There were a few close calls though skill and a huge amount of luck she had eluded the bounty hunters that seemed to be coming after her. The alien known as Master had spared no expense in hunting the agent down. The extra attention had her at the base for awhile or deployed with groups when they ran out of things for her to do back at the base. Things eventually cooled off which meant the inexperienced bounty hunters had given up seeing that she wasn't worth the effort, too dangerous a target.

The tougher bounty hunters were more clever but many of them lacked an opening with her being deployed in groups. Eventually though when all but the most patient of bounty hunters would have given up Alex was assigned the tasks she usually saw to though the ADD was still mixing things up a fair bit so no one knew in advance which agent would be deployed to a given area which was often the case any way but even the agents themselves didn't know until last minute.

She wasn't the only one the ADD did this for, their were others though currently matters settled down enough. Agents had it rough and there had been more than one slaver or smuggler out there that held grudges. Master was just another to add to the list. But her bounty hadn't gone up and wasn't likely too since she wasn't irritating the criminal and thus hadn't captured his attention. The bounty was more a token thing for keeping up appearances to make it clear that if you crossed him or in her case simply escaped it was at your own peril.

Studying nebulae, working on tech and even replacing her suit had all been in order. She had been charged with getting some well needed supplies to an outpost, nothing too extreme. The outpost itself had an agent on it and a few researchers. She had been here a few times before studying the nebulae though her placement there had been more to keep her out of the way then make use of her expertise. Once the heat had died down so to speak she was reassigned and someone with a better handle on cosmetology had been sent in her place.

But the outpost was dark … not in the sense that there were no power readings those were all normal though no one contacted her on communications. It was abnormal to say the least ...

Though it came at a price, Alexandra managed to escape from the one called Master in a short amount of time. Rehabilitation went better and thankfully there was no chemical addiction to deal with. The slave known as Alicia was nowhere to be found when the ADD found the agent's ship. Whoever that woman was, it was apparent that she was not human.

The ADD did their best to keep their prized scientist safe. The bounty on Alexandra's head was a bit surprising. The Master did not seem to be that interested in her else he would have made more of an effort to tame her. Still, it gave the ADD more of a reason to keep their precious agent safe.

It took nearly a month to produce another nanosuit. The blueprints were readily available to the agent but supplies and methods still required a great deal of effort. Alexandra was not often seen without her suit as it was her only protection should something decide to surprise her. Even in the ADD, she was no longer feeling safe.

Alexandra was assigned to a new outpost to help with research. Though her luck with such missions tend to not go in her favor, it was better than the alternatives. Unfortunately, the woman's luck remained much the same as she came to the planet to find no one to respond to her hails. There were power readings on the planet showing that something was on down there. But, no one was answering the phone it seemed.

For the moment, Alexandra would remain in the planet's orbit. She continued to call down to the planet on multiple frequencies to try and find anyone down there.

It had appeared that whoever had been on the outpost had simply vanished. There had been no abnormal readings and while she remained in orbit her scans didn't pick up anything unusual other the the fact that no one was answering her hails. Then someone did, well sort of.

There was no voice in response to hers but someone was down there. The comm clicked on as if a response was coming but all she could make out was noise, something shuffling around or moving. The duration didn't last too long though she heard a click ending the comm.

It was odd to say the least and to make matters worse there had been a ship that popped out of hyperspace near the planet. It didn't have any weapons or shields up, far smaller than a battle ship but larger than a fighter it was a transport of some unknown sort.

Shields went up but power to the weapons didn't as if the pilot was being cautious. It approached but not too quickly, casually and before she had been able to do so the light on her comm panel lit up. Thing were happening so smoothly over there that there was no mistaking that there had to be a well oiled crew.

“Greetings,” came a silky feminine voice. “Have you come in response to the emergency beacon as well? I am Kir of the Seeker and you?”

"This is Agent Alexandra Losev of the Alien Defense Directorate," she replied to the message. Something strange was going on down there on the planet. The coms were clicking but there was no response at all. Now, there was this alien vessel here all of the sudden.

"I have not heard any beacon, Kir. What are you talking about?" she answered. Their shields were up but weapons were offline. Still, Alexandra would rather they just go away. For all she knew, they were pirates or slavers. The agent would stop trying to hail the research outpost for fear of the ship figuring out more than they needed to know.

