Rivan, a desolate planet on the outer rim of the more civilised worlds, bearing lush measures of gloomy vegetation amidst countless patches of wetland which stretched over the entire surface in combination with its unfavorable living conditions. The skies themselves were comprised of an extensive cloud layer which rarely made way for direct sunlight and nigh permanently lulled indigenous lifeforms in a curtain of obscurity given the varying degrees of fog in the area that made seeing with the naked eye an ever growing challenge and yet temperatures easily reached the point of allowing any visitors to break out into a sweat within mere minutes.

Nothing of value could be found here save for breathable air and water, the minerals were too sparse to warrant any mining operation and the plants barely survived on what meagre nutrients were recovered from the soil, making it a seemingly abandoned world in a scarcely inhabited system. Slavers and Smugglers on the other hand discovered an ideal outpost in their latest acquisition which they'd obtained without firing a single bullet, setting up another node in an already considerable network for their crime syndicate.

In the beginning they traded in illegal goods, weaponry and drugs mostly until their territories broadened and the site was nearly rendered obsolete. Instead slaves from many different species took their place, a profitable business opportunity from the sheer endless conflicts that arose across the vastness of space.

Naturally Ania hadn't cared about the history of some backwater plot of land. Currently aboard the Gensou, a smuggler frigate in which she had the luxury of staying as a guest inbetween assignments, the renowned huntress found herself torn from a pleasant slumber, noting with delight the lovely avian slave that spent the night in her personal quarters passed out by her side although such bliss proved rather short lived when the Captain's voice rang through the intercom.

They lost contact to the outpost on Rivan, perhaps because their equipment consisted of antiquated pieces of junk from what she gathered by skimming through the ship's internal database, but kept that notion to herself for the time being. Such failures did occur and were rather commonplace in some cases, nothing that would be cause for immediate concern.

However, attacks on ring leaders seemed to have gone up over the course of several months, periodic deaths associated with raids from warring factions although numerous ones were credited to a single individual. Some dubbed the graceful vixen they only knew from retrieved security footage the Angel of Death, but funnily enough those simple minded enough to buy into the rumors weren't higher ups in the ladder of success, instead the ones who held power thought themselves safe in the company of their guards.

One of said powerful aliens resided here and apparantly Ania wasn't the only one thinking along those lines when she was told to prepare for her departure. Year after year slaves were brought here and taken away, particularly human females from Shokushu who weren't purchased straight away and proceeded to be trained excessively and sold at a later time. Lecherous beasts let them indulge in the arts of seduction, performing sexual acts as part of their daily routine that wouldn't end in falling unconscious unless they pleased enough of them to earn their break.

Aside from the lack of life signs they picked up on, some of which were fading away rapidly as she considered the matter at hand, several ships were also stationed on the planet's surface and one of them certainly wasn't theirs. They were in orbit around the sinister looking world when the next assignment was issued to the female alien, hopefully a task worthy of her attention.

It wasn't a rescue mission, it was a manhunt and while the condition of the intruder didn't concern her superior, whoever was down there would be lucky in the sense that she preferred not to kill.

Rivan was a world that many considered to have been painted in varying shades of brown by the gods, at least for those who cared to believe in such superstition. Though the near invisible figure that stood atop the ruined communications building of the slaver's outpost shared a similar fate. She was considered just as much superstition as the gods, though the difference was that the figure was real and the carnage of the strung up bodies was a testament to her deadly efficiency. She had cleared out this hive of scum and arranged for the girls being kept here to make it off world, to find a freedom of sorts in a cold and uncaring galaxy that sought only to use them for it own pleasure.

The figure was known by many names depending on who you spoke it; the slavers and sentient traffickers always referred to her in hushed tones as Lady of Bones, the Wind of Razors, or the Angel of Death. Those she rescued often thought of her as an avenging angel, a guardian of those unable to defend themselves...though the truth was far less noble and far less altruistic. She hunted her chosen prey to make them pay for the life and family that had been stolen from her, for her this was revenge pure and simple.

An alert from her cloaked and orbiting vessel popped up within the HUD of her bio-mask, the sensor information uploaded so she could see the identity of this new prey. A heavy weight dropped into the pit of her gut, a slaver cruiser known as the Gensou and one of the locations on her target list. It had remained there due to the simple fact that even with the edge her Kaji technology provided her, it would still be a suicide mission given the security surround the Slave Master that resided aboard that vessel.

She looked over to the ship she had commandeered on some other scum pocket of a planet, it seemed that she was trapped on the planet and would be hunting new prey, sent down to investigate their silent outpost. Shadow Hunter smiled beneath her mask as she jumped down from the roof of the building and began running across the courtyard, as she scanned for a point that afforded her both concealment and a good vantage point of the new arrivals.

