistent, dull throbbing at the back of his skull were the tell-tale signs of a concussion, that and the fact that he had been straining to remember how he'd come to his current predicament, and who exactly his companions dragging his paralyzed shell were. Minutes passed by silently, without the speakers in his helmet, he couldn't make out the faint mutterings of the individuals, only the scraping of his metal legs across the floor rung out clearly.
Right, they'd caught him mid-jump. Zasz had just met with a prospective client in a region that was rather heavily policed due to political unrest in the sector. He was no amateur, though, the course back to his main vessel had been painstakingly charted as perhaps the most obtuse journey possible, many of the hops being through void zones where no one lived or trafficked.
Still, someone had managed to ambush him all the same. Their opening salvo had torn his transport skiff apart without outright killing him, and likely the sudden impact caused him to lose consciousness. Maybe the meeting itself had been a set-up, strange considering how vetted the client seemed to be.
Federation Police? A private mercenary force looking to claim his bounty? A militant squadron from some planet he'd wronged?
Mentally musing at the list of usual suspects, his thoughts were interrupted by the abrupt halt to his movements and then the whir of a laser cutter. Precise incisions allowed the handler to remove his helm and toss it aside, allowing Zasz the gift of sight once more, which he immediately stare right up at the one who still held the power tool in his grip with a vile grimace. Most would have winced and strained to see their captors at this moment due to their eyes being unadjusted to the unexpected flash of light, but Zasz long since had his sight cybernetically enhanced.
"Fuck"
Groaning out the curse, he strained to twist his vision at the others surrounding him. They were all clad in full-body cybersuits jet black aesthetics with silver accents. Even at a glance, Zasz could tell these were high-end models, military-grade, not unlike his own. On their right shoulders was an embellished insignia that might have been insignificant to an unknowable eye, but he was intimately associated with this particular group.
These assholes were Taldarian special operatives, his homeworld had managed to track him down.
"The infamous Zasz Fenris in the flesh, or mostly anyway. I'm sure you've still got a bit of meat somewhere under that suit." The digitized voice came from the figure in front of him, whom he assumed at this point to be the one in charge of the operation.
Zasz opened his mouth to utter a snide rebuttal, but before he could even begin, his words turned into a guttural howl as voltage coursed through him; his body could only bruise itself against the metal confines of his suit as he convulsed from the forced stimulation
"Yeah..." The officer began, motioning to one of the soldiers next to him, who he now noticed had a tablet with a cord jacked into his armor. "It took us a bit to break through your jerry-rigged encryption, but we've got you quite restrained now. I'd prefer you not to speak unless it's to answer a question."
Zasz guessed their first inquiry before it left the vocal speakers in their helmet. "Where are you keeping..."
"The princess." Zasz cut them off, though this time he was not subjected to an electric muscle massage.
The only reason the squad hadn't spaced him with their surprise attack, he possessed rather key information regarding a missing member of Taldarian royalty.
"Quite right, it'd be in everyone's best interest for you to divulge her location. Her people, your people, miss her terribly."
Zasz weakly chuckled even though it pained him to do so before his response. "You've not offered an incentive for me to do so, but I assume that is because my information would not absolve me of my crime. You're going to torture me and drag me back to the empire in chains regardless." Zasz would shrug indifferently if possible, but sadly the motion was impossible. "Do your worst, I'd prefer to be brought home with you having failed to break me. One of the few insults I can give you in this circumstance" He grinned up at the commander and grit his teeth as he was once more shocked, this time until his vision faded and he passed into unconsciousness.
"Put him in the cage, we've got a long trip back to Voskova"
-----------
When Zasz regained consciousness he had indeed been retrained in a cage of a sort. This metal box restrained the slaver by holding him aloft with restrictive cabling from the solid walls. Of course, their true purpose was to constantly keep his suit powered down; a fact which his current guard seemed to be currently checking out. Zasz didn't feel any worse for wear than he had been earlier, so he couldn't have blacked out for more than a half-hour. Through the sole transparent wall of the microprison, each inspected the other, however, only one would be alive a second further.
A quiet clunk, as if the tumbler for a lock had fallen into place, then crimson and brain matter spattered the shell of his cage. A hole had silently been blown into his jailer skull, helmet and all. Before his guard dropped to the floor like a rag doll, Zasz peered through the perforated head, smoke poured from the barrel of a gun, or at least he assumed it to be one. His savior had a personal cloaking device of sorts, a decent model too as it prevented Zasz from making out any details other than a general size and shape. "How did these idiots managed to catch you?" A distorted voice echoed from the figure, though somewhat feminine as their light refraction program shut down to render them fully visible to Zasz. "This is dangerous territory, highly monitored. I thought you'd be smarter than to take a contract out here." A pause, likely accompanied by a sigh, not that the microphone picked it up. This person, Zasz examined, wore a full-body encloser of a similar model to his own, though, clearly modified for use in subterfuge and built for a feminine frame.
