Chapter 1 - The Crash

Graham sits at his position on the corner of the house and surveys the two sides of the house. Elan saw the intruders inside. Now he is crouching and moving his head, looking up and down the house front. Maybe checking for another place to look inside and get another angle?
Taelor had motioned something with her hands Graham didn't quite understand, but suddenly she darts from her cover towards the car in the driveway. So that's what she meant.
Graham peeks around the corner once more, but everything is quiet. As he turns his head back towards the front of the house he can see the door slowly and quietly opening. And Taelor is not yet at the car. Helplessly Graham looks around what he can do, but there is nothing he can do. Taelor is facing away from him and is already past the entrance. She doesn't seem to notice the door opening. Only moments until the intruders will see her. There are only about 3m between her and the car, but she won't make it to cover before they will see her. Panic starts spreading coldly in his chest.

"Hey, little man, where are going with that heavy thing? Let us help you."
"Yea, it looks like that crate is walking you, not the other way around."
The couple walks towards Statton, half arm in arm, slightly swaying, but laughing and with friendly smiles on their faces. Loud laughter and some music is spilling out of the bar through the still slightly open doors.
In the dark further down the road, Statton can make out another person slowly coming towards them in a casual manner.
Damn, Graham's place is so close, two more streets...

Graham sees the door opening, and knows there's little time to act. He takes one quick step back, stoops, and grabs the first thing he can get his hands on. A pebble, a piece of trash?
He grabs a small rock, and with a looping arc, tosses the little rock onto the roof above the door. He hopes the sound will startle them a bit, keeping them from poking their head out the door for one more moment.

For a dreadful moment Graham listens into the silence, while his projectile follows its arc towards its destination. It can only be a second or two, but it feels like eternity. The door opens more when finally the stone hits something, somewhere above the door.
Taelor's head jerks around and she realises the dire situation she is in. Driven mostly by instincts, lacking the time to properly think, she leaps forward with two large steps and brings the car between herself and the door.
In the same moment the first person steps out of the door, shortly looking up at where the pebble had hit, then continuing, making his way to the street. The two others follow, closing the door behind themselves.
They seem to be all men, one strong, the others lean and all dressed in dark.

Oh hell Statton smiles weakly at the couple and shakes his head, "Oh, Uh, th-thanks... I was just bringing this crate of supplies back to my home from, um, the port... which is where I work." His voice lilts up a little as he nears the end of the sentence. "I was actually just about to stop here. At the bar. On my way home. For a drink... ... thanks though!" He tries to smile as genuinely as he can at the couple as he props open the door to the bar with his foot and eases himself and the crate inside.

As he does so, he sneaks another look at the approaching figure.

Taelor stays low and tries to keep the car between her and the three goons. She didn't get a good look at them, but they didn't seem to have Sonia. Best to let them go and avoid an unnecessary fight, she thinks, worst case, I can use the car as cover.

Graham crouches slowly, using the corner of the house as cover. His pistol is trained on the goon on the right, and waits to see what they are doing. Will they go on alert, or just head back to their car? He hopes for the latter.
He waits, but if they suddenly get excited and reach for their guns, he's ready to take a life.
His own thoughts are confusing to him. "This is my new life. I chose this, and I can't tell if I love it or hate it."
One thing he does know, he has new friends who are counting on him.
"This, I like."
Maybe it's the new sense of purpose, maybe it's having people to count on, maybe he enjoys the responsibility...Graham can't put a finger on it. He puts those thoughts out of his head, and watches the situation unfold.

The three men approach the cars when the leading man taps his pockets and curses, "Hell, I left my com inside. Mike, go get it." Then he opens the fancier car and sits in the back. "Yes, Mr. B." One of the other men turns around and heads back towards the house, the third sits in the front of the fancier car.

Elan holds his breath. He's reasonably calm and has been in worse spots than this before. Mike isn't expecting anyone and this is where Elan's skinny stature serves to his advantage. A slightly larger concern is that Mr. B and the other dude might look back at the house while they wait in the car, especially if Mr. B doesn't have his compad to distract him.

If Mike passes by, Elan will have to either creep over to the side of the house or - in the spirit of Be bold, be bold! - even sneak into the house behind Mike.

There's a danger that Sonia could come out of her hiding spot too early, he thinks to himself. She could be letting her guard down, thinking the three are gone. Mike could be walking right back into her.

