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Trip blinked as the transport lift was raised up and into the belly of the ship itself and Zynnis and his team of commandos disappeared from view. The airlock seals snapped into place with a loud hiss and the wolf could only sigh in frustration. He heard the clicks as each member of the team turned their mics off and turned his head to stare up at the ship angrily, it seemed that he could never get the final word in regardless of how hard he tried. He turned to head back to the situation room and stopped before he ran in to the large dragon that had been standing behind him for however long, he didn't know. Styrr had his arms crossed and seemed to be looking for some sort of comment or explanation, and Trip quite honestly had nothing at the ready, and really didn't have any want to discuss it. Despite the high levels of organization and procedures the Alcrose Royal Marine Corps followed, situations like this happened almost on a daily bass, rarely did it seem to matter what Trip had to say about anything, it always and would most likely continue to boil down to the quickest possible response and most straight forward course of action, regardless of circumstance or repercussions.

"Is this usually the way things tend to go around here?" The large dragon that was standing in front of him with his arms crossed and a slight smirk on his face was now tapping his foot, Trip wasn't quite sure whether he was tapping it unconsciously, or out of nervousness or impatience. What Trip did know was that it was starting to annoy him.

"Unfortunately, the commander firmly believes that the best course of action is the quickest, most direct, and most efficient action there is. "Trip was glaring at the now hovering transport as it began the warm up procedures. "I do give him credit though, most of the time his military thinking saves our asses and keeps us out of too much trouble, I don't believe he's ever had the wrong intentions, but on a few occasions the blow back has caused me a lot of problems and many, many headaches. Even in those cases though, his quick actions probably deterred any would be attacks on our home. First and foremost, that is really all that counts. It doesn't mean I completely understand his thinking on things, or even pretend to think he is always right."

"I see, it is understandable, yet I still find that there are better ways to solve problems if one could only force himself to think in such a way, but I am also a firm believer in doing whats works." Trip could see the wheels spinning in the dragons head, and really would have preferred them to stop, "Also, I hate to point this out, but I thought the Commander was primarily right handed."

Immediately a frown came across the large wolfs face, the dragon was correct and Trip was now even more unhappy about that fact than the fact Zynnis was being stubborn, the fact that a stranger had to point it out for him to notice was irritable, and caused his anger to slowly start to boil over. He sighed heavily, and forced himself to push back his frustrations, "Yes, you're right, he is. Just another kink that I've yet to work out. Zynnis seems to take everything that happens to the ARMC as a whole personally and sees it as a personal attack against himself. I get upset with him, but then again, I can't really blame him for what he does. He always wants to make sure that every single issue is dealt with by the best of the best, and him and his team are indeed just that."

The dragon nodded his large, silver head, "Very understandable. He has much more than internal politics to worry about, the fact that this is your home weighs heavy on him and I commend him for that. It takes a leader of the strongest type to put himself in harms way and be willing to die before he sends others in to die in his place." Trip could tell that yet again, wheels were spinning in his guests head, "What is this 'council' that was mentioned, I wasn't quite read in on everything before this situation occurred."

Trip could only roll his eyes, not at the question, but at the entire idea, "The council is a work in progress, one that doesn't seem to be coming together all that well actually. It is my attempt to bring the more civilian advisers in on the military parts of the operation. As of now, it's nothing. Just a new idea that Zynnis and I were putting together," The wolf immediately went back and altered his statement, "Rather, it's something that I had started to put together, Zyn is skeptical about the whole thing, and after the way it worked today, I don't really blame him. Non-military personnel don't seem to realize the gravity of some situations we seem to find ourselves in. It's my hope though that we can make it something very real in the near future.

Styrr's response was the mirror image of every response he had given up to this point, which involved only a quick nod, and him moving on to the next question, "That's also understandable, military leaders are often quite leery of civilian oversights, and for the most part, they very much should be." Trip very much wanted the conversation to end. He could tell that the dragon was being quite empathetic towards Zynnis' ways of seeing things, and that was unusual. For a businessman to have so much interest in military operations, and to seem to have the knowledge of what should be done, and why it needed to be done, was enough more than enough to pique the wolf's interests. From what he knew, Styrr didn't have any military background, but sometimes looks could be quite deceiving. His thoughts were cut short as the Dragon launched himself into another question, " So, are the operations off limits to scrutiny until debriefing, or will be able to observer what is going on in real time?"

