Between a rock and a hard place

Tawnie shook her head and looked to Malik, wondering just what was going on with him now as she looked and saw Xanthus in the kitchen. "Malik you really need to lighten up, and don't think bad of him because he doesn't like guys." She then leaned against the counter and got some water, nothing was ever going to be the same since this all happened. Hopefully the place would be more lively.

Malik huffed pissed and Xanthus came back in the kitchen in his more human form saying, "You're such a pansy." "Yeah well you need to take a hike flea bag! Keep your filthy paws off my milk! I need that for my cooking!" Said Malik pissed. He then went back to cooking and said, "The sooner my stupid ass papers go through the sooner I can avoid that stupid ass cat!!"

"I don't think he sees it quite the same, and these are shared resources. We don't get a resupply for another two months, so it has to spread around." She replied with a laugh and then watched as Malik was all flustered and pissed by Xantus, if this escalated they could try to kill each other. She would prevent that as it would be detrimental, so she looked to Xanthus with a sideways glance. "What'll it take for you to give him some peace, you obviously enjoy this." She was actually a little serious about cutting back on the conflict here, as it was her job to make sure things ran smoothly between crew and deal with issues.

"Nothing I like tormenting the idiot." Said Xanthus with a snicker. His fur suddenly went on end when he heard barking noises. Letting out a hiss he was clawing his way up the counter and was perched on the top of the highest cabinet as Luke came walking in with a laugh saying, "Forgive me I had to test my theory to see if dogs scared you and it seems they do." "That wasn't funny you ass!" Snapped Xanthus as he came back down. Malik on the other hand was laughing his ass off. He yelped as Xanthus clawed his face again.

"Looks like he's got the great equalizer, now your going to have to be craftier against him." She said and then watched as the two carried on, looking to Malik who was obviously got going to be in a good mood for a while. She might as well get used to this, as these two would be at it for a while until somebody put them in line as she was just going to keep it between them.

Xanthus smirked and suddenly noticed something on the floor. Picking it up he looked at the necklace with the stone on it and said, "What's this?" Malik turned and his eyes went wide as he suddenly snatched it saying, "Hey that's mine damn it! I didn't even I lost it!" "All that fuss over a piece of jewelry?" Asked Xanthus. "It's more then that. You wouldn't understand. I've had that necklace for as long as I can remember. I don't know where I got it from. So I assume it was since I was just a baby." Said Malik putting it back around his neck.

Tawnie looked over and just shook her head, she'd seen pendants like that with the royal fleets but outside of them they were rare except for only the eldest two corporations. "Everybody has secrets, some bury them deeper than others Xanthus. Might not be a good idea to pry too much, we all have out issues even me. Malik, try to hide that as you might find that it can be a hindrance as well as help." She offered some advice and said nothing more about it, though her words came seriously like she knew what it meant. Watching the two she had no idea what would happen next, this was like cats and dogs fighting.

"I'm not hiding anything Tawnie. I don't know who my birth parents are let alone my family. What's there to hide when I've suffered from amnesia for five years. That's all I was told by some doctor when I woke up five years ago to not knowing who I am or how I got to be there from the start. My claustrophobia is also a psychological sign that something bad happened to me and I don't even know what that was." Said Malik.

"Here take the rest of the milk I don't need it anymore." Said Malik thrusting the cup toward Xanthus. "Thanks." Said Xanthus taking a large ship only to choke and spit it into the sink. "Powdered!? That's disgusting!" Said Xanthus disgusted. He set the cup down and walked off annoyed. "Oh well that's what you need to expect on a ship in the middle of fricken space you fur ball." Said Malik with a smirk.

"I know something about tags like that, but I'd rather not talk about it. Malik don't worry about it, it's probably best left forgotten anyways. If someone can get us fresh supplies, then we will have better milk. But being all the way out here, they usually don't make the trip." She then went back to her water and put on a cup of coffee, at least the coffee was real as it could be transported. All of this advanced technology and they didn't even have the benefit of properly trasnporting fresh reserves, this was one of the issues with the Azrael Corporation. They were more focused on resources and protecting their assets over quality of food and and other areas on the ship.