With all that had happened to her in the past she was a bit paranoid. The outpost remained relatively silent though and if someone tried to get out a message and was prevented or the comm was turned on by accident indicated that there was some sort of trouble down there but what? If the staff could answer they would have for certain.

And now there was a ship here. It was moving closer though more like coasting towards her position. Her hails to the outpost stopped. “Not too long ago we received an automated message originating from her at ...” a brief pause as information must have been looked up. She was given a reference in time that had been about six hours back.

While in hyperspace the ship would have been cut off from communication and civilian vessels rarely had real time communication with other ships or planets though most modern technologies didn't have much of a delay this close or in system o hip to hip communication wasn't impeded so much.

She would get her wish of being left alone though, the military nature of her vessel obvious and it seemed Kir was either a helpful transport captain in which case she could get in the way or a pirate or other criminal preying on the misfortunes of others in which case seeing a military presence here already may have changed their minds about things.

The vessel would depart though if unable to assist. Shields were being dropped, the ship peeled off and would make a jump when clear of the planet's gravity well. The agent had been left to ponder her next move. There were suppose to be five people down there. One agent and four researchers.

The supplies she had consisted of food, spare parts for their telescopes and some other minor stuff. There were some entertainment items. Scans of the planet revealed that the world had a breathable atmosphere (as she already knew) and it was mostly water with islands everywhere (again what she already knew from being here before). There had been more then a few places where she could set down and make a hike to the outpost too though finding ground firm enough to land on at one of the beaches would be a bit challenging their were plenty of mountains with both active and inactive volcanoes where the ground was firmer and there was better tree cover nearby. If she took her time she could find a suitable spot to land at or even use the guns on her ship to make her own landing zone using the mountains as a screen to the outpost but depending on how fancy she got would influence the time it would take to get to the outpost.

If she didn't want to be noticed at all then the mountains though it would take more time going through the forest to get to the outpost. From the beach it would be much easier though with no over for her craft. It would be easier to detect but unless their were other ships down there then it may not matter.

Six hours ago? Why was it disabled now though? Did someone turn it off? There was no way to know without further investigation. Alexandra would wait for Kir to leave. She was not even sure if they could help even if they wanted to. Alone again, the agent returned to hailing the planet before moving into the planet's atmosphere.

Before making any landing attempts, she would fly over the outpost to try and get a visual of what may have happened down there. If everything seemed normal besides the lack of people, Alexandra would set to land in the usual landing area for delivering supplies. If there was something out there, they probably already know she was here due to her hails. With her nanosuit and blaster armed, the agent would proceed with her search for the others.

No response from the planet. This time it had remained silent. A fly by allowed her to scan the outpost both with her instruments and visually. The landing pad was empty and while she had been getting power readings from the outpost they had not been exceptional. Lower then unusual she guessed but not totally dead either.

The lights were off and the doors to the place shut. They were locked too but having spent time here in the past she knew they were valid in getting in. Not that anyone would be interested in the data collected her outside of those in that field it didn't hurt to be prepared and that preparation assisted her now.

The first thing she noted had been the lights were off. From machinery, doors and computers there were lights. It wasn't totally dark though. The emergency generators caused a dim red light to glow here. The second thing she notice had been how warm it was. The environmental controls were way off though if she got to the generators she could regulate the temperature and get the lights back online.

Plenty of doors inside had been sealed and locked though she wouldn't have much of a problem opening them. From the computers though she would find that the lights and generators had been apart from them which was odd since the computers just couldn't connect to them but should have … as if they had been disabled from the network.

Worse had been the scorch marks on the walls, ceiling and floors here and there. One of the computers had been hit too and damaged by obvious blaster fire. There were the quarters of the staff, the generators and a few labs one to monitor images of the nebula from the deep space telescope along with a cafeteria rest rooms and a few other regions such as a game room. From the looks of it the only damage was to the lone computer and the inability to remotely adjust the lights or environmental controls.

While looking over things she had though she heard scurrying from one of the vents above.

Doors were locked, lights were off, and not a soul to be seen. The locks were still powered as was everything else. The agent easily opened the door as the locks still recognized her as authorized to be here.

