No one notices ratty boys
except old people.
And to them we all look
alike.
Gorean Dropship - Arcanis System - Former Polian Alliance
~~*~~
"This has to be the stupidest thing I have ever done," Katz remarked, standing back beside the main hatch of the Gorean dropship as it touched down on the derelict sentry station with a heavy thump.
"Relax China," Rikard smiled reassuringly. "It isn't as if death is a permanent affair, you die here, so what, place a call to Resserect-4-less, and you'll be back in no time."
Katz stared at him blankly, "you have to be kidding, right? I mean you started the whole bringing back from the dead thing…"
"Polians," Rikard waved a hand dismissively. "And I didn't so much as resurrect your Commander Theruan as I did build a whole new one… a glorified marionette, nothing more…" he stopped cold, as pale look flushing across his face, as his eyes snapped up to the dizzying star field stretching out above them.
"What?" Katz demanded.
"It…" Rikard shivered, staring at Katz uneasily. "Z'ræl appears to know I am here, he is trying to distract me…"
R-Zero - Arcanis System -Former Polian Alliance
~~*~~
Ben's head snapped up, staring directly out of the cockpit window. "Rikard's here," he said woodenly.
VonGrippen was sitting in the pilot's chair while Vichet and Nick laboured to restore power to the crippled Raptor, turning to his friend. "Enarbrem Sul'Rikard?"
"The one and only," Ben answered, lifting his finger and pointing towards a large derelict station a few hundred kilometres from their position, between them and the Gorean Destroyer. "He's there."
"I would ask how you know that," VonGrippen said, as he shook his head. "But I've learned over the years that you just know. And I shouldn't question too closely, the answer is always…"
"Far too complicated," Ben answered. "I think he's sensed me as well…"
"Now that," VonGrippen stated turning his head a fraction, "begs the question how?"
"He's a semi-transcendent," Ben shifted mildly uncomfortably. "Like Sephradon… just more powerful."
"He is a GN-1," VonGrippen said flatly. "I thought the GN-2s were supposed to be stronger than the first generation…"
"He is a master geneticist," Ben answered, "and he has had access to GN-3 genetic coding… plus three-hundred years of unopposed rule over the Hegemony, Polian allies and almost unlimited resources."
"Meaning," VonGrippen said sombrely, "that he has had more than enough time and access to means to change the rules of the GN game… Is he more powerful than you are?"
"I am more powerful," Ben sat staring out of the window. "of that there is no question… But a conflict with Rikard, here, now… would take a lot of my remaining power… and I need it for the final act."
"I would ask you to define your limitations to me," VonGrippen stated, "and I might be able to strategize…"
"You will learn soon enough," Ben answered. "Besides, we still have the Kule weapon."
"Keeping me in the dark limits my capacity to help you," VonGrippen warned.
"This is not your fight," Ben stated, "Taïr and Earth… the Empire needs a Black Prince. Without you, then anything I do with Rikard will be pointless, anything Darien Taine does with Peligia will be lost."
"Trust," VonGrippen leaned back into his seat. "I trust the men under my command completely, I trust in my own skill and experience, and I have always trusted you."
"I love you too," Ben said with a small grin. "In a testosterone, chest thumping kind of way that is secretly homo-erotic by its very nature. Lance was always very jealous of you, you know? He had a hard time getting me to do the dishes, you stop by and say 'let's go off and fight an impossible battle with almost zero-percent chance of survival,' and I would do it in a heart beat."
"I'm more fun that dishes," VonGrippen said, arching an eyebrow. "Good to know. What do we do now?"
"We need to get to that station," Ben nodded.
VonGrippen flipped controls, activating the Zero's thrusters. "Raptor's are keenly efficient at this type of manoeuvre." He stated, activating the grappling claws that the Raptor used for boarding actions. Picking up the 1MC mic, depressing the button. "Attention, all hands, lock and load, we're boarding a Polian station…"
Derelict Sentry Station - Arcanis System - Former Polian Alliance
~~*~~
It was surreal, walking out in the openness of space along the surface of a shattered space station with nothing but a thin atmosphere of air between them and the void beyond.
