For our name is Vengeance

[Chronicron]

Sector 3B, Omicron Chi System.
828 A.S.

A seasoned warrior that he was, Sytch could never once consider that his own superiors would live him to die like they did - trapped inside of an installation so far from New Moscow that none would ever hear even a whisper of rumors about his demise. He saw comrades blow their own ships while delivering rigged anti-matter warheads straight into reactors of Rheinland Military's capital ships, but never once has he had someone give their own life for him. "This is a nightmare. An actual nightmare." His thoughts formed a hurricane of emotions as his barely intact yet still functional Roc steadily treaded its path towards an emergency meet-up point. The cloaking device has not yet failed him, nor was the ship giving up on him just yet. Worst yet, he had no idea where he would go from here - the Overwatch and the Revolutionary Army had surely set up blockades around every known passage into and out of the system. All that was left for him was to head to the rendezvous and hope that there were others.

His stock of cloak batteries was not yet dry, but he eventually made it to the spot. "Now... The emergency frequency. Come on... Somebody..." For moments of high treason, government overthrow or in case if someone would try to destroy them from within, Task Force "Sipukha" had emergency protocols, which included a meet-up spot and a secure radio frequency. The Edge Nebula's natural interference served as sufficient cover for a scenario that Sytch found himself in. "This is Operative Biryukov. I-I have made it to the rendezvous point. My ship is intact and I wasn't followed. Comrades, if any one of you hear this... Please, don't let me be the last one." Carefully considering his surroundings and in effort to preserve his cloak's charge for future needs, he disengaged his ship's camouflage. He was alone. Albeit, for a moment.

"Hello, Sytch." His proximity detector gave up an alarm - someone else was here, and they kept their distance. However, it did not take too long for the onlooker to show himself - another Roc equipped with a cloaking device, sporting a "Sipukha" signature. "Aist, is that you?". Sytch turned his bomber to face his colleague, but met an abrupt response to his movement. "Don't. Hands off your controls, now. I'm not taking any chances with you." Aist's voice was as cold as always. Sytch and everyone else knew him to be paranoid, but right now, no one was around to support Sytch in any manner. "Aist, what the hell are you thinking?" Notes of frustration and panic have given themselves out in his voice, however, to avoid unnecessary conflict, Sytch did as he was asked to. "What am I thinking, Sytch? Why don't you tell me?" Sytch sighed. He knew he was in for a long and arduous task. "Look, it wasn't me, okay? Nobody could have seen this coming. We were running security checks on the regular - you've been running them threefold every time, in case if anything slipped past you. If you think me a traitor, then why am I here with you?" To his own demise, Sytch was not making his own case better. On the contrary, this path of logic has only fed into Aist's paranoia. "You know, everything has gone to shit the moment you became assigned to Rostok a week ago. First it was the headquarters rotation, then the Order started to snoop around, and now the station has gone up in flames with hundreds of our people dead. You have to do better than this to convince me that you're not a traitor." Sytch swallowed a hefty gulp. Clearly his way of thinking was different from someone who served in the Task Force for months. "Cretan blood, Aist! You had my service record! I would sooner cut my hand off than betray my comrades! Who is to say you aren't the hitman hired by the Order, anyway?"

Sytch took a quick wrangle of his controls and turned to face his colleague, forcing Aist to hit the reverse thrusters - he no longer had the upper hand, he knew his ship was in a worse condition and that Sytch was a far better pilot. Yet a sense of his pride as an officer would not allow him to let go of the matter. "You dare call me a traitor?" His grip on the trigger intensified, his "Tunguska" aimed straight at Sytch's ship, He would have only one shot at this. "Who else? You were the first to show up here and you stayed silent on the emergency frequency, even though the protocol clearly dictates to show yourself to the rest if no one is around!" Becoming more certain in his words, Sytch took a stern hold of his ship's controls. Or perhaps he found Aist's paranoia to be contagious. Whatever the case was, the two last survivors of Rostok have found themselves at a standoff, each failing to convince the other of their allegiance.