The first thing the agent tried were the lights only to find that none of them were working. Not wishing to dive into the abyss without a torch, Alexandra grabbed a flash light from her ship and used that for some better illumination than just the emergency lights.

Inside only produced more questions than answers. There were signs of fighting and it looked like the agents stationed here put up a fight. The alien ship that came by mentioned a distress signal. Did they manage to send one out before it was disabled. Checking a working console for the most recent logs and reports would be the next best step.

The sound of scurrying above her made her stop as she pointed her blaster towards the source of the sound. She shined her light to try and see what was moving around up there. For now, Alexandra remained silent as she kept her distance from what vents were in the room as she made her way to another room that should have a console in it.

Double checking the information that Kir relayed to her she did manage to access the logs of the outpost. It was odd though … there was a simple automated distress signal that had been sent from here but the timing had been all wrong. It was sent over a day ago and cut off nearly as quickly as it was generated.

There had been no time to ponder that as he attention had been brought to the vents. Backing out of the room she found another, one of the labs, which had a console. The door was sealed like all the others and opened up easily enough. Mindful of the vents she was able to look over what information she could.

It appeared as if the distress was send out over a day ago shortly after something went wrong triggering an automatic lock down of the doors. Easy enough to get out by the staff here there had been no record of the external doors being accessed.

Files relaid that they were trying to contain something in the outpost. According to what she read at the time this was entered no one had been hurt though some sort of unknown life forms had been set loose. The outpost was deliberately locked down but when external power was being interfered with the researchers and agent sealed themselves into the mess hall.

There were a few further notes about these life forms that resembled eels and moved like snakes. Further reading indicated that there were two eggs that had been logged for study discovered at the beach. Notes mentioned that they were believed to be intelligent and after the agent was injured the group had decided their best option was waiting for assistance when they failed to check in though there was no date the log couldn't be older than a day or two.

One thing she remembered about the terminals was that they were all networked making it easy to pull up your work from one to the next. So she could send information to all of the terminals from her own and vice versa. It was no IM service but if she got stuck in an area or someone else was they could still communicate to an extent.

The vent here had one grating she had to be mindful of but noting could be heard in it at the time.

The logs made it sound like the survivors were still here and just hiding in the various locked rooms. She found it hard to believe that a few eels were all it took to overthrow the entire outpost. The distress signal did not match the time Kir picked it up either. Kir also arrived through hyperspace which implied a long distance traveled. If Kir picked up on this signal, why did no one else?

The network seemed to be working and it should be easy enough to open up a log with another user if anyone was still around. She opened chat and searched for any active users. If the group had been separated, this would be easy enough to communicate through. Failing that, Alexandra would send her own message to everyone on the outpost to see if anyone was around and watching the logs.

With the door locked, the only concern was the vent. But, there was not a sound beyond fingers hitting keys as Alexandra tried to figure out more about what happened here and where the missing agents were.

Some things just did not make sense to her. The timing of Kir's ship, the outpost being crippled by just two of these eel things. One agent was injured though and she could assume that the researchers had little combat training but they should have had basic training at least.

That left three of them and two eels. There wasn't much information on these eels either or what they actually were. Had there been others if what she read about them being discovered at the beach was true and there was no reason not to believe they were.

The survivors she found had been in the mess hall. The computer there was a simple one for keeping track of menus and inventory mostly though there were those that worked through lunch too and so it too was networked. There were areas there were personal devices could be plugged in to and it did not take her long to get a response.

No one was paying any particular attention to the computers but when the screen changed with her input someone noticed. Not straight away but not after a few line were typed in.

ARE YOU HERE?
DANGEROUS.
TWO ORGANISMS.

A pause, someone was typing on the other end the computer indicated.

INTELLIGENT LIFE FORMS. PSIONIC. ALTERED ENVIROMENTAL CONTROLS AND DISABLED OUTBOUND TRANSMISSIONS. PINNED IN HERE.

Another pause though this time she heard engines of a ship setting down on the landing pad or was it her own taking off?

Finally, a response from what Alexandra hoped was another human being. The short hand typing was annoying but readable though most of it was already known to the agent. What she did not know was that the creatures were psychic. Great, psychic eels. How eels that should not have arms could cause so much trouble was still odd to Alexandra. But, expecting competent agents was sadly difficult from her own experience.