Katz refused to look up at it, keeping his eyes fixed on the engraved metal plates ahead of him, ensuring that he didn't become dizzy from the mind-numbing vastness above him. It was all wrong, man did not belong in the open and exposed vacuum of space, no matter that they were being protected by a genetically enhanced super-being.
The air had a tang to it he didn't like, and the temperature, though warm enough was still fairly cold and he occasionally shivered, as he kept his hands on his Muwani disruptor, trying to focus on making it through the twisted ruins of the derelict station to the T'zaht sitting invitingly ahead of them.
"She's going to have the CIWS running sentry duty," Wheeler said, struggling to keep up with Katz's long strides.
"We're going to have to destroy the weapon mount," Killborne said patting the Gorean plasma rifle she'd requested before they'd departed. "And if I can cook its optics, it's going to be useless."
"Yes," Wheeler said, grimacing, "but the range of that gun… and the range of an anti-star fighter turret mounted auto-maser… the odds are kind of stacked in the T'zaht's favour."
Katz didn't reply, he kept his head down, knowing full well that they had a very large problem ahead of them.
Conference Room - HMS T'zaht - Arcanis System - Former Polian Alliance
~~*~~
"Hartley," Chuck pressed, standing over the engineers shoulder as he tried again to get the stubborn conference room door open.
"I'm working on it!" Hartley snapped irritably, as he twisted a pair of wires together and flinching as he got shocked. Pulling his hand back he blew on his burnt fingers, staring up at the Exec. "Go… pace or something!" he demanded, "you're in my light."
Chuck unzipped his sweater, leaning back on the conference table. "Hours Chief… it's been hours."
Hartley grimaced as he shrugged, "I don't have a lot of tools here, and you are asking me to override a blast door… normally I'd just cut through it, but since I don't have a plasma torch, I guess you're just gonna have to wait for me to…"
The hatch slid back with a satisfying woosh.
Hartley was just as surprised as Chuck was.
"Nice going Chief," Chuck exclaimed.
"I didn't do that," Hartley said struggling to his feet looking at the dismantled control circuit.
Chuck ducked around the door, cautiously moving forward towards the bridge, checking it with a glance to be sure it was empty. "We're clear," he called back.
Hartley nodded moving into the bridge and tapping commands into a panel beside the blastdoors that slammed closed sealing off the bridge, latching with a triple-locking mechanism. "I'm hoping that will keep her out," he said tapping the door thoughtfully.
Chuck was scanning his eyes across the engineering panels, "she's in the hold, the Propylons seem to be working overtime."
Hartley moved to look over Chuck's shoulder, "yeah, I can cut power remotely, but that will kinda tip her off that we're free.
Chuck nodded, as he looked up at the observation windows, tapping Hartley's shoulder, "uhh, Chief?"
Hartley looked up as well, blinking at the predatory shape of an Amsus Raptor bearing down upon them, closing towards the firing arcs of the automated CIWSs.
"It's damaged," Hartley stated as he sprinted for the sensor console, looking over the scopes and noting the enhanced Polian sensors feeding a phenomenal amount of data onto a haphazard collection of tablet PCs and repeater displays that had been assembled in a patchwork array around the sensor console. "Thrusters only… steep approach."
Chuck threw himself into the weapons console, looking in frustration over the non-functional weapon systems, all they had to defend themselves were the CIWSs. That would be enough to fell a Raptor… he hoped. But it left very little margin for error.
"Wait!" Hartley called, holding up his hand as Chuck reached out to input targeting data into the system.
"What?" Chuck asked, looking desperately at the Chief, and back at the Raptor sliding towards them rapidly closing the distance, its great grappling clamps extended.
"They're Human," Hartley said, with a smile. "It's gotta be the Skipper!"
Chuck's hand hovered over the controls, wondering if Hartley was right, but deciding that they had little other choice, he switched off the CIWS.