She was soon hidden with a tumble of broken rocks, still cloaked as she settled in watching as a shuttle streaked down into the atmosphere. Anticipation warred with caution as she had never been trapped after striking a base and wondered what would happen.

While the Gensou remained in orbit around Rivan, a smaller vessel had been sent down to the surface to gather information on failing communications first hand and, if possible, eliminate the threat they suspected to find in place of technical difficulties.

Meanwhile Ania tuned up the intensity of the shots fired by the trusty firearm within her grasp, a silenced and nonetheless deadly weapon which could alternate between projectiles and lasers, the latter of which could be adjusted for less than lethal purposes and she heightened the setting enough in order to cause slight burns that'd assist in wearing the assigned target out over time.

A streamlined helmet offered protection for the head, a raven colored braid descending from the back of the piece whereas her body was graced by a near skintight suit of armor which put emphasis on her charms, particularly the luscious swell of her breasts and the lavish expanse of her hips many men would be yearning to lay their hands on. By the time the shapely huntress finished inspecting every last portion of equipment she found herself approaching the compound, still unable to establish any means of communication.

"Take us down over there." She suddenly chimed in during their landing approach, pointing at a suitable spot through the front view window. "I presume we're expected and I'm not about to take any chances."

They were a total of four, a pair of tall and muscular brutes that served as little more than raw manpower, wielding immense automatic cannons which could easily put a gaping hole through a man's chest. In direct contrast to their impressive stature had been the technician who doubled as a pilot, a slender alien with sufficient cybernetic implants to the point an observer had to wonder if they were truly made of flesh and blood or mere machines.

To the female alien they were all dead weight, walking targets armed with high caliber weaponry in an attempt to give away the impression that they were useful in a fight. She didn't deny that they had an intimidating appearance and absorbed the occasional impact with ease, but overall they weren't agile enough to stand their ground and would probably clog up the corridors aboard their precious frigate with corpses and prevent an intruder from proceeding in that way rather than delivering the killing blow themselves.

Ultimately they set down slightly off their original course in the midst of dense foliage, turbines buzzing with life as they decreased their descent little by little whereupon several smaller branches snapped off the nearby trees. Then the machine died down, the ear numbing sound fading away whilst the crew wasted little time in leaving the metallic death trap and everyone save for their pilot streamed into the open, the unarmed party member locking himself in until further notice.

"I want to see each of you in an uneven line with me, thirty feet distance." She told the brutes, towers of rippling muscle who set out to obey the given command. "Keep your weapons at the ready and watch your back, the fog will clear up a bit as we proceed towards the outpost."

Shadow remained cloaked and observed the landing party from her chosen perch, shifting through the various vision modes of her helmet in order to to get better idea as to what she would be facing. Automatically, her helmet outlined and identified the weapons carried by the slavers that had stepped off the shuttle. She knew their purpose here, though also noted that they did not display the same gung ho attitude of most slavers. There were four, a pair of hulking brutes that would be little more than meat shields given that they would be about as stealthy as a Manatillian sandripper in a china shop. The cyborg would prove a challenge just from the aspect that his implants graced him with a certain amount of resistance to wounds that would render a non-cyberized target unable to continue fighting.

The final slaver was something of an oddity for Shadow as she had never encountered her species before and she couldn't find any information within the databanks of her Kaji vessel. This caused her to frown inside of her mask, she was the unknown and would be the real threat. She was a voluptuous beauty that had circumstances played out differently, could have easily found herself within one of the slavers holding cells for transport to a Vanejin auction block and servitude to some vile monster.

Carefully the huntress crawled out of her hiding spot and took a running leap, landing on the thick branch of one of the swampy forests pale tree as she began stalking the slavers. She had marked their life signs on her HUD and was moving on a path through the trees that would bring her around to their rear. Once she spotted the first brute, Shadow plastered herself to the bole of the tree and considered her options. The first course would be to even up the odds, take away the heavy assault cannons and then deprive the alien female of her technical support.

Though most important was for her to discover just how the unknown would react.

Regrettably engineers aboard the Gensou weren't outfitted with suitable weaponry, nor did they receive proper training in regards to any outside threat hence Ania ordered the fourth member of the team to stay behind as to allow for a swift extraction when the time comes, implants or not they'd possibly be put down long before either of the brutes by her side. Unfortunately they were a hindrance themselves, their bestial aroma thick and heavy which clouded the extremely sensitive senses of the alien female, even from a distance whereby picking up on the unknown scent of an intruder became an almost impossible feat.

