Captain Tola Chan was rocked awake by a violent jolt, falling from her bunk and onto the cold steel of the deck as her entire ship vibrated around her. Warning sirens began to blare causing the room to pulse with deep red light as she staggered to her feet and raced for the door, still half asleep, feet bare against the cold metal as she raced down the hall and towards the bridge.

Captain Chan forced her way onto the bridge even as her name was being called over the intercom. Despite an attempt at competent professionalism, the voice over the intercom was one of near panic. She raced forward, bare feet cold on the deck below her as she forced the night shift lieutenant out of her seat.

She was awake now, hastily pulling her hair into a tight bun out of her face.

"Someone give me a damn status report, what hit us?" She assumed soemthing had hit them, it was really the only explanation on what could cause a ship to move like that.

Just before her, the signals lieutenant scrambled to scrape together a satisfactory answer, the agitation of the moment thickening his Slavic accent, "I don't know captain, I can't, see anything o the radar, either long or short range. There.... There are no signals. I...."

"Then use your eyes lieutenant." She barked, "What do you see."

It was a pointless and redundant question, as all of them, including her could see that there was nothing out of forward view screen, and no indication that their ship had been hit by anything at all despite the jolt they had all felt earlier, and the sirens which continued to blare over their heads.

"Captain, ship systems are reporting a malfunction on B deck Airlock.'

With those words came a nervous shift around the room

"Seal the deck B outer bulkhead." She ordered before, "What kind of malfunction."

"Not sure yet, the system isn't responding I..."

And that's when she felt the cold barrel of a gun pressing into the soft skin behind her ear. No one else noticed at first, to intent on their tasks working the problem, but she was left silent and wide eyed, watching as, in one coordinated movement, her entire bridge was subdued before they even had chance to make resistance.

"That would be your onboard airlock system being hacked by advanced codebreaking AI technology. Don't worry, there's nothing you could have done to stop it." A shiver ran up her spine. The voice that spoke was soft, and conversational, but somehow managed to permeate the room. The entire crew turned and froze, only now becoming aware of the heavily armed squad of what could only have been pirates holding each of them at gunpoint.

"Lets just stay calm everyone" The voice continued, "We are not here to harm you or you people, follow our orders and behave, and no one has to get hurt. Stand, put your hands behind your head and lay down on the floor keeping your hands behind your head. If you make a move that we deem to be hostile, you will be dealt with." The voice sighed, "For risk of sounding like the world's biggest cliché, don't try to be a hero."

Someone giggled, "You've always wanted to say that haven't you."

"Not the time."

"Sorry sir."

Captain Chan stood from her chair and went to her knees like the others, though she was stopped before she could lay down as the man holding the gun to her head took a step around in front of her forcing her to crane her neck up to look at him.

It was only now she noticed the slight whirring noise when he moved, how the weight of his footsteps was somehow heavier than they should have been. Every step, and every stride was quick and fluid, in a way that.... just wasn't normal.

She craned her neck upwards.

The man standing above her now was tall, perhaps six three with his boots on.

He wore a lived-in brown leather jacket, scuffed by years of use, and a whole lot of care, not tattered.

Old but well cared for.

He wore black cargo pants and a leg holster for either side with tall boots that went almost to his knees. From here she could see the boots must have been expensive. Glowing green lights lit up their heels and the small six-sided logo for Hexus industries, the company primarily responsible for the creation and production of gravity field products, like artificial gravity in ships, gravity belts on EVA suits, and so it seemed, gravity boots.

Under his jacket, the man wore a tight-fitting chest plate glowing with neon green strips from the battery reserve, and if she squinted, she could just detect the glowing energy of a dampening field like a greenish halo around his body. The chest plate matched the black and green vambraces, gauntlets and greaves which he wore: jolt armor.

Tilting her head the last few feet she could see his face, or the mask that hid his face, a stylized skull with glowing green optics for eye sockets.

He didn't need to be wearing a mask for her to know who he was.

Her fast twisted into an expression of distain.

She spat on the floor at his feet.

"Traitor."

He stared at her, and though she could not see his face through the mask, she thought she could sense a measure of.... Sadness in the way he looked at her.

She didn't give a shit.

