His head was throbbing when he woke up. The Arbiter had done something to him, pressed a finger against his neck that made everything go melty and then black. Nate sat up to review his surroundings. He was in a small cell, about two meters by two meters. It had once been white but now had gone dingy and a bit yellowed. He was sitting on a ledge that served as a bed, with a cheap rubber mattress and a second-rate space blanket. Stepping onto the floor, he realized that except for the drain in the middle and the camera/sensor array in the corner to the right of the door, the entire room was lined with rubber. Probably to stop prisoners from getting concussions if the ship had to accelerate or decelerate suddenly. As he was inspecting the camera housing, he heard a sudden voice in his head.
"Don't be alarmed. I'm here to help you. Face away from the camera and speak under your breath. I'm hooked into your audiovisual system and your mic implant."
The voice (probably Sha'dee, definitely female) spoke quickly and authoritatively, with a hint of boredom and sarcasm in her voice. It had the same speech pattern, rolling R's and lilting accent as Ketri, but was sharper, faster and more commanding. Nate instinctively obeyed, casually laying back down on the bed and facing the wall before speaking.
"Who are you?" He said under his breath.
"My name is Leta. I'm an old... Let's call it "friend", of the male you know as "Captain Thoros". I owed him a favor, and last night he sent me a cryptic message over our old ansible connection referring to you, some female named Ketri and this planet." The voice explained.
"How did you find me?" Nate asked.
"With a keyboard, genius. Most Naval PMC security is dogshit. Once I was into one of the contractor ships, I found that you'd been captured and brought onto this ship. So I hacked into here, found your cell, and accessed your implants through creative use of the cell monitor system. Your firewalls are absolute garbage by the way, you're lucky I didn't replace your ocular drivers with half a terabyte of dolphin porn. You should probably do something about that, the next hacker you encounter might be a darker shade of hat."
"Well, that just shattered any lingering sense of privacy or safety I might have had. Is the plan here to break me out, or make me a neo-luddite?" Nate muttered.
"Yeah, well you can't make a virtual omelette without deleting a few cherished memories. Which I promise I did not do, in case you're worried. Not possible with your low level of augmentation. No, I'm breaking you out of here." The Sha'dee in his head chirped.
"And how do you plan to do that, exactly? This is the Queen of Hearts. It's the Conglomerate flagship. Plus it's fucking Arbiter Central."
"Well if you're that pessimistic about my abilities, I suppose I could leave you here. But without you, I won't be able to rescue this Ketri chick, who I assume you know."
"Well let's not do anything drastic..."
"Good. So, in about five more minutes, I'm going to start feeding all the security monitoring ports a data loop in order to... The short answer is security won't see us. Then I'm going to unlock the door. After that, I'll need you to do everything I say, when I say to. When I say jump, I don't even want you to ask how high, just do it. Solid?"
"Solid."
"Excellent. There's a guard outside your door. He has a freq bayonet in a sheath on the small of his back, I need you to grab that, pull him back into the cell, then push the knife through the side of his neck and punch forwards. It's messy, but it's quiet. Then, take his uniform and weapons, put them on, and we'll go from there. As soon as the door opens, go."
Nate nodded, got up to face the door and steeled himself. He was Spaceborne Infantry, not a special forces contractor. This Operator shit was a bit hardcore for his taste. After a few minutes the door slid open, revealing the back of an unsuspecting naval contractor, complete with freq bayonet. He wasn't wearing his mask or helmet either, which removed most of Nate's qualms about killing him. As had been hammered into him in training, anyone who was dumb enough to walk around a combat starship without a mask deserved whatever happened to them. He grabbed the other Human by the mouth so he couldn't yell, and pulled him back into the cell, quickly dispatching him as instructed. Nate set him down with his neck over the floor drain, and began stripping off his uniform and gear.
"Nicely done. One would think you're a professional killer or something." Leta said sarcastically.
"You know I never met a Sha'dee who was a smartass before." Nate muttered as he pulled on the coverall and started strapping on the webgear.
"And I never met a Human who was smart before. But hey, the night's still young. Once you're done with that, take a right from the door to your cell, head down the corridor and turn left when you see a door labeled "Combat Facilities Access Passage."
Nate straightened up, hefting the guard's particle carbine and tapping each battery pouch on his webgear to remember where they were. Particle guns were more expensive, more delicate and less lethal than railguns, but they had certain advantages in space. The recoil was negligible, and they couldn't accidentally punch a hole in the hull.