But the pay was good and the merchandise came cheap, particularly for those who were successful and she would've been lying if she denied the copious measures of pleasure derived from the many slaves they transported from one world to another inbetween her assignments, thus tracking along ultimately paid off, no matter the conditions. Catching up on an undercover agent from the Directorate certainly earned her a bonus, to the point where sampling the nubile women on board didn't require a single payment on her part.

Now their uneventful trip through the swamp, albeit short given their recent landing, should've alerted the guards stationed in and outside the compound, but none came to investigate their arrival. The lifesign readings were correct, apparantly, leading her to believe that their associates either escaped or died during whatever transpired here while the slaves were still alive and somewhere inside. Only searching the compound itself would provide more answers.

"Halt!" Something reached her ear, the faint pounding of a heart, certainly unnoticeable by the human mind as Ania glanced toward the surrounding treelines with a sense of uncertainty. Wildlife existed on the planet against all odds and with the fog which impaired any visual confirmation there wasn't much to be done out in the open. Perhaps they were being followed, maybe not, lacking olfactory evidence the sound soon drowned amidst the many distractions coming from the brutes until it was lost completely.

"Carry on and move at an urgent pace. We'll set up a perimeter around the entrance to the outpost and take it from there. Uproot the nearby trees if you require additional cover, whatever is necessary to keep you out of the line of fire in case we get company .. In the meantime I will investigate the site and see what I can find out." One of them grunted approvingly as they moved on, capable of speech they simply refrained from showing any proper respect to a female they'd rather ravish mindlessly than obey as a superior officer.

Shadow smirked as he listened to the...female give orders to the pair of hulking brutes and just by their vitals and the surge of heat to their loins, it was obvious what they thought of her and would rather be doing. The huntress smirked beneath her mask as she tried to decide whether to track the party or go back and remove that current means of exfiltrating off the planet. She watched the party before her heading through the marshy lowlands and decided even if they did set up a perimeter, it wouldn't stop her, she would slaughter these fools just as easily as she had the slavers in the base. Carefully moved around the bole of the tree she began working her back through the broken terrain of the planet, mindful of the nature hazards of the alien world, one such being a naturally occurring slime pit.

The slime was the same dull brownish gray color as the rest of the world, but the slime itself was a living creature that fed sexually from a female and simply drown a male victim. She had rescued one of the slaves from the pit after tossing her tormentor into it. When she had freed the girls, she had just been glad that there were a few ADD Agents among them to take everyone to the relative safety of the ADD. Not that it mattered much, the girls would likely end up captured and in the same predicament...they would simply be wearing a different uniform.

The concealed huntress soon found herself staring at the ship her new prey had come down in, she could hear the popping and pinging of the hot engines as she was able to pick out the lounging form of the cybernetic technician. He was leaned back in his seat in the cockpit and looked as if he was playing with himself and looking at a porn magazine. This would be like taking candy from a baby and felt beneath her, it was but this was a necessity for her hunt, to deny her prey a means of escaping her.

She checked her dart launcher and the charge on the weapon before dropping down and stealthily making her way up to the ship, snorting derisively at the still open hatch. She leaned into the open door, aimed for the implant on the side of his head and fired. The was a sharp ting as it impacted against the metal cybernetics and then the humming build up of the tiny but powerful electric generator before it fried the technician brain, blistering his skin and forcing his body into violent death spasms. She waited to make sure there was not some sort of back up that would restore him to at least a partial functionality as she disabled the flight controls of the craft and then irreparably damaged key portions of the engines and left it a mangled chunk of metal.

Once her task was finished, she started making her way back to the communications compound where no doubt the little party would be confronted by the signs of her presence in the flayed corpses the slavers who had been stationed there. All the better to prepare then for what would be coming.

Nothing Shadow did had been registered by the distant three and as such their progress had not been hindered in the least. Sadly neither climate nor environment were familiar to the lavender colored specimen among the unusual trio hence scanning their surroundings with her senses alone certainly lacked efficiency. Sophisticated technological marvels were something the bountiful predator lacked, relying solely on the nature given charms and talents imbued into her curvaceous form, aside from the firearm amidst one of her great many tentacles. She decided to lead the brutes along to the compound for now, maintaining their current position as meat shields meant to protect her flanks from ranged attacks, not that the huntress expected any, but their lives weren't nearly as valuable as her own.