A moment of panic grips Graham, both for Elan and for Sonia.
"Don't turn on the light, don't turn on the light..."
He presses his right side against the house, momentarily turning his back to the street to cover any light from his commpad. He taps a quick message to Sonia. "Stay hidden lights off!", then shuts off the commpad and turns back, hoping Elan evades detection.

Mike strides towards the door muttering something inaudible to himself. Likely nothing nice. He is almost at the door, when he suddenly stops mid-step and turns left. "What the..." he leans forward, roughly in the direction of Elan, as if trying to see some things better. "It's the freak again" , he mutters incredulously to himself and then starts drawing a deeper breath...

Mike starts when suddenly the all too familiar invisible force punches past his head grazing his shoulder. Horror and anger flash in his eyes. He crouches slightly getting ready to leap.

Taelor cringes as she sees Elan miss and Mike get ready to lunge. Shit, there goes easy. From behind Sonia's car, she draws her pistol and stands up, pointing it in the direction of Mike. Hopefully, Graham will follow her lead and do the same for Mr. B and the other goon.

"Freeze! You're trespassing on private property! Stand down or get shot!"

Graham shouts from the corner of the house. "Mr. B! You're covered from several angles, all guns trained on you. Get your men to stand down! Drop your weapons slowly, or get ventilated."

"Wha, you lil'!" Mike leaps towards Elan, for a punch. But misjudging in the dark, he punches a hole into the air, cursing.

The rear door of the car flies open and Mr. B steps out, with a semi automatic rifle in his hand. "Alright everybody, let's calm things down. No need that anybody gets hurt.
Hand over what's ours and go on and I won't touch you. Otherwise I see myself forced to take what's mine."

Elan isn't amused to see "Mr. B" escalate things with a semi-automatic rifle.

Elan figures that Mr. B isn't really in a negotiating mood, and that Graham and Taelor will probably make him angrier rather than more reasonable.

Elan also knows that the solution to a Mexican standoff is to shoot first. You just, you know, have to make sure you hit.

After skipping out of Mike's way, he rushes Diogenes, figuring that even if he misses he might be able to tangle up the rifle so that Diogenes can't open fire. This is a bit optimistic, given Elan's lack of physique, but luckily he has magic brain powers. He uses said powers to beat Mr. B's brainbox like a bass drum.

As Diogenes drops like dead meat, the rifle clattering on the floor, Mike, driven by fear and despairation runs after Elan trying to finally land a punch.
Alas he stumbles and again punches past Elan, making Mike give a shout of disbelief, his eyes now wide with fear in light of the unbeatable foe.

Taelor holsters her pistol with a swift, fluid movement as she sees Mike charge after Elan. She runs out from behind Sonia's car and joins the melee near Diogenes'. She was never very good at hand-to-hand fighting, but shooting unarmed people just didn't feel right.

She brings her fists up, like her militia instructors showed her. As Mike comes back up after missing Elan, she throws a jab at him, catching him on his side. She hears him grunt in pain. Alright, she thinks as she hops from foot to foot, like she has seen boxers do, I can do this!

"Mike, Tamara wants to talk to you!", Graham calls out, as he breaks cover from the side of the house, the pistol trained on Mike.
He doesn't wait for Mike's response. Graham marches past Mike, hoping to have gotten his attention with the pistol. With Elan and Taelor right there, Mike's odds have deteriorated rapidly. With any luck, Mike will cave quickly with the prospect of bullets headed his way.
After moving past Mike, he angles for the back of the sedan, where he kneels to point his gun at the lone occupant.
"Hands up, get out of the car!"

They car awakes with a howl and the driver tries to speed off. Tamara appears where the car used to be and grins.
"He won't get far." and indeed after about 20m the car sputters and turns off. The driver tries to turn it on again, but to no avail. "Sock in the exhaust pipe, works every time." The door on the opposite side of the car opens, the driver stumbles out and starts running slightly crouched, trying to keep the car between the group and himself.
Mike, in the meantime recognises his hopeless situation and lifts his arms in defeat. Fear still screws up his face.

Elan stares down at the heap of Diogenes at his feet. He wonders if it might have been better just to blast his brains out, as it would have put an end to the Diogenes Question once and for all.

I suppose it's not too late for that, he muses, although he doesn't relish the thought. He'd have to put Mike down too as a witness. Sonia must have an ACME Body Dissolver^TM somewhere in her house, right?

