[Skillcheck UB3R~JKP - 2]

"FEISAR agent! Stop right where you are!" cried out a voice as Denso finished tying the rocket to his back. A trio of Triakis guards had burst out of the way the two members of the European squad had come from. The captain of the squadron that had been called in as backup hadn't missed the rusted old ladder and sent a trio of his men up. It hadn't been hard to trace the scuffs and marks in the dust where the two had run away and into the deeper parts of the mines.

"He's got a Scottish flag on, mate," scowled one of the guards, spinning his stun baton in a gloved grip. "He's Icaras."

"We'll have to see about that," purred a dark voice from behind the guards. A thick-set man shouldered his way out from between his men, blocking off the only escape route to the surface. He held a stun pistol in his hand, and rather than a combat suit he was in a standard issue Triakis flight suit, mostly orange but with the distinctive camouflage markings around the lower arms and legs. Anyone who'd followed the FX350 season would have recognised him as Harding and Stephenson's third pilot, now relegated to a test role.

"I don't quite appreciate you two taking what's ours. If we can't have it, neither can you," crooned the Brazilian ex pilot. Joao Acosta lowered his stun pistol and let loose a firm blast at Denso. The shot missed the man but collided with the rocket on his back. The light went from blue to yellow, flashing erratically. And then it turned red.

----

(XR - no playing of my NPCs. -2 to your next skillcheck roll)

Mrs Mowell narrowed her eyes at Mark, taking off her spectacles to peer at him closer.

"Now I'm beginning to wonder if you're just a lost kid playing about here," she snapped. "Potato chips and soda? What sort of envoy are you from Auricom?" She opened up her own PDA and gave a little alert to her superiors. "I've got a young intruder in the mines here... I think we need to take him up top and get in touch with Auricom. He's wearing one of their outfits... could be a thief."

----

[Skillcheck trackripper - 19]

The cavern that Ge had entered was once an underground pool of sorts, stalactites and stalagmites dotted about the ceiling and floor, the soft drip of water the only sound beside the Chinaman's breathing at first. However, as Ge followed further into the chamber, he'd see the results of the Temtesh disaster.

Shlaudecker's Piranha had got off worst in the explosion - having been on one of the lower routes when the supports had come crumbling down, it had sent the Swiftkiller rocketing into the lower reaches of the mine and crashing through several layers of rock. The nose of the craft was buckled and twisted almost all the way up to the cockpit and engine. The open-air cockpit gave a pretty violent view of what had happened to the German pilot - the glass was stained brown with age-old blood and the figure in the cockpit was hunched forward in a way that no living person would be able to replicate.

Shlaudecker's skeleton was still dressed in his faded Piranha overalls, though his helmet was cracked open at the front with the force of the impact into the stone walls. When you're sent at over nine hundred kilometres an hour into a solid wall of Australian sandstone, there's only one result despite what Overtel had promised safety-wise. His dog tags had fallen out of his outfit and glinted in tarnished silver on the front of his race suit, the chain still draped over his skeletal shoulders.

However, the Swiftkiller was not alone in its' tomb. The detonation of Paul Cheung's eG-r had not had quite the effect that the team had wanted - sure, the ship was buried many miles underground, but it hadn't removed every last bit of evidence. The hull of the claret-and-white ship was upended in a pool, currently being used as a home for a collection of pale ghost crabs. The other sign of life however was that of a crumpled body lying against a wall on the far side of the chamber in a tattered and torn suit matching his ship.

Paul Cheung's head was encased in some kind of smoky green glass, filled with a fluid of some unknown sort. A metallic mask covered his mouth and nose, keeping him fed and aired most likely in his state of hibernation. The eG-r ships had tried to meld human with machine, and Cheung was one of the best examples. It seemed that in his near death status, the cybernetic parts of his body had taken over and kept him alive for a hopeful rescue from his team. The flashlight that Ge saw was the blinking distress signal on the front of the man's chest.