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EARTH DATE: JUNE 24
Sol Star System, The Starship Exanthus
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THEIV FLASHED INTO cargo bay nine and stood absolutely still in the dark room, waiting to see if any alarms would sound, or if there were any unpleasant surprises waiting for him. After a full minute of silence, he moved to the left, skirting a huge pile of containers, then continued down the narrow pathway left between the massive shipping crates until he came to a juncture. He turned left again and stopped at the 14th container on the right, taking out a tiny scanner he tapped a code into it, and waited as it scanned the huge cargo bay. No lifeforms flashed across the small screen. He tapped in another code and seconds later a small section of the container slid to the side. He stepped into it and the door slid closed, locking automatically. The design so precise that there was no way to tell the door even existed.
Inside was a small room, lined with Ryolyzia, an extremely rare mineral that was invisible to all technical scans. Theiv double checked to ensure that all the locks had been engaged. When he was satisfied that the room was secure, he sat down at the small computer console and ran a security scan of the interior. No one had been in the room since his last visit. He began to type out a coded message that would mingle with the daily messages sent out from the ship to the Dark Star communication array. He had no doubt that the intended recipient would find it.
Mission compromised. Exanthus must be stopped. DN extremely dangerous. Approach with caution. Capture is imperative. Risk of Galactic War. DK must be protected at all costs. H.N. Dark. T.N. Dark. R.V. Dark. T.D. Dark.
He ensured the message was heavily encrypted, then hit send. Grabbing a pack, he began to fill it with things he knew they might need in the coming weeks, as they waited for the ship that he knew would be sent.
After a last look around and a careful check that the message had indeed gone out, he activated the auto self destruct on the room and exited. As he made his way out of the cargo bay, he could smell the smoke and the arid scent of the high heat accelerant that had deployed as soon as the self destruct sequence had completed. There would be no trace of the electronics left in that secret room, in fact, the whole shipping container would be reduced to ash. The cargo bay was about to be the scene of a major fire, and a later check into the roster would reveal a small amount of an unstable chemical. The authorities would assume it had not been stored properly.
Theiv made his way through the ship as the alarms screamed, heavy steel fire doors were sliding into place to contain the fire to cargo bay nine, and personnel were rushing to the scene.
It was the fire alarms that alerted Drace to the fact that Theiv had returned to the Exanthus. A fire in the cargo hold was just too coincidental to be an accident. He’d been waiting, knowing full well that the Dragon Warrior would not simply disappear. They would need weapons, and possibly medical technology to protect the Zemyneah. They would fail. He would take his property back, and Theiv would make an interesting addition to his experiment. He’d wanted to get his hands on a sample of DNA from the Dragon Warriors for a long time. You know, he mused, things always have a way of working themselves out. He activated his com device. “The target has arrived. Apprehend him and bring him to me. Alive.”
Theiv had just put a small med scanner into a pouch he wore crosswise across his chest when the door to the med bay slid open. He whirled around, his phase gun lifting as three men came through the door, their guns drawn. He fired and dived behind a medical station cursing. Vhalett, Zholaka, and T'Vass, Drace’s men. Zholaka was swearing and Theiv figured he’d hit him with that shot but, not enough to take him out of the action. He moved to the edge of the med station and peered around the corner. The men were working their way towards him. He fired repeatedly, and the men dove for cover.