Derelict Station - Arcanis System - Former Polian Alliance
~~*~~
They were pinned down by the murderous sentry gun, the weapon whirring up to speed as it spat death in their direction, cutting down another marine who hadn't been fortunate enough to get clear of the kill zone.
Katz crouched down behind a broken bulkhead, rising occasionally to fire a couple of blasts from his disruptor, the shots, though impressive fireworks, dissipated uselessly far short of their target.
The marine squeezing off shots from his pulse-rifle wasn't faring much better, the 9mm ball bearings bouncing harmlessly off of the reactive armour surrounding the optical sensor.
"Rikard?" Katz called to the arch-fiend who was lounging against the same bulkhead, his legs stretched out as he whittled away on his nails with his teeth.
"Yes China?" Rikard replied, looking up at his companion.
"A little help?" Katz pressed, ducking down again as the auto-maser neatly carved off a good half foot from the top of the bulkhead he was crouching behind.
"I'd love a little help," Rikard stated. "Unfortunately, unless you're offering to cut my toe nails…"
"I meant you helping us," Katz bit off.
"Now, see," Rikard waggled his hand, "not something I am really that interested in, after all you did leave me to be tortured at the hands of the Gorean… not to mention taking a malicious delight in it…"
"Rikard…" Katz snarled leaning up to fire again, and realizing that the CIWS had stopped firing. He looked down in surprise at Rikard.
The former chancellor looked equally as surprised, poking his head up from his hiding hole, and staring at the menacing weapon that was eerily silent. "I didn't do anything," he said, looking up as the Amsus Raptor swooped over their heads, angling about, its wings folding as it came to perch atop the back of the larger Imperial Frigate.
"What the?" Katz asked.
"Again, not me," Rikard swore, standing and dusting himself off. "Though I dare say we should try to find out."
Hold - HMS T'zaht - Arcanis System - Former Polian Alliance
~~*~~
Galadriel's head turned, as the distinctive clanking of the Raptor's docking reverberated through the Imperial Frigate. Turning away from the Propylon system as she reached for her Pulse Rifle, the devices whining a final time as the last artefact from the debris field materialized in the centre of the ring.
Arms wrapped around the black shard of Propylon crystal, the twisted armoured form opened his eye, staring through the shattered helm at the woman's back. His gauntlet flexed for the first time since his exile to the void, blades sliding from their sheaths.
R-Zero - Arcanis System - Former Polian Alliance
~~*~~
VonGrippen had set the Zero down on the upper docking hatch set above and a little forward of the Osterberg's shuttlebay. The two ships mating together as the Raptor's boarding tube extended, shrouding the hatch.
Aboard the Zero, Vichet and Jetsenbek stood on either side of the circular boarding hatch, watching as the floor depressed and receded back, exposing the carbon scored hull beneath the ship, Imperial markings set around the white painted markings of the hatch cover.
Vichet descended the ladder, stepping onto the dorsal hull, leaning down to brush away the grime from the access panel, which obediently slid open presenting him with a coded lock.
Limping down from the cockpit, VonGrippen pointed towards the lock with his cane. "It's a Guard ship," he said evenly, recognizing the markings immediately. "The code is seventeen-eleven. A master override for all Guard ships."
Vichet inputted the code, climbing back up the ladder a little as there was a rush of equalizing pressure before the hatch dropped inwards, sliding aside as it opened on an airlock below.
Jetsenbek handed Vichet his DT-09, as the GN-2 warrior dropped down the ladder again, entering the Imperial starship. Whistling up a few moments later, indicating the all clear.
Jetsenbek made to head down, but VonGrippen stopped him, "I need you to protect the Zero Captain, Ben and I will go…" he extended his hand, taking Jetsenbek's assault rifle and nodding for Ben to go down next.
"Luck Colonel," Jetsenbek stated, as VonGrippen handed his cane over, painfully limping down the ladder to join his companions below.
The Imperial ship hadn't changed, and there was a momentary flush of pride as VonGrippen reached out a hand to touch a bulkhead, remembering himself, he forced the rebellious emotion back down, and looked at Vichet.