He turned and sat in her captains chair, making her squirm with anger and discomfort as he began rifling through her ship inventory from the command chair, giving him access to all ship facilities. After finding what he was looking for, his hands paused over an image: a warrant issued from central command back on earth.

It appeared in the center of the room as a glowing hologram.

WANTED

ADMIRAL ADAM ALLEN VIR

HIGHLY DANGEROUS: DO NOT APPRAOCH

With a number listed blow.

He stared at the image for a while, but then stood, adjusting his jacket.

"They're holding the weapons on deck C, get in and get out as fast as you can, avoid hurting anyone if at all possible, you know the rules."

One of his men made a call down to another team that must have been waiting elsewhere on the ship.

"Alright, let me make this very clear. Me and my crew are not here for you, we are here for the cargo on Deck C, when we leave, if you make any move against us we will have no choice but to vaporize your ship from the sky, is that understood."

He was looking at her when he spoke, but she sneered.

"With what ship."

He stared at her for a long moment and then reached up to tap his radio, "Simon."

With that one word, the field of stars out their front windscreen vanished, replaced by a sight that made her want to melt to a puddle inside her boots: A massive ship, painted black with red war markings across its massive hull, and a massive set of railguns pointed directly at them.

"I don't think I need to make myself clearer than that?" The man said mildly

She clenched her fists feeling herself tremble with anger.

"How could you."

He didn't respond.

"How could you betray your own people." She continued, unable to contain the rage she felt seeping out of her. As if she had been personally slighted by this man.

And in a way.

She felt she had been.

There was a pause, and The man reached up and pulled the mask from his face revealing him as who she had known to be all along.

She flinched backwards slightly noting the thready lines of orange red light pulsing through the veins under his skin as he looked down at her.

Ex-admiral Vir looked older than the pictures and magazine covers she had seen him on and in. His hair was almost snow white tinted grey, and his face was marked by a collection of delicate scars. He was not wearing the eyepatch which had, once, been so synonymous with his eccentric but, almost lovable character.

Instead she could see the appetite of his mechanical eye glittering in the light.

He sighed. The crew around him waiting as the cargo was retrieved from deck C, "I wish there was soemthing I could say to you, to everyone that would prove I'm not the traitor you think I am, that II had nothing to do with Kelly's death, that I have been and always will be a man of earth, that everything I am doing right now is in an attempt to flush out the corruption which is spreading through our world and our government..... that President Hunt is the reason Kelly is dead." He looked her over, drinking in the look on her face, "But I know that is too much to ask, after all the UNSC has hidden from you, after learning about what I am and what I have done...... well I can't blame your hatred."

He stepped forward, closer to her before looking up at the rest of her crew, "I know the media wants you to hate me, I know that acting president Hunt is doing his damn best to shape me as a villain, but these weapons you are carrying are headed for A1-36 where they are being distributed to anti-alliance forces preparing for eventual war against the GA. Even if you ARE anti alliance I have no problem with that, but to incite a war against the GA would be catastrophic for earth and her colonies. I intend to prevent that in the only way I know how...... you all read the leaked documents, you know about the makers and the void, so I have no issue telling you that I have reason to believe that president hunt is in collusion with the void, and that he intends to act against our best interests."

The expression on his face was still sad as he said.

"I wish this was all different, I wish I could have stopped it..... I filed you.... I failed everyone. But I will keep fighting until my last breath."

Captain Chan stared at him in soemthing halfway between awe incredulity and downright disgust. He really DID believe what he was saying was true.

He thought he was the good guy in this scenario.

A traitor and a turncoat to the UN and he somehow managed to convince himself that he was in the right.

The look on her face did not go unnoticed.

But he didn't try to argue with her, "Stay safe Captain Chan." He said softly before stepping away, "I don't need to remind you what will happen to your ship if you offer resistance."

She remained on the floor listening to the sound of his heels against the metal, until long after he was gone, standing only when his ship pulled away and vanished into the infinite black.

***

"Thank you William, and now tonight onto the continued hunt for ex-Admiral Vir and his crew Jonathan?"

"Thank you Cathy, a little over two months ago, a tragedy and a startling turn of events nearly ripped our nations apart as President Kelly, former acting Admiral of the UNSC, was murdered just moments after her inauguration as president of the UN as, simultaneously, the internet was flooded with a multitude of leaked UNSC documents which facilitated a spiral into chaos."