Again, Trip's curiosity was starting to get the better of him. He didn't have all the information that he would have liked available to him about his strange guest, but from what he did know, and the Dragon's mannerisms and his ever growing interest in the military operations that were underfoot, Trip could only guess that there was more to Styrr then could meet the eye, "If you would follow me to the command center, we can watch what is going on, as it is going on. We installed cameras on our weapons recently, due to some bad intelligence and even worse decisions. So the weapon feeds will be running, as well as the mic chatter."

Trip started to quickly pad off towards their conference room that doubled as very nearly everything, his ear twitching, and his mind wandering about what he was really getting himself into with putting himself and Zynnis into a partnership with Styrr. Some of the thoughts brought his hopes up, and others spun him the opposite direction, a direction to which could cause the ARMC as a whole a lot of hurt. He sighed and pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind as he rounded the last corner and made his way into the command center.

* * * * *

Zynnis was standing, somewhat relaxed. He didn't think anything would to him on his own ship, but the last few days there had been a lot of firsts, but he realized that anything was possible, and decided to stay prepared. His weapon was still pointed dead in the center of the stranger's chest, he certainly hadn't expected this situation, and hadn't honestly been ready for anything to happen before, or even during their excursion. He was getting fed up with surprises, surprises were what got people killed in his experience, and he was not at all interested in meeting his end just yet.

"I'm not going to repeat myself again, so how about you stop standing there, staring at me like an idiot. Who the fuck are you?" He gestured his weapon at the new fur, emphasizing his last sentence threateningly. At this point, he wasn't playing any more of the time delaying games that everyone around him seemed to want to play today, he had an objective set in his mind, and he was bound and determined to achieve that objective.

"Well, sir, I'm the pilot. You know, the one that flies the ship?" The husky made flying movements with his paws, as if his commander didn't understand the implications of being a pilot. It managed only to make Zynnis slightly more annoyed.

"No shit. Don't play games, I'd just as soon shoot you and fly the ship myself." Zynnis' ear was twitching now in irritation.

The husky proceeded to simply turn around, sit at his chair slowly, and start punching in commands on his console, "Sir, as you've put it, we don't have time for this, I'm sure the pleasantries can be sorted out after we've completed this mission. I have orders to follow, none of which include having a conversation with you."

The hybrid growled and cocked his weapon, "You're orders become obsolete when your commander is pointing his weapon at your head. Name and rank soldier, as well as your ID number, now."

"Karric Vilo sir. Captain ident number 915163221997. Anything else sir? Or can we end the pleasantries and let me do my job?"

Zynnis quickly made a mental note of the information he had just been given and slowly started to back to the cockpit door, keeping his weapon aimed on the blue furred canine, still unsatisfied with how events were starting to stray further and further into the grounds of being completely ridiculous, "This isn't over you little shit, but for now, you do your job. Dock with the coordinates that should have been already uploaded into your navigation. Don't bother going anywhere when this is over, you and I get to have a personal debriefing with the Director."

The husky sat, looking unconcerned with Zynnis' threats, "Don't really care, go away and let me do my job."

Zynnis holstered his weapon, and heard the door whoosh open behind him, "Also, your fur, it makes you look like an idiot. See to it that it's changed next time I see you."

He didn't give his new pilot a chance to respond as he turned, and angrily stomped his way back the way he had come, making the small deviation that lead him to the ships lounge. Upon arrival he saw his team sitting idly chatting as they sat in the various seats, checking their gear. The hybrid took the time to slink into a corner and change his com channel to Trip's private frequency.

"Trip, you receiving?" Zynnis was hushed, he didn't want to attract the attention of his team, they had a habit of sticking their noses where they shouldn't.

"I am, although I'm not really in the mood to talk with you after that stunt with the switching of the primary hands."

"Get over it. It's not the first time and wont be the last. Is that nosy fucker Kinster listening in?" He knew that Trip was most likely fuming, but he shrugged it off, now wasn't the time for their petty disagreements.

"No, he's not on this channel."

"Good, would you care to explain to me where my regular pilot is?"