"Most quarters are pretty spartan, we cover our assets over comforts. Azrael Corporation started as a small mining operation couple hundred years back on earth, it grew up and became one of the seven superpowers as it is today." She made mention though she had no idea of an exact history, they kept that secret for some reason like their rise to power had factors that would make them look bad alone.

The cup Malik was holding suddenly shattered and he looked at her and said, "You people are humans? I despise people like you. I thought it was a bit strange. I want to know if there's another way to earn my freedom so I can get the fuck off this thing. I won't take no part in a corporation that destroys other planets for the sake of their own twisted goals! You people don't care about the life you take away from these planets! I've heard of your corporation and want no part of it!" He then turned and left without another word.

"Wait!" She then followed hi and put a hand on his shoulder, as if to get him to stop. She was certain he only saw one side, he'd probably not realized how different people were. "We're not all like that, Azrael may be the angel of death but that is only to our rivals who try to take our resources. We deal in metals, gases and other industrial resources, if you want proof I'll ask the commander to take you planet side. So you can see where we operate, will that help?" She spoke with a tone of someone who had something ot prove in her voice, she was not going to let him slander humanity based on some sections of it. They had fallen low, but some people still had decency and knew what it was to do the right thing.

Malik stopped and looked at her. His head lowering for a moment he looked at her and felt for some reason she was actually telling the truth. "It's alright I don't need proof. I believe you. I can easily tell when a person is lying. But you sounded quite sincere in how you said that just now. I'm sorry I lost my temper." Said Malik softly. "Now I'm not one to like dogs but I see puppy love blooming. Just kiss the girl and be done with it." Said a familiar voice. Malik turned beet red and he rounded on Xanthus and said, "Come say that to my face you stupid ass flea bag!" He stomped toward the cat. Xanthus ran for it and Malik stopped saying, "Good and stay away! You just made it even more awkward you jack ass!"

In this mess Tawnie slipped away before they could see anything, she was not going to let anyone know that perhaps there was something. By the time their argument settled down she was nowhere in sight, in fact he had hidden in her quarters to calm down from the fact that she'd gotten flustered.

Malik turned around to apologize to Tawnie to find her not there. His face turned slightly pink again and he wondered if she had either run to avoid the conflict or because she herself got embarrassed. Sighing he went to his room and sat on the bed feeling like a moron.

After he started to head to his room the commander clapped and then snickered like she was actually enjoying this, it was rare to see Tawnie run like this but it had happened when she didn't want to show embarrassing. "Impressive, and you must be our new guest. Will I have to file paperwork for you too, or can we keep your existence a secret." She said to Malik and Xanthus as if she was half serious and half joking, either way it was hard to tell where she was going with this. She was definitely amused, and then she motioned to a door several down from malik's. "Go after her, you can't get anywhere without taking the bull by the horns."

"Oh sure the flea bag gets away with his crimes but I'm stuck being a prisoner? What the hell is wrong with you people!" Said Malik with a huff. His face turned pink at her comment. Luke came walking up and said, "I wouldn't count on that. I got back the final report of the damages. It's about one thousand five hundred. The wires are the bitch of the situation. It's hard now a days to find electricians who deal with this stuff. We have none on board. In other words are fine little furry friend here won't be walking away and has a new mistress who happens to be right in this very hall way with us."

Malik snorted in laughter and said, "Oh man that's messed up. Even more damage then what I did." Xanthus huffed and turned into cat form that moment. He rubbed on the commanders legs fondly and looked up at her with the sweetest eyes he could possibly give. "Oh please like that's gonna work! I'm outta here before I gag!" Said Malik turning and walking up to Tawnie's room. He knocked on the door and said, "You can come out now the situation is over."

She looked at Xanthus and shook her head, at least he was gonna get stuck with the bill and that was the extent of it. "Your gonna have to figure out a way to come up with the money or work it off, and if you have any ideas I'd suggest you work quickly. If you can do it before hit a station which is two days away, then it'll be forgotten." She said as she looked at malik walking away and tossed him another card, this one had the same tags as her former chief systems analyst ha on his. "Your replacing the person you beat out, do your job as if you can't then I'll find someone else and make you a janitor." She said with a laugh as she had secretly expedited the papers for him to be on crew officially, his punishment was a promotion to one of the most difficult jobs that required him to always be on call and alert in case of attack. "Xanthus your also going with the shuttle to the station, we cannot afford to move this ship right now. So what can you do to cover this loss?"