Ania assigned them positions lest they do something stupid, demanding that an autocannon be set up next to the entrance near a tremendous pile of rubble for sufficient cover whereas the other had not been too far off, a good twenty yards perhaps given the limitations of the terrain. Both easily covered wide areas, likewise including the other brute which should make another frontal assault harder for any potential assailant.

One of them grazed their female companion as they walked past, the resulting grimace beyond the facade of her helmet evidently one of disgust as intense warmth emanated from the spot, not far from his groin although for the moment Ania simply had to shrug it off.

"Filth .." She had no love for these vile creatures, hunking males with great libido that they are. Making a living working alongside them wasn't always pleasant but lucrative enough for her to stick around.

But once that was dealt with and Ania ventured onward, the lack of communication down here certainly had been explained by the look of the place alone. Bloodshed, the likes of which one would hope or expect to never experience in their lives was found here. Corpses littered the floors, every station stocked with gruesomely defiled bodies, most of which had been flayed beyond recognition all the way to the bone. It was abominable slaughter, with blood oozing from deep gashes and cracked ribcages among others, several members of the stationed men not even armed by the time their butcher came along and literally destroyed them. It was nearly unbearable to inhale the potent stench of all the bodies as they began to rot and decay, the climate made sure of that.

Almost immediately the alien female tried calling the cruiser in orbit, but found herself unable to establish contact. Prior to their landing it proved challenging to scan the surface from orbit yet sending a message without an operational communications relay down below which she discovered was little more than wreckage shortly after, Ania figured the three of them were essentially limited to what they got until they concluded their search and headed back for their transport vessel.

Furthermore, no animal from the planet could have done this, but that much had already been established when they were sent down here. She would have guessed it had to be one without any intelligence on the matter, but that was beyond her comprehension now.

Swiftly plunging deeper into the compound, Ania found their precious slaves gone, presumably taken away by the intruding party for what other value they had, the lush femme fatale could not say with certainty. She would commence investigating the structure for any indication as to what they were dealing with, leaving the two brutes further behind. Distinction of smell had been impeded given the vast spectrum of fragrances all around, but looking for clues would be a good start before extending their sweep into the wilderness.

Shadow had finished her task at the party's landing craft and had careful moved back towards the slaver's compound and found that the brutes and their handler had been far from idle. The two currently establishing a pair of defensive positions did not seem the type that possessed any form of true initiative unless it came to a straightforward fight or when there was female flesh to be plundered. Though she also knew that she would have to be careful as there had been one brute in the compound, in order to deal with him, she had been forced to make use of her plasma cannon to burn out his hearts.

It would have been that or she would now found herself impaled on the alien's thick cock, being used as any of the other girls she had freed. She scanned for the leader, but found no trace of her, though she had likely also started to investigate the interior of the site and be coming upon Shadow's handiwork. This caused the human woman to smirk under her helmet while she moved herself closer to the brutes, climbing an overhanging tree and concealing herself behind the limbs.

"Choj'putah," the mimicry unit of her helmet spat out in the guttural voice of the brute she had killed. It was a vulgar term, as she had come to learn after the individual it was directed at attempted to assault the brute before being firmly planted into the ground.

Abandoned and left to take their positions as sentries, either of the two brutes seemed completely unaware of her presence lest they opened fire on her location long ago and these autocannons would easily tear the entire swampy landscape to shreds, to the point where each fallen tree would have effectively paved the mucky ground with a solid surface.

Solely one of them appeared to have heard the term and as fortune would have it, Shadow would have little trouble discerning what was going on in the ensuing exchange. "Choj'putah?" One of them turned to the other whose attention had resided elsewhere at the moment, practically supporting himself by leaning on his grandiose firearm rather than taking it in hand as if he hardly perceived any danger in the first place.

It came from his flank and the second turned back to face the other, visage twisted into a grin upon which the one to speak up chuckled in evident amusement. Perhaps Shadow had misinterpreted the meaning of the short phrase, might have even misused it, but as the two moved on it became fairly obvious that the first simply had not been intimidated much by having insults hurled at him even though the two practically shared the same physical prowess.

"No'arrah.", came the response, but that did not abate his partner's humorous perception of the moment. It seemed to displease the one being mocked, however, and soon there was little else to laugh. They truly were sturdy, powerful and most likely unknown to some, borderline stupid under rare circumstances, one of which happened to be the drive to impose one's dominance unto another of their kind.

Obviously the disrespected one wasn't going to take shit from the other and spoiled for a fight which broke out faster than Shadow could have seen coming. They wrestled, tossing insults amid attempting to throw each other to the ground, but they seemed to be of equal strength which effectively locked them in place, not quite as close to their cannons in the struggle for dominance which made them even easier targets than they already had been.