Trip chuckled over the com, "If you would check your incoming paperwork every once in a while you'd notice that he had requested leave and I approved it. It seems that the chances of that are slim to none, therefore you will most likely always be left in the dark."

"And why the fuck would you do that?" Zynnis raised his eyebrow on the other side of the mic, for once actually curious as to his directors reasoning.

"His mate was having a child you asshole, that good enough a reason for you?"

Zynnis sighed, "Well, I don't like this new one, he's a smart ass and his fur is ridiculous."

"That may be the case, but he's also the most talented and experience pilot we've ever seen." Trip bit at the inside of his cheek with annoyance. The fact that they were having this conversation instead of focusing on the important things was the reason they argued constantly, "I chose him because he reminds me of you. He's far too experienced at his trade to discipline over trivial incidents. He's strong minded and preforms well under pressure. You'll learn to deal with him soon enough, so long as you don't kill him first."

Zynnis tried to hold back a growl, but failed, "Fine, but no more memos, tell me in person for fucks sake, don't try and tell me that you didn't have ample opportunity to either, because you did.

He double clicked his mic, signaling that he was ending the conversation and changed his frequency back to the operation channel. Almost immediately after, he heard a chime, and saw the countdown timer above his head the table in the middle of the room start to tic down from from three minutes.

"Control, three minutes and counting to dock, mandatory gear checks requested. Please sound off."

Trip's voice came in over the coms, "This is control, initiating camera and com checks now."

Zynnis watched as his team checked their gear one last time. He waited as Kelres came and checked him over. The hybrid grimaced as he felt the tug on his vest and a pat on his bad shoulder. His second letting him know he was good to go. Zynnis nodded his head in thanks as he heard the come check begin, command sending their acknowledgment back in the form of clicks over the mics, until the check got to him.

"Commander, initiate com check now."

Zynnis clicked his mic once in response.

"Commander, initiate weapon cam check now."

Zynnis reached for the weapon laying on the table and disconnected the camera from the top of it, "Command, I'm changing from primary weapon cam to vest cam, confirm." He clipped the camera to his vest and waved a paw in front of it.

He heard Trip's short sigh over the mic, "We are receiving, mission is a go, forty seconds remaining."

Zynnis clicked his mic once again in response and looked at his team, "Ready gentlemen?"

All but the fox nodded silently, she coughed loudly and rolled her eyes.

"Sorry Jan, forgot you had a vagina." Zyn laughed as he heard her growl in response.

The tension was running high as they all moved towards the boarding hatch, the pre-mission jitters could never be alleviated, in all honest, they never knew what they were going to find as they entered a new environment. As the countdown hit thirty seconds the team stacked themselves into formation in front of the hatch, watching closely as the timer ticked closer and closer to zero. Zynnis positioned himself between Dragovich, the black wolf, and Kelres, pulling his pistol from his hip slowly, switching the safety off.

"Hold on to your assess, this one may get a bit bumpy, I'll pop both hatches as soon as we have a good seal." Karric's voice boomed loudly over the intercom system, causing Zynnis to cringe.

He gripped Dragovich's shoulder tight to brace himself or the impact, but found that it was quite unnecessary. This pilot's skill was indeed as good as trip had suggested. They could hear the airlocks seal and pressurize without a single bump, and then the hatch shot open and the stale air from the abandoned vessel mixed with the transports almost violently. Zynnis tapped Dragovich on the shoulder solidly and as a unit the team moved into the vessel, clearing each corridor and checking to make sure each door was secured and unopened.

The entire ship looked as if it had been deserted in the middle of regular operation, the lights left on, and an odd sounding music was playing quietly over the intercoms. The life support seemed to be functioning perfectly as well as the electrical systems. The scan from _Haven_showed that the reason this ship was deserted was certainly not a mechanical issue.

That information alone left an odd feeling in Zynnis' gut and it continued to nag at him while they continued to secure the ship. This was a perfectly good ship, and from what the scanners could show it was carrying some extremely valuable cargo. The entire operation was going smooth, until they got to the bridge. He should have known something as amiss when the door opened without any problems.

The entire team hesitated and stepped back a few steps as they focused their attention to the opening, ready for anything. When nothing so much as breathed at them, they moved in quickly, but stopped ten feet in as they saw the reason there was no one aboard. In the center of the bridge sat what looked to be a quite powerful warhead, a timer ticking down on it, much like the one on their own transport.