The sound of a ship outside made her stop what she was doing. Did Kir come back? It was doubtful that someone could hijack an ADD vessel. The ship would only work for agents and even if that was bypassed, there were several other fail safes to prevent some random alien from stealing an agent's ship. Such precautions were required when going to neutral space ports.

Still, who was out there? She tried to see if she could pull up any sensors or surveillance information.

She got a little more information. Whether it had been her ship out there or the Seeker she could still hear engines idling though it took her a few moments to minimize the window she was in and bring up any external camera feeds. There were several most being outside to monitor the perimeter though the landing pad could be monitored and …

This was bad.

She had unlocked the outpost to get in and they had to be inside now. She could see a transport set down near her ship with a landing ramp down at the base of it had been a lone humanoid figure. The camera didn't have the greatest angle on him but he was scaly and blue wearing some sort of black uniform she did not recognize. Of all things he was wielding a three pronged trident.

Hearing movement there were others inside near the entrance she guessed. On the plus side they could only get in to the rooms she unlocked unless they had a hacker or some other method to access the doors. Small chance that they were hear to lend assistance and as it looked she only had additional problems to deal with.

The cameras were meant to observe the outside and not the inside. There were fewer cameras inside, one at a storeroom to prevent theft probably and another at the entrance. From that one she counted four of these blue skinned creatures, scaly bald creatures with webbed fingers. Aquatic origins she surmised and she could even make out gills with this camera. They two had tridents and two had blaster rifles.

One had a series of knifes attached by a bandoleer and another had a grenade, from the looks it was fragmentation. They moved in pairs with one covering the other until they got further in splitting up with a trident and blaster guy in each group.

Alexandra's eyes narrowed at the sight of the invaders. She still had no clue why they were here but she assumed they were slavers. If not, they are probably here for territorial reasons. The agent was not familiar with this species but she could safely assume they fall just the same from blaster fire and brute force if necessary.

The group was already splitting up to cover more ground. Two on one was hardly fair but it was better than dealing with four at once. She continued to watch them, focusing more on the group that was closer to her room. Either they would try her room first or Alexandra would have an opportunity to sneak up on them should they try a different room instead. For now, she watched and waited. When the opportunity presented itself, she would quickly move in with blaster in hand to take out one while striking the other with her fist. Her suit would provide some protection while also enhancing her physical capabilities.

Watching she already knew that one group would encounter a bunch of locked doors though she was unaware what they would do about that. The second group met with some locked doors though not as many as there were a few she opened and it appeared that they were going to the open doors rather then attempting to force locked ones.

The group furthest from her kept moving on until they stopped glancing up to a vent. They must have heard something, she couldn't be 100% sure as there had been only video but from her own experience she believed it was reasonable. One even pointed to a vent but she saw little else as it was time to make her move.

The others entered into a large chamber were they could go one of two ways, either towards her in the lab or towards the mess hall. They picked the second option though this allowed her to catch up to the pair as they moved from that room.

The corridors were large enough where three or even four humans could move along them side to side. Bad in stopping large groups from getting at her but great for getting the best angel for her shot. The guy with the rifle was in the lead though as they came up to the door. He was also the guy with the grenade too. The one with the trident was behind him.

A shot took down the guy with the blaster just as he was turning away from the locked door and a shot that would have hit him at the back of the head instead hit him in the shoulder, it was just a fluke run of luck though he was thrown back into a wall his rifle clattering on the ground. Unconscious or dead, he was at least wounded but there was no time to deal with his status as she moved in as the second was turning in her direction.

Her suit offered her enhanced strength. She smashed the second in the jaw, staggered him as he took a few steps back, no she realized that he was rolling with her punch so she did not catch him flush either instinct to pull away or lots and lots of training where his muscles just reacted.

Even as he stepped back he swung the trident at her more like a staff or club rather then jabbing at her with a thrust. There was some green blood at the corner of his jaw, a glint of maliciousness in his eyes. After the swing hit or miss he would draw the trident up in a mot unusual manner as if it were a rifle where upon she would see that the prongs were blunted and hollow, the weapon was both a bludgeoning one as well as a blaster though probably not an accurate one it offered a wider area of effect but must have been inaccurate and hard to aim. This close though would he miss? Or would he shoot at all as he had not fired it straight away either, not unless she fired her own again ...