Zasz, however, did audibly sigh, "The whole endeavor was a setup, which I realize now after the fact, it didn't matter which route I took. Why are you here though, Andy?" His cracked lips curled into an awkward sort of smile that only the slaver could wear, his response immediately garnered a kick to his cage as if to silence what he thought was a decent show of compassion for his twin sister, Andrea Fenris.
"One of my connections picked up a black ops mission to pick up a high priority target. I did a bit of digging and found the squad being sent after you. Sneaking this suit aboard the vessel was easy enough, they weren't expecting betrayal from within the empire." Quickly she went over to the control panel to the prison and jacked into it, beginning the laborious process of cracking through the credentials to free her brother. "Remote connecting to this suit from Voskova was the hard part, but you would know that wouldn't you? You're quite experienced in long-distance control of these suits." Zasz couldn't see her raised brow from back home, but he certainly knew it was there along with her condescending tone no matter how modulated it was.
"The safest place to keep my insurance against the Voskovan government is right under their noses. I have a high ranking contact who shares similar views to my own and whom I paid a sizable credit bounty to build a backdoor connection through their planetary firewall." As he finished explaining, the locks holding him rigid disengaged, the dampeners cutting power to his suit ceased their humming as well. Little by little his enclosure began to recharge its batteries and he regained the control of his motor functions. As soon as his ocular implant received enough of a charge his standard HUD scrolled across his vision and Zasz began to assess the damage done and what systems to prioritize coming back online.
"The brass ones you have to pull that off." Another pause, another silent sigh, "They will never stop hunting you as long as you continue to hide her, but you know that right? I suppose that's you just sticking it to the government, though. I don't have to sense your thoughts to understand that much." Andrea went over to the door of the cage and released the latch to free Zasz from within.
Slowly, Zasz pushed himself to his feet, not without some struggle, however. Thankfully, his sister was soon there to stabilize his movements, wrapping an arm around him and holding him against her side as they made their way out of the room. "It was the best way for me to right how I've been wronged." He winced as she flicked a hard metallic digit into the size of his bald head.
"Idiot" She dragged out the word spitefully. "What you've done is worse than your initial crimes they charged you with. They'll never forgive this, so you'll never release her. It's a self-propagating cycle." The two continued their mindful gait, passing from one hallway into another. Zasz assumed their destination to be, well, not this; he thought, staring at the airlock they were now stopped in front of. "You're a lucky SOB, brother," Andrea muttered while jacking into the controls.
"Because all of the soldiers are already in cryo?" He knew this wasn't what she meant, as it was merely a prerequisite for his rescue in the first place.
"Obviously that is not what I'm talking about. You're a martyr back home for the radical technophiles. They've grown into a full-blown political party, and are recruiting more to their side by the day. Some are theorizing that there will be a global ideological shift within the deca..." She caught herself from rambling further, as well as taking note that she had sliced into the door commands. Zasz, on the other hand, was turned away from her, reaching a hand behind his back to remove what had been a small circular disc that as previously concealed. Analyzing it through her own HUD she gasped, audibly this time. "There's enough detonation wire in there to blow a hole right through the hull." As if a natural response on his part he moved to slap the hand sided explosive to the wall next to the airlock door.
"Insurance in case I ever found myself in an impossible scenario and wanted to take a few bastards down with me or to avoid an unnecessarily painful death."
Shaking her featureless masked head, Andrea removed a small black circle from one of her waist compartments and placed it against Zasz's forehead. "You're bad for my heart, brother," she replied as a translucent bubble formed an airtight seal to provide a temporary replacement for his discarded helmet. With him secured against the vacuum of space, she opened the first stage of the airlock and pulled him along to enter the compartment. As the door hissed closed behind him, she posed the final question, "Are you ready?" He merely nodded, grinning at what she knew would be immense satisfaction killing his prior captors. The duo embraced each other tightly as not to be separated, and Andrea tapped a command on her writ console.
With the outer airlock door open, the two were unceremoniously spit into the bleak darkness of the void. Before the vessel could make it too far from Zasz, he made sure to detonate his explosive device, which in turn blasted away the entirety hull surrounding the airlock. In the blink of an eye, with the vessel tore itself apart from the sudden depressurization.
Andrea, linked to her brother emphatically, couldn't help but share in his giddiness over murdering those soldiers.
A sickeningly wide flash of his teeth and laugher which couldn't be heard past his mask.
Behind her monitor back on Voskova, she too was cackling and clutching her lengthy violet locks between slender fingers.
As they drifted through space laughing, each pressed their faceplates to the other in a rare show of affection.
-----------
Zasz would eventually be picked up by Rocket, to whom he sent an encoded message to after his escape. His sister had long since disconnected from her suit, which left Zasz with the awkward task of lugging it onboard his mechanic's ship while he waited for the heat on him to die down to return to the Greenhouse.
Just another day in the life of Zasz Fenris
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