"The Bridge is one deck up," he nodded, "Engineering is down."
"And you're gonna explain who you are before you go anywhere," a distinctly Canadian accent called as a bright light was shone down the corridor towards them.
VonGrippen shielded his eyes, making out two figures up ahead, looking like they were holding long barrelled rifles, "I am Colonel VonGrippen, are you the Captain?"
"Executive Officer," came the call back, "Lieutenant Chuck…"
"It's Prince Edward," the second figure hissed out cutting him off as he nudged his companion.
"The light, if you please," VonGrippen instructed, gesturing to the bright light as he lowered his rifle.
Chuck fiddled with it, turning off the flood lamp and lifting the broomstick to his shoulder almost embarrassed, "sorry sir, your highness… we weren't sure who you were."
"Broomsticks?" Vichet inquired lowering his DT-09.
"We've been hijacked," Chuck answered, walking close, frowning as the middle-aged man realized the ages of the muddy young men who had come aboard the frigate. "We were secured above, until a few minutes ago."
"There is something… wrong here," Ben remarked stepping forward and staring down the hall towards the double row of crew quarters, and the bank of elevators set in their recesses.
"Sit-rep?" VonGrippen asked, tossing the DT-09 over to Chuck, and indicating that Vichet should move forward to cover them.
Chuck checked the weapon, taking up a position alongside the boy wearing Karin Marine fatigues, "one hijacker, a member of our crew, Lieutenant Galadriel, she's armed with a Pulse Rifle… took us by surprise and locked us in the conference room."
"Well, she knows we're aboard," VonGrippen stated, taking a step back and looking up at Jetsenbek looking down at him. "Break out the sub-machine guns, and get down here."
Jetsenbek inclined his head hurrying to the weapons locker, breaking out the Imperial SMGs, ammunition, as well as TAC-vests.
Assembled and armed, the small strike team looked towards the young Colonel expectantly. VonGrippen slipped on this TAC headset, looking at the four man team, Vichet, Jetsenbek, Chuck and the engineer Hartley by the name tape on his blue uniform shirt.
"Make your way down to the hold and secure Lieutenant Galadriel, Ben and I will head up to the bridge and co-ordinate from there," he limped forward as he slung his SMG over his shoulder. "From there we can figure out what to do next…"
Ben hesitated, gesturing to the strike team, "I should help them."
VonGrippen frowned, "the first time you have ever volunteered for a combat mission."
Ben shrugged, "there is something… wrong here. And they will need my help."
VonGrippen nodded his assent, limping in the direction of the bridge, as the assault team moved out, rushing for the stairs, Chuck co-ordinating them as he carefully led the way below.
Hold - HMS T'zaht - Arcanis System - Former Polian Alliance
~~*~~
Ben hung back a little, unarmed he'd elected to follow the strike team down the companionway, keeping his muddied tunic pulled tightly about him, as his dark eyes probed the way ahead, feeling the well of absence that filled the hold of the small frigate.
Fanning out, around the doorway, Chuck and his team swept into the cargo bay, their SMGs raising as they covered the large bay, staring at the raised platform ahead of them, where five dark crystals lay stacked hap-hazardly.
"Propylons," Ben observed.
The booming voice demanded something in Polian, as the behemoth from a nightmare stepped from behind a crate, dragging a young woman clutched in its black gauntleted grip, the wicked barbs of the Polian wrist blade pressed against the woman's delicate neck. A golden eye glaring from beneath a shattered helm, as the massive Polian warrior breathed heavily, armour plates that were rent and torn, heaving and pulsating with each breath.
"Pacheyus-Ra," Ben said, his voice dark, his eyes flicking to the girl, who was clutching a shard of crystal to her breast looking terrified.
"Chuck!" she called out, "I need help, Chuck…"
"Wait," Ben commanded, raising his hand and stopping the T'zaht's executive officer from doing something rash. "You aren't going to stop him with those," he nodded to the woefully inadequate SMGs.
