Onboard Chrysalis, Eldon decided that the first order of business should be to call their Resistance contact, Stumpwater Jack, and ask him what he could dig up on Torden Kerrick. Jack told them basically what Kelextra had, although less detailed: that he was a rogue commander in the Imperial fleet who had taken a sizeable portion of the Imperial armada with him when he went rogue. Kelextra interrupted the conversation by asking Eldon to cut the contact for a moment, while she finished explaining her story.

Kelextra was part of a six-person drow commando team who had been sent by Kerrick to find the Necromancer, the dreadnought belonging to Terdeth Kyynn, a dreaded necromantic wizard from a thousand years ago, on which the mythical Sphere of Destiny was said to be. Amazingly, they actually managed to find the derelict, and each of them had the coordinates imprinted on their neural patterns in case something went wrong.

While Kelextra watched the ship, her comrades went over to the dreadnought to find the Sphere -- but something went horribly wrong. Kelextra recieved a frantic message from her teammates telling her that they were under attack, which was cut off mid-call. After waiting for two days, with no sign of her fellow commandos, Kelextra fled, knowing that Kerrick would scour the galaxy looking for her and the information in her head.

She then explained that she would have to have the coordinates removed from her neural system before they could be accessed. Marcus put in that he knew a good, trustworthy neurosurgeon on his homeworld of Khaleth who could possibly retrieve the coordinates for them. The rest of the group agreed that after they got the rest of their money for the shipping job, they would head there.

Returning to his conversation with Jack, Eldon asked him to do what he could to spread some bad propoganda about Kerrick. Jack said he would do his best, but could not promise much. With that, the communication ended and the group returned to Mercyra to retreive their money.

Meanwhile, on the way, Kelextra gave the group a recording of the last message she had recieved from her comrades. Marcus was able to isolate several of the sounds in the message and the group concluded that the drow commandos had been killed by a large number of either zombies or skeletons on the derelict ship.

While Gaspar, Archanis, Ashimar and Magnus (who had been in his bunk reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series all this time) went to get the rest of the money, Eldon, Kelextra and Marcus made the necessary preparations to leave for Khaleth. On the way back, Gaspar and Archanis noticed someone following them. At the same time, Eldon, in the cockpit, noticed five orcs carrying a heavy machine gun enter the docking bay and head toward Chrysalis. Eldon had Chrysalis aim her laser cannons at them, though, and the orcs retreated, leaving their gun behind, which Eldon and Marcus retrieved. Meanwhile, the others were returning to the ship, leading whoever was shadowing them into the docking bay, where Eldon, Marcus and Kelextra would be waiting with the machine gun.

Before the others could arrive, though, the orcs who had brought the machine gun returned and attacked Eldon, Marcus and Kelextra while they were outside the ship. While Marcus was setting up the machine gun, Eldon and Kelextra managed to kill all the orcs. About this time, the others arrived, and the orcs who had been tailing them attacked as soon as they entered the cargo bay. The group made short work of them, although a few people were lightly injured.

Once the docking bay security had come to clear the bodies away, the group set off for Khaleth. Marcus was able to easily find his way back to his homeworld, and Chrysalis docked on the high-tech Imperial world without much trouble, since Eldon and Marcus had made a fake registration for her (the Frisky Cat, which had garnered quite a lot of laughter from the control tower operators). While Marcus, Kelextra, Magnus and Gaspar went to meet Marcus' doctor friend, Eldon, Archanis and Ashimar went shopping in Khaleth's high-tech capital city.

Eldon bought a passenger car and a motorcycle for use when on a planet, and Archanis managed to find several weapons from a black-market source. Ashimar made the best find, however: at a technomagic shop, he managed to pick up a broch which automatically cast "mage armor" for the wearer. After returning with the car, Eldon took Ashimar and Archanis to meet the others at the doctor's lab.

TO BE CONTINUED...