"I suppose none of you are certified to disarm something of this magnitude?" Zynnis was almost lost for words, what were the chances of something like this being put in front of him? Even more disheartening was the fact that this ship was perfectly capable of space flight, and there were only two possible reasons for this scenario. Either this was an attack on him and his people, a very good possibility seeing as the aftershock would shut down every system on Haven and leave them dead in space, or pirates found what they wanted, and felt that it was a wise decision to make sure the occupants and the evidence wouldn't be around to be sorted through.

The fox's voice was quiet, which was a good indication of how grave the situation had become, "It would take me an hour at least to figure out what was what in there Z."

Zynnis sighed loudly, "Alright then, options people."

"Five minutes back to the ship boss, plus ten to get to Haven. I'm not the leading expert, but I'm good with numbers, and this doesn't look strong enough to get through our shields at a decent distance, even with the parts of this ship flying at us. That would give us a solid ten minutes grab anything we can from the mainframes, and change this death trap's course to away from Haven. Any longer than that, and we won't make it, or sustain heavy damage to _Haven's_electrical systems or even a hull breach. Not the way I want to die, was at least hoping to get laid a few more times first." Tanis was the first to speak up, the statement was quite a bit less serious than it should have been, but wasn't anything different than the Tiger's regular attitude.

"I bet you would too yah fucking perv." Jan was gathering her composure back, which was good, things were about to get done."

"Both of you shut the hell up. Boss, do we execute?" Kelres quickly restored order before the two could get into an argument.

"Aye, get it done."

The team split quickly. Dragovich headed to the navigation terminal, his paws furiously working the controls, putting in the course change. Jan and Tanis moved off together, most likely on the hunt for a souvenir or two, which wasn't a problem with Zynnis. It left him and Kelres who quickly ran towards one of the information terminal, intent on getting every little of drop of intel they could.

"Start a transfer of all logs that start before the first escape pod ejected. I want it sent to my personal server back on Haven. Set the transfer to continue broadcasting until it is unable to do so and we loose communication with this hunk of shit." The Hybrid patted the shoulder of his number two confidently, "I want you all back to the transport in six minutes tops, understood?"

The big bull only nodded as he focused on his task at hand and Zynnis turned and made his way the short trip back to his ship, "Trip, I'm assuming you got all of that. You're a stickler for detail, did I miss anything"

"No, you were right again," Zynnis could hear the disappointment in Trips voice and held back a chuckle, "You know our stretch of no random jump points and avoidance plotting is over right? We're going back to that now."

"I want the ship on lock down by the time I get back, "No one leaves where they are until we finish our first jump. Also, have all our backup jump plots loaded into the system. I want the first jump to start as soon as we get back aboard." Zynnis knew he didn't have to go through the details, but it made him feel better. He already knew that Trip had most likely already started the orders that he gave well before Zynnis and his team started to execute their plan of action.

"No worries, everything will be taken care of, just get your team back home safe."

"You know I will, I have logs to go through, I'll be back with you shortly." Zynnis clicked his mic to mute and continued his way back to his ship, checking his watch constantly along the way. He went through the bulkhead doors and re-entered his ship, breathing a huge sigh of relief. There wasn't too many situations that really ever concerned him, but being on a floating death trap wasn't his idea of a good time.

Zynnis took one last look at his watch, the team had less than three minutes to finish what they were doing and and retreat back to the transports. Zynnis shrugged it off and then headed straight to his sleeping quarters and sat at the lone desk. He spent very little time in the room, so aside from the small desk and the equally small bunk, the room was barren and dark. He punched his ID and password on the keyboard that had been built in to the desk.

Immediately the room was illuminated with a soft blue light as the screen lit up in front of him. His eyes scanned the screen as the records from the ghost ship floated on to the screen segment by segment. The speed at which he scanned was almost unbelievable, page after page flew across the screen until the data immediately stopped. He furrowed his eyes and growled lowly, queuing his mic to have another talk with Trip.

"Where is Kinster?" Zynnis' voice was dangerously low.

"Still with me, why?" Trip's gaze turned towards the larger dragon, who was busy watching the screens in front of him.