Xanthus turned back into his human form and said, "Best get used to having me around. I don't feel like paying back and would rather do some manual labor." Malik found himself tugged along by Luke who said, "Come along with have a lot of work to do you."

Malik sighed and followed Luke to his new work space. He thought things would go smoothly but the system for some reason today decided to be a total jack ass to him for the next few hours that went by. "Friggen hell! Error again! Luke you really need to get a better working system then this piece of shit!" Said Malik infuriated,

"Calm down you're disturbing the other workers." Said Luke with a sigh as he turned around in his chair looking at the frustrated blonde. Malik sighed and said, "Very well time for a little overwriting. And start over from ground one. My custom made program should kick the bugs out of this thing." Malik pulled out a disc and popped it in. After about twenty minutes everything was starting to work smoothly. "Finally..." Said Malik with a sigh. "Now that you got that working I need you to check all the sections of the ship and make sure everything is stable." Said Luke.

"Fine then, at least your honest. Then you'll find the janitorial room near engineering, we're short staffed there and need people to help out. You'll get half pay until the money is paid off, and it will all be off the books." She replied to Xanthus as Malik got dragged away, only to be greeted with a wave of good luck since she knew how bad things were. She hoped Xanthus did not mind theur stocks, even if he did then he would have to come up with a way to get fresher supplies here.

"One last thing, why did you chew those wires. What in gods name made you decide that, were you trying to cripple us." She inquired and then looked to Tawnies room, she was going to do something about this as it had been a while since Tawnie even had gotten close to anyone let alone a person and some kind of shape shifting cat.

"I got stuck and tangled in them so I was forced to chew my way out." Said Xanthus with a sigh as he went with her. "Lovely nothing more worse then mopping." Said Xanthus.

Malik meanwhile had finished his given task when suddenly a weird warning message popped up. Quickly pulling up the translation device since he couldn't read it. The program went to work and the message was clear as day saying

"Warning you are currently trespassing on private air space."

Of course a few other people had picked up the signs of an upcoming possible attack. Luke stood up fast and said, "Malik contact the commander and rely the message to her quickly. I'll try and pinpoint the location and cords from which that message came from." Malik sighed and flipped a switch to the intercom. "Commander I think you might want to come to the bridge immediately. We just got a warning of some kind." Said Malik. He then switched the intercom off. Xanthus looked at her and said, "It looks like you're being paged. I'll handle this you can go now."

She sighed and headed to the bridge in time to get the reports from the surface, the head of the survey team in that sector of the planets surface was rather unsure of what to do. "Commander we found something blocking a rather valuable ore find, some kind of structure that when someone went to inspect it they triggered some kind of beacon." She then cut sound and looked to Luke and malik, like she was annoyed but she had no choice but to report this and wait for answers. "Private space huh, Malik can you two go planet side and give me a better report on this anomoly. I'll send Tawnie with you, if it gets too dangerous pull out." She then went back to the comm signal that was still active but muted.

"Mr. Nix I want you to pull out all teams and wait for further instructions. I am sending down a small team to investigator until then halt all work." She then closed the channel before he could reply and leaned against a bulkhead, why was this looking like it was going to be a real problem for them here on this forsaken rock.

Thirty Minutes Later:

Malik was muttering under his breath annoyed as they were walking up to the area the team had been pulled out of. Looking around the desolate planet he seemed to see no signs of nothing. "Honestly all this fuss over a dead rock of a planet? I don't see nobody what about you Luke?" Asked Malik.

"Nothing out of the usual. I wonder if it was a hoax to scare us off the planet. We've dealt with things like that in the past." Said Luke. "I'm a damn computer tech not a fucking scout!" Said Malik annoyed. The ground under Malik's feet suddenly caved in. Luke jerked Tawnie out of the way fast and lunged for Malik who fell into a pitch black hole with a loud scream and vanished.