Ra's helm tilted to one side, his scarred horns dipping as he regarded the unarmed human that seemed so supremely confident facing him. His voice rapped out a question, again in Polian.
"We've met," Ben stated, shrugging off his soiled tunic and tossing it aside. "And it wasn't the nicest experience you've ever had." He gestured with his hand, telekinetically lifting a toolbox from where it sat discarded on a crate. Rattling and clattering as it flew across the length of the hold, slamming against a control panel.
Alert klaxons roared throughout the hold, as flashing yellow lights swept around the air-tight seal of the loading ramp. Each of them in the hold, Ra included, turned in shock and fright towards the ramp that descended upon the vacuum of space.
The group of Imperial Marines forming a semi-circle at the foot of the ramp, Captain Katz looking surprised as he raised his disruptor and trained it on the hulking beast standing in the rectangle of light that was the open hold.
"Oh god," Galadriel cried, turning her head a fraction, "help me…"
"Oh shut up," Rikard barked turning the collar of his long woollen overcoat up as he marched forward to the foot of the ramp. "We're not buying the act for a second time, Z'ræl."
"Z'ræl?" Ben asked moving forward a step of his own.
Rikard's head snapped around, a flicker passing across his face, before a smugly satisfied smile fixed itself on his features, "oh that is good, another trick Z'ræl?" he asked turning back to Galadriel, still held trapped in the Polian's mammoth grip.
Ra warbled and splatted out a confused question.
"Z'ræl, the last Peligian," Ben answered squaring his shoulders, eyeing the crystal shard balefully, "things are starting to make sense."
"Oh, I don't know," Rikard replied as he advanced slowly into the ship, looking directly at Ben. "I think there are a few new questions arising, such as how the hell you know about Z'ræl, considering you've been dead for three centuries?"
"I get the Peligian Telegraph," Ben snapped back. "You care to tell me how you happen to be here, and why you're chasing Z'ræl?"
"When you two are finished," Galadriel's eyes hardened as she twisted in Ra's grip, moving in a burst of unnatural speed, she slipped through his great arms, taking two steps away and spiralling the crystal shard through her fingers. Extending her hand and bowling the titan back into the packaging crates with the force of a freight train.
"Well now, aren't we the intimidating force," Rikard mused. "Captain I would recommend getting aboard your ship, before I have to refocus my concentration…"
Katz and his marines darted up the ramp, pushing back and around to join Chuck and his strike team, a few confused glances being exchanged as they set up defensive positions facing Galadriel, and keeping Ra covered.
"Where the hell did he come from?" Katz demanded, nodding towards the fallen Polian warrior.
"He's been… altered," Rikard retorted, "an Inquisitor's regeneration makes them very resilient, he could have been anywhere… now then," he looked back at Galadriel. "I'd rather you step out of my girlfriend, before I have to destroy you…"
Galadriel laughed.
"Okay," Ben stated taking another step forward, "what he said, double for me."
Rikard paused, again staring in surprise at Ben, "have we been taking our vitamins like a good little boy?"
"Vitamin P," Ben confided. "Plus I've been working out…"
"Hmmm," Rikard sniffed, "well I'd demand your money back from the gym, you actually look smaller than the last time we met."
Galadriel's laughter drained, as she tensed, "you are a formidable being," she stated her eyes transfixed with Ben's. "But you have no idea what I am about to do to you…"
"Oh I don't know," Ben smiled bouncing on his toes and flexing his fingers. "I usually have a pretty good idea about the future."
Galadriel gripped the crystal firmly, turning it sharply as she stared at her two enemies. "I…"
She never finished the sentence as the gauntleted hand clamped down over the crystal shard, Ra effortlessly wrenching her off of it and casting her aside like drift wood.
"Oh," Ben's eyebrows shot up.
"Oh," Rikard winced, shaking his head.
Ra advanced a heavy, clanking step, the visor of his helm dropping a fraction as he stared down at the crystal shard encased in his hand. The vicious yellow eyes narrowing as they flecked back to stare at Rikard, his gauntlet rising to point an accusing finger at him.