"Riots grip the streets of almost every major city as religious factions devolve into infighting and chaos. Riot police have worked from sunup to sundown to prevent widespread property damage and full scale government takeovers."

Irving Hellaway: Corporate data analyst

"The entire world is reeling really, and it is no surprise that we are seeing this sort of behavior. Having looked over the leaked government documents, we have seen that this presented evidence almost completely invalidates each and every world religion known to man since the beginning of time. Based on what we have concluded there is some evidence that our ancestors may have known some of this information, as tenants of the truth are evident within many religious doctrines, but at the end of the day what these documents are saying is that humanity and other races were created by an unknown alien entity in order to house something called an anima, or spirit in order to hide it from some sort of..... dark force bent on universal destruction."

"And at the heat of this crisis, a betrayal of the greatest proportions which has left the public reeling."

Shawn Richards: University of Melmont

"I guess I don't know what to think, I really looked up to the man only to learn about what he had done. It's really disheartening. In all this you would have hoped he would be on our side, but now we see he was lying to us the whole time, about everything.

"Among the leaked documents, containing information which implicated once cultural icon, and Military commander Admiral Vir of withholding information from the public, including evidence of the Makers, and close friendly ties with the Celzex Imperial emperor."

Jackie Wiggins: UN Weapons Expert

"The Celzex are, one of the oldest species in the galaxy generally being known as aggressive and dictatorial, if not oppressive in their ruling standards. With these documents, we now have evidence that they were much worse than we originally thought. The reports indicated in these files demonstrate that Emperor Celex had previously glassed on of his own planets in order to put down a rebellion, and while the UN has indeed partnered with opposing government structures they found disagreeable I the past, there was evidence of direct ties, even friendship, between admiral Vir and dictator Celex, which I think begs the question as to how a man like that could.... Stand on any sort of moral high ground knowing what that creature has done to his own people."

"Military veterans from the drev war are now receiving widespread backlash after the Unit fifteen steel eye suit helmet footage was released."

Eun-Ji Kafka: Military Tactician Specalist University of North Umber

"The debate is real, and very concerning. What we see here is evidence of.... Brutality henceforth unknown in military warfare. From what we know it has been factually proven that Unit fifteen was the call sign attached to Admiral Vir during his time during the steel eye project, and the videos are really very disturbing. Of course you cant show it but there are multiple instances of dismemberment, disembowelment and even once instance where a Drev spine was forcibly removed from the body,... by hand. Now after a review of the video there really is backlash against the steel eye operatives, for, I think good reason, as there is evidence that they were not NOT lucid as was claimed in the court case against the UNSC. In these recordings we can clearly see that he was in fact lucid during this entire period and aware when he preformed these actions, which.... I will say violate the Geneva conventions on.... A number of levels. What we are seeing In those videos are war crimes, pure and simple as that, and if not crimes against humanity than surely crimes against Sentience."

"And if that were not enough, leaked evidence, proven to have been held back from public viewing by the UNSC itself, a scandal, Evidence of an ongoing sexual relationship between ex admiral Vir and the saint of anin. Of course it was known that admiral Vir was an advocate for LFIL groups in the past but this leaked footage has left some members of the government to believe that perhaps Admiral vir's actions were never in earth's best interests."

Congressman Villem Jakov

"It's evidence of a clear bias. If the man could have had a physically intimate relationship with an alien than, there is no doubt that he was biased towards goals that would have influenced helping Drev and not his own people. We had a man out there who, was more interested in another species than he was in keeping his own people safe. And personally I think that's disgusting, that he could have lied to us for so long and about soemthing that important, and you know the Saint is like their equivalent of a government and political figure. Its like if we learned that the Chairwoman of the GA was having an affair with the pope, clearly something is wrong there and we need to do soemthing about it."

"Outrage across the colonies, as only two days after kelly's death Admiral Vir is seen entering his ship and then going dark, cutting off contact from the UNSC who were in the process of calling for his court martial."

UN President Olvier Hunt.