"Malik! Are you still alive!" Called Luke down into the hole. "Yeah I can't see my own hand in front of my face though!" Malik called back up. Feeling a sharp pain in his leg he gasped softly realizing it was broken. "Luke you're going to have to send some people down for me. My left leg is broken!" Malik called back up. "Damn it!" Said Luke pulling out his transmitter. Pressing the button he said into it, "This Luke reporting in on the investigation. So far we haven't seen anything unusual but we're going to need some rescue operatives down here to recover Malik. He fell a hole and broke his leg."

Tawnie was watching the surroundings as she was not sure what would happen, but when Malik fell she tried to grab him and then cursed lightly. Taking some synthetic rope out she attacked it to a nearby rock then climbed down, she could get him out but it would be as far as she could go.

"Here, I'll climb up then once I am up hing on to this and I'll pull you up. You have to be careful, this place is dotted with soft spots. The ground is too unstable, I'd swear there has to be underground facilities here." She then shined a light and saw they were in some kind of room, which seemed off for the ground above to be so thin unless it was eroded that much. After placing the rope in Malik's hand and tying a bit off for his other good foot she climbed up then started to pull. "Luke I'll go back with him, you keep going. Your job is too important to turn back, trust me we'll be fine."


On board the ship that was now enroute to the planet due to unforeseen circumstances there was someone pacing the command deck, while he should have been sitting he was anxious. Humans were something interesting and he wondered if they were truly a threat, though right now he only knew they had already stripped planets bare and moved on. "Are all humans that bad, do they really have to be desroyed or can they be talked with." He pondered out loud even though he was just protecting the person sent, he could not help let his curiosity show.

"Sit down Chance otherwise you'll start driving me crazy with your constant pacing." Spoke a black haired male calmly as he sat in the commanders chair. "Honestly this isn't our first mission. And yet you got the jitters it seems." Said Hades as he eyed Chance. "Well apparently he's never dealt with the human kind before. Him acting this way should be expected. You know that my dear Hades." Said a woman as as slipped her arms around Hades from behind.

Hades just stood up pulling away from her saying, "It's time to have a little fun before we arrive. Something that will rattle them. Ah yes I know just the thing." He looked at the woman and said, "Pandora go ahead and let our newly made experiment out. The chimera should teach them to not be as stupid as to set foot on a planet with such few forces." "As you wish my lord." Said Pandora. She then walked off.

Luke nodded but before Tawnie could get very far the ground started shaking quite violently. "Shit now what!" Said Luke. He ran over to the other two as the ground he was standing on started to raise up higher and higher until it exploded. When the dust cleared Luke paled seeing a monstrous beast that towered over them like a giant. "The hell!? What is that thing?" Said Luke. Foot steps were heard suddenly and a figure jumped over their heads.

Luke saw the beast get kicked out of the way by Xanthus. It fell over with a crash. "Apparently you don't know a chimera when you see one! Hurry run let me fight this thing! Normal weapons are useless on it!" Said Xanthus. "Wait you're going to let yourself be killed just to save us!?" Yelled Malik horrified. "It's the least I can do for the trouble I caused." Said Xanthus.

'"You idiot!! Let's all just run! We can escape together I'm sure of it!" Yelled Malik loudly. "Tch and you think it'd be noble if we all died as a team! You fail to realize the severity of your situation! Now go!" Yelled Xanthus loudly. He flipped out of the way fast as the Chimera lunged at him and he clawed at it.

He sat down and then waited for things to move, this sector of space was not even on their maps and he had no real thoughts on what could lie there, Hades knew oviously but if it was on no maps then it was history. "Why was this sector forgotten, I never paid much attention to hsitory. I should already have died anyways, Lord Hades can you keep them alive so I can talk to them?" He had no idea who was there but to his knowledge of humans was more expansive than most, they had been a fascination since even before his life had been spared by augmentation.

Tawnie was caught offguard and left prone for a second, though once she caught her bearings she readied her weapon and moved to the side while Xanthus occupied it. Something so big was not gonna be pleased by head shots, so she took aim and fired short bursts at the beasts head. "Malik here take this and use it! I have two spare clips for it!" She then tossed him her handgun as she knew she would have to move the moment it focused on her.