"Now don't be too bitter," Rikard stated, glancing apprehensively at Ben.
Ben shook his head, frowning, "I…"
Rikard blinked as well, as, in a rush the heat began to flow from the hold of the frigate. The temperature plummeting so fast that the alert klaxon on the life support gauges began to whine.
Katz scrambled across the deck, hurling himself at the ramp controls, pounding the button to button up the ship. As behind him, Ra barked a vicious laugh.
"What the hell?" Katz demanded, turning.
Ra turned his fist over, opening the rest of his fingers on an Ophanim ring device that looked as if it had been made from scavenged parts of the T'zaht's toaster oven. Z'ræl-Galadriel's home-constructed device beeped and trilled cheerfully, as Ra began to laugh his guttural chuckle.
"You know," Rikard stated, taking a reluctant step back, "I am starting to really hate those things."
"Ditto," Ben echoed, also stepping back, nervously licking his lips.
"So?" Katz asked, drawing his disruptor and pointing it directly at Ra, "if that thing kills your powers, it's gotta kill his too, right?"
"China," Rikard smiled a toothy, and very nervous grin, "I'd like to remind you of one or two facts of life that seem to have eluded that wonderful… if oxygen deprived… brain of yours. That is Pacheyus-Ra, a Polian warrior of the highest order…"
"Yeah?" Katz asked.
"Who," Ben chimed in, "has undergone a process that infused inanimate matter with alien DNA… Qalabarim right?"
Rikard nodded, "efficient, no?"
"Quite," Ben replied, looking back at Katz, "which means, of course, he can regenerate at the same rate as an Inquisitor… except of course…"
"He is a lot bigger," Rikard supplied.
"And angrier…" Ben added.
"Oh, yeah," Rikard winced, as Ra's foot menacingly stamped forward.
None of them were prepared for the flare of light that rushed over the beast, causing it to flash across the hold, appearing in the Propylon ring, surprise spreading across its face as it turned its visored helm to stare at the very angry Kardiac Lieutenant operating the controls.
She hammered the controls, again, banishing Ra from the T'zaht in a second wave of light.
"And that," Rikard stated, reaching out to take a pulse rifle from one of the marines, shooting the still hovering Muwani device squarely in the centre of its arcane clockwork components, taking a deep breath as his powers rushed back to him, "is why I love you."
"Where did you send him?" Katz asked, walking forward and holstering his disruptor.
"I… don't know," Galadriel admitted as her shoulders sagged, looking at the computer beside him. "I just inputted co-ordinates at random."
"Random?" Rikard asked, reaching into his coat pocket and dragging out his glasses, examining the computer beside her, staring at the complex modifications Z'ræl had made to the system, before he looked up. "Random… well that has to upset his plans a little."
"He has a set of Propylons," Ben said nodding to the empty ring. "the system took everything in them when it engaged."
"Then we need to pray that the all powerful Z'ræl is nowhere near a planet…" Rikard said folding his arms.
Ben shook his head, "he will return."
"Prophecy?" Rikard inquired.
"A feeling," Ben retorted. "We have to stop him…"
"We have," Galadriel stated, as she knelt beside the console, producing the stave from the Peligian temple. "We have something he needs."
"Oh that won't stop him," Rikard sighed as he sat down on a crate. "That merely means he will now come after us, to reclaim what he lost. We need to get out of this system, and quickly…"
His eyes stared across the cargo bay, to where another ghost of the past limped through the door, SMG raised and a concerned look on his face.
"Edward?" Rikard murmured a moment, before shaking his head, "You aren't Edward…" his eyes flicked to the limp, up to the uniform, the countenance, the bearing… and the dark shadows in the boys eyes. "No… no no, no." His face screwed up into a tightly puckered ball, before he slammed his fist down on a console, "NO!"
"Enarbrem," VonGrippen rumbled.