Pulling on the helmet and mask, he ventured out into the corridor. The cell door closed and sealed behind him, and the light went out. Nate followed Leta's instructions, making his way to the access passage.
"OK, now turn right, and keep moving. Don't worry about the security system, I've got it under control. They haven't noticed me yet."
"Where are my personal effects?" Nate asked, cautiously advancing as instructed.
"Probably an evidence locker in the nearest security station. Which is where we're going anyway. Turn left, nice and slow. There's a dude around the corner, you're covered in blood so you'll have to shoot him. Go for the upper chest and neck to fry his vocal chords."
"I know how to shoot a sentry." Nate muttered, annoyed, as he peeked around the corner and got a bead on the security officer.
The body collapsed silently, neck and chest smoldering while Nate grabbed it by the boots and dragged it into a nearby utility closet.
"Here's the security station. Go through the door that just opened." Leta ordered.
Passing through the door, Nate found himself staring at three orderly lines of Overlord suits hanging in arming frames. The walls were lined with locked cabinets full of rifles, freq cutlasses and ammunition. As he looked around, something flickered in his vision and a glowing, semi-transparent Sha'dee girl strolled over to the nearest suit. While his system was certainly powerful enough to render her with life-like detail, augreal avatars were almost always done in this hologram-esque style as a concession to an innate Human distrust for any computer that could fool them.
She was short. Even shorter than Ketri. Her stripes were faint to the point of being barely noticeable, and she had a tomboyish look to her, dressed in baggy utility pants and a hooded jacket with messy brown hair in a bobcut. She flexed a dainty four-fingered hand, then held it out in front of the suit, causing several augreal terminal windows to appear at her fingertips. Her fingers flew across them, and the suit whirred and clicked, shifting plates and other components around until its proportions matched the data in the medical file stored on one of Nate's implants. The chest and legs opened up, allowing him to step in.
"That guard's utility coverall will work fine but you'll need a skullcap. Luckily those are one-size-fits-all. Check the autocage system over there. I'll get the locker with your "personal effects" open." Leta instructed, pointing to the far wall.
Nate obeyed, finding a skullcap and fitting it over his hair. He shed the pouches and armor, stripping the coverall bare, and turned back to the suit. Leta had gotten a locker unlocked on the other side of the room, and he strode over to open it. Sure enough, there was Thoros' cutlass, as well as his armor and railguns. He ignored those, the blade was all he really cared about.
"Ah, so that's what you wanted. You know how to use that thing?" Leta asked, cocking her head towards the Overlord.
"Kinda." Nate muttered, switching out the short two-handed gladius-type blade on the suit for the old Sha'dee's, and then climbing into the suit. "We were all required to qualify in an Overlord-class suit during basic."
"So, no then. Alright, hold still, this is going to get weird for a second." Leta tapped at something only she could see, and suddenly, everything did indeed "get weird".
"Did you just give me a stroke?" Nate grumbled, rubbing his forehead.
"No. I've interfaced the suit's computer directly with your neural interface and installed a program that offloads certain motor functions onto the onboard computer... it's basically artificial training. No substitute for real muscle memory of course, but you should be able to move and fight naturally without worrying about the suit too much. Side effects include occasional headaches and an intense craving for pickles."
Nate slid his arms into the suit arms, worked his fingers into the gauntlets, and tapped the control to close up the suit. Armor hinged back around and locked in place around him, until he was completely encased in ceramic, titanium and nanocarbon fabric from the neck down. He tested his range of motion, moving his arms around and taking a few steps.
"Don't forget your helmet." Leta said dryly, crossing her arms and looking unamused by his antics.
It locked into his collar with a hiss, as everything below the neck pressurized and the suit latched onto the helmet, supporting its weight and allowing total head mobility. The faceplate swiveled up and closed over his mouth and nose, and the optical snoopers rotated down and locked into place over his eyes. The helmet pressurized with a hiss, and Nate went from breathing slightly stale ship air to the familiar, even staler air of an armor life support system. He closed his eyes. He didn't need them; his optical implant was patched directly into the four cameras on the outside of the thick armored visor.
"Alright, you better get used to that fast. In a few minutes I'm going to lose control of the system when they do a routine power cycle. They're gonna be on you like chuds on a monorail platform. Follow the map on your HUD." The small alien informed him nonchalantly.
"Rules of engagement?" Nate asked, looking down at the 20mm autocannon resting at his hip.
"Well, it's not *my* ship. So, uh, let's go with "fuck 'em up good"." She grinned like a shark, then flickered and disappeared.