"It's a real tragedy for us to admit it, a real tragedy. But there is evidence that Admiral Vir was involved in Kelly's death. For starters his relationship with the saint of anin demonstrates a clear bias, and intelligence suggests that the Drev who murdered admiral Kelly is actually the mother of the saint of Anin. Not only that but then there is the Void sickness, which we now know was spread by admiral Vir himself, and I think is safe to say resulted out of, likely, physical intimacy between him and aliens, maybe just the saint of anin maybe others, and then change and propagated to spread from there. Now he hasn't contacted the UNSC and is reported to be actively committing crimes against UNSC targets including piracy, theft among other things. He has clearly committed mutiny against the UNSC and and this point I am inclined to say that this was an act of terrorism."

Isa Dimo: Attorney General

"You see that is what we are trying to figure out, is this or is this not an act of terrorism. Most certainly admiral Vir has committed mutiny, mutiny being an open rebellion against the proper authorities, especially by soldiers or sailors against their officers. But terrorism is hard to nail down being defined as the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. There is some debate among judicial members as to weather an act of terrorism has been committed, if he was indeed involved in Admiral kelly's death than we might assume so, as well as his involvement with piracy against UNSC ships, though some argue that since those are military vessels it is an act of war rather than an act of terrorism. I think the biggest thing here we should be discussing is Treason: the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government." Which has clearly been enacted here. If nothing else Admiral Vir has committed mutiny and treason against his own people."

The screen shut off, cutting the blue light that filled the room plunging it into near darkness leaving only the glowing red of the nearby nebulae as a source of light.

"You really shouldn't torture yourself like this." Sunny said sitting down next to him.

Adam didn't look at her staring down at his hands, "Terrorist." He muttered scoffing slightly under his breath which then devolved into a breathy, thready laugh unusually dark and bitter.

When he moved his body whirred softly.

Red light glowed over the steel cage around his skin. In the dim li.ght the line of metal that crawled up his spin was easy to see. Unlike bulkier designs before it, the metal was flat, pressed tight against the skin following the line of the spine. The flat surfaces allowed for more coverage hugging him around the torso, and arms and leg as if he was trapped inside a cage of metal

known as the SE2 protoskeleton: this armor marriage of Steel eye and iron eye technology, developed by the same company that had invented iron eye. The SE or (Steel Eye) 2 was one of the most advanced developments in cybernetics in the world, and was so integrated into the human system that it was classed as a A1- Mechanical enhancement.

It was some of the most expensive technology that could be put on a human body.

It was not designed to be taken off.

Sunny slid sideways wrapping her upper arms around his chest, "You know you aren't." She said softly tracing a hand down his side before stopping atop his left thigh.

Instead of warm, soft skin all she could feel was metal.

He didn't look at her.

"Maybe there right. I should have just taken the court martial, given up the ship."

"You know what my mother is capable of. If you hadn't done what you did there would be no one who understood her and could oppose her."

He went silent.

She let her hands roam, trying, in vain to get a rise out of him, to take his mind off of the news feeds and the continuous reports that bombarded the ship. She nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck and shoulder tracing the tip of her snout over his skin. He tilted his head slightly, and she watched as his skin erupted into goosebumps, but still his body was cold and still, more steel now than it was human.

Perhaps she could take his mind off of this all for a bit, she was good at that. She would coax the real Adam out for an hour or so before he crawled back inside his shell and let this part of him take over.

She pressed her upper hands to either side of his face, moving in front of him so he was forced to look at her.

"You aren't a terrorist, and they don't know what they're talking about.'

Her lower hands rested against his sides, feeling the warm skin through the cracks in the SE shell.

"Would you like a distraction."

He looked about ready to say no, but paused.

A small smile flickered across his face, remnants of his old self as he quipped, "If you can manage to distract me, yes.'

Sunny never backed down from a challenge.

And she generally always won

***

But that is how it was, Adam had given his crew a chance to leave the ship before committing, what he knew, would be an act of mutiny. In fact he had begged the m to go so as not to loose their reputations and their livelihoods.

His words meant nothing.

They understood what was happening, understood about Kazna and the grander implications.

There in the silence of the cargo hold , the voice of one man was all that was needed to demonstrate their feelings.

Ramirez sighed rubbed his head and looked up. The smile on his face was tired, but firm, "Well, I've always wanted to be a pirate."