"No," Rikard shook his head, standing up, "you're dead, very dead, extremely dead…"
"Who the hell is that?" Katz pointed across the hold, "will someone please tell me what the fark is going on?"
"Captain Alvin Katz," Ben said, gesturing across the hold, "may I present Admiral Alexander Richard VonGrippen."
"I swear," Rikard swore petulantly looking up at the ceiling, "you're enjoying every second of this."
Conference Room - HMS T'zaht - Arcanis System - Former Polian Alliance
~~*~~
Kyr had joined them aboard the Imperial Frigate, staring in curious wonder across the table at the resurrection of a legend.
Katz was pacing anxiously too and fro before the wall mounted screen, where Xanatos was watching in bemusement. Katz occasionally paused to look at VonGrippen, opening his mouth to say something, before closing it again to continue pacing.
Rikard stood leaning against the windows, staring hard-eyed directly towards VonGrippen, who occupied the head of the table, Ben sitting beside him looking composed and calm as they listened to Galadriel recite the events that had brought them to Arcanis.
The rest of the crew were moving between the two heavily damaged ships, trying to cobble together enough systems to fly the both ships free of Arcanis. Wisely avoiding the tension in the conference room as they worked.
"I don't understand," Rikard stated, breaking Galadriel off as she was in the midst of reporting on the Muwani capture. He looked at VonGrippen and Ben, "how the hell are you two both here?"
"Omnipotence not what it used to be?" Katz cracked out.
"Shut it China!" Rikard snapped levelling his finger at the ship's Captain. "I've about had it with this whole, farked up, death-life-death thing. Dead people don't just get up and run around, and damn it I will find a way to ensure that death is permanent once again!"
"Rikard has a few issues," Ben confided leaning closer to VonGrippen.
"He does raise a good point," Galadriel pointed out, shifting tiredly as she cradled a mug of coffee. "You're asking us to believe that he," she nodded across the table, "is the Admiral…"
VonGrippen inclined his head, "I took steps to ensure my… resurrection." He fixed his eyes on Rikard, "and you, Doctor, provided the means to do so… with of course Polian assistance."
"What are you babbling about?" Rikard sniffed.
"Your Phobos Lab," VonGrippen folded his arms. "An oversight to presume I knew nothing about the GN-3 project, nor your manipulations with my grandson."
"You are GN-3-02?" Rikard's face broke out into a relieved smile. "Oh thank god, I thought I was going insane…" His smile faded a second later, "then how the hell do you remember… a Polian mind engram."
VonGrippen arched his eyebrow a little and nodded his head. "You weren't the only one in the Empire that the Polians were willing to work with. They were desperate, at the end."
"Extremely by all appearances," Rikard sniffed. "That explains you…" his eyes travelled to Ben.
"So, wait," Katz threw up his hands, "you mean he is who he says he is?"
"Oh keep up China," Rikard snapped. "The Polians derived a method for storing and transferring consciousness a very long time ago. It is how I brought your Commander Theruan back to life. Now back to my next question…" his eyes went back to Ben.
"Actually, it should be mine," VonGrippen cut in. "We need a place to go, affix repairs and regroup."
Kyr perked up his ears, "we still have to find the Polian Observatory."
VonGrippen frowned, "the Observatory is on Uruciwa Quintas…"
"How the hell do you know that?" Rikard bit out again.
VonGrippen shifted his gaze back to Rikard, "because the Polians trusted me with their greatest secret. A secret, I see, they never felt the need to share with you."
Rikard seethed.
"Uruciwa Quintas it is then," Ben seconded.
Katz nodded his assent, "we need to relay that to Mayfair."
Xanatos cleared his throat on the screen, "if this alliance proposal is to work, then Sal-zÿr will need to be informed as well."
"I shudder to think of what 'His Watchful Eye' will do with an observatory that can see almost everywhere," Rikard muttered. "Petrov is arrogant enough as it is."
"Then we go," VonGrippen stood, "Captain Katz if you would be so kind…"
"Aye Admiral," Katz nodded, making his way forward.