"I'll explain when I get back," Zynnis closed out his screen and shut down the computer quickly, checking his watch yet again, "We've got about thirty seconds until we have to be out of here. Just take the fucker to the office, I'll meet you there in about fifteen."

"That works, be safe."

"No promises." Zynnis clicked his mic back to mute and made his way back towards the ship's assembly area, he wanted to check and make sure his team was there, more importantly, to make sure Tanis had made his way back. Often enough they had to go back and find him, usually trying to get a few more spoils before they shipped out. Happily, they were all there, pulling their gear off slowly, and chatting idly.

"Kelres, everyone here?" Zynnis turned to see the hatch starting to secure.

"Aye, we're good to go boss." The bull nodded at Zynnis and unstrapped the front of his vest with a sigh, "Let's just say that was the most exciting mission as of yet, Don't think we've seen that trick yet have we?"

"No, no we haven't," Zynnis punched the intercom button next to the hatch, "Vilo, book it."

The Husky responded immediately, the team heard a pop as the clamps disengaged and their own ship accelerated away from the ghost ship. Zynnis took a quick look about the room, his team was almost done removing their gear and breaking down their larger weapons and gear. He nodded his head with approval as he checked his own gear quickly, his primary weapon was still sitting on the table where it had been dropped, and his side arm was secured on his thigh. He took the time to reach down and flip the safety on, chuckling to himself.

"Well done boys, "He looked over to their medic, who was glaring at him, "OK, and less boyish one. Consider this your debrief."

Jan snarled at him, "Fuck you too." She was sitting next to Tanis, almost on his lap, "You meeting us for drinks afterward boss?"

"Hopefully, I have to debrief with the real boss. He's already pissed off with me right now," Zynnis sighed as he thought about just that for a second. He knew that Trip wasn't going to take him going on this mission lightly, or let him hear the end of it for quite some time, "That and I've an awful lot of data to go through."

Jan scoffed and looked at her boss, crazy emanating from her eyes, "Well, maybe if you would just give him some dick here and again, he would shut the fuck up."

Zynnis could only look at her like she was crazy and roll his eyes, "If you would shut the fuck up and worry about your own fucking sex life perhaps maybe having a conversation with your royal bitchiness would be tolerable, and maybe less crazy." Zynnis saw Tanis start to open his mouth to say something, but Zynnis wasn't about to let him get a word in, "Don't even try it Tanis, we know she's fucking you, which is why you've been walking bowlegged for the past couple months and voice slightly getting higher pitched. Apparently her dick is bigger than yours."

Kelres was sitting in the corner trying to hold his laughter back, and Dragovich was was sitting with his head resting his head on his arms on the table, shaking his head, the black wolf's body shaking violently in silent laughter. Zynnis looked back at the couple sitting together and smiled at them.

"You have anything to say you big stupid motherfucker?" Jan was glaring at Tanis violently. "Well if you ain't got nothing to say about it he must be right." Tanis looked at her wildly as she pocked her legs up off the deck and used them to push him off the bench onto his backside, "Then just stay down there pussy."

At that, Kelres couldn't keep his laughter in, and Zynnis buried his head in his paws, laughing heartily. Half of his team may act like idiots, but they were still his family, and he loved them non-the-less.

"I'm heading back to the lift bay, you all enjoy the rest of the time you have off. I might be able to sneak out for a beer or two later." He stood and nodded to his team, walking off shortly after. He had planned to take the walk himself, but he was followed by Kelres who tapped his shoulder softly.

"I read through the data and scanned the tapes boss, and as ignorant as I seem, I know who Kinster is."

Zynnis kept walking, not slowing his pace, "And?"

"And well, I know what this looks like, and I know your temper, therefore I think you should stay calm, and think your next course of action through."

Zynnis stopped, turned, and shoved the much larger bull up against a bulkhead. Zynnis, with his small stature, was still looking up at Kelres, but it was still intimidating, "Listen, you of all people know that every action I take, no matter how idiotic or ill-advised it may be, is very well thought trough. The difference between me and the other motherfuckers is that I could give to shits about what all these other bitches think about me and mine. We're the best at what we do, which means I'm the best at what I do too," Zynnis stepped back from Kelres and continued to walk, leaving Kelres behind, "I love you brother, but politics and foreign relationships don't concern me, keeping us alive does. If you want a diplomatic solution, start working for Trip."