Ultimately Elan is not a killer. Killer looks, maybe, but he takes valuables, not lives. Shooting Diogenes in the heat of battle might be one thing, especially if Diogenes was cackling while firing his rifle at Elan's friends (or, worse, at Elan), but Elan isn't particularly cold-blooded.

Besides, he thinks, Statton probably has a medical way to make it look like a stroke, right?

Taelor picks up Diogenes' rifle and pats him down, taking away any other weapons she finds.

She then does the same with Mike. "Sorry, can't take any chances." She smiles apologetically. "I presume that, just like Tamara, you didn't know your would-be despot here had you playing with Cloud spores, right? Just following orders?"

Graham smiles widely with a nod to Tamara.
"A classic -- sock in the tailpipe", he says appreciatively.
He takes a moment to yell, "Throw me the car keys, and I won't shoot!" and points his pistol at the retreating driver.
He pauses for a moment, and a puzzled look crosses his face.
"Where'd you get the sock...", he says with a laugh.
As long as there's no hostile action from the driver, Graham holsters his pistol, takes out his commpad, and taps Sonia's number. While he waits for her to pick up, he barks out "Somebody call Statton, would ya?"

In the meantime...

Statton pulls the door open with his foot, then holding it open with his rear as he pivots into the bar. Just before diving into the light and noise, he can see, the approaching person seems to be a policeman or someone else with a uniform.
The bar is busy, but far from full. As per the universal default layout of a corner bar there is a small bar ahead and a couple of tables scattered around in the small room. The crowd is cheerful and obviously used to changing clientele, no one takes notice, or cares enough to show a reaction, when the crate comes in with Statton. The barkeep is a middle aged bold man with a full beard and decently sized beer belly. He has a friendly smile and is talking to the only person sitting at the bar, a middle aged woman in jeans and a checked shirt.
Cheerful music is completing the cozy atmosphere.

As statton enters the bar, be scans the place with his eyes. Do the bathroom doors have windows? Do they look like they are push or pull? Are there any other exits? Statton walks up to the bar and sets the crate down next to a barstool and, sitting down, nods at the barkeep, OK, I'm just a normal spaceport employee on his way home from work with a box of tools... nothing suspicious here... He catches the barkeep's eye and asks "Got any H-Halianti Ale?" He glances to the side, out of the window. The walls of the bar seem to shiver and shake around him for a moment.

After Sonia came out, the police she had already called from inside her house came quickly. The suspects were taken into custody and a search of Diogenes's office and home revealed enough incriminating evidence for the officials to be satisfied and not ask further uncomfortable questions. After digging deeper into his files and notes it was clear he constructed a bizarre alternate reality in which people from other worlds were out to get him and he had to protect himself and his people from the threat from out there. According to his theories the Spores freed the people of the threat, because off-worlders seem to afraid of and uninteresting in the Tainted.

Now it has already been a week during which the police and people from the community had questions and the newly assembled group made arrangements and preparations for the next steps.

The group just met at Graham's for the daily joint breakfast, when Sonia enters surprisingly, beaming.
"Good morning. Bon apetit. I have good news. Crab contacted me and told me he found your part. I already had it delivered to the ship. And regarding the price, the community is happy to cover Crabs expenses as a thank you for your help. Who knows what would have happened without you.
Also, next week will begin elections for the next leader, and the two candidates are much more open to off-world contact and trade. I will likely even get new funding for my research. "

Taelor spent the last week doing odd jobs around town and getting to know the locals. Though she's made some friends beyond the ones now sitting at the table, she's already started getting bored and found herself looking longingly at the sky more and more often.

As she hears Sonia's news about the ship part, Taelor quickly swallows the large mouthful of food she'd been scarfing down. She starts coughing and punching herself in the chest, then takes a large drink of water to push it all down.

She lets out a relieved breath, then looks up at Sonia. "That's great!" I can finally get off this fucking rock. "Sounds like things are really turning around for Mani Losa Plains. Did you manage to test your antidote?"

Graham takes the following morning to reflect on everything that occurred the night before. The moment when Diogenes hit the ground like a sack of wet cement replayed in his head several times, not without some satisfaction. "That thing Elan does...well, that's pretty handy", he thought to himself.
Taelor....Statton....Tamara....Sonia....he was glad to have them all on his side, and even more glad that they're all ok. Speaking of which, I'd better call them.
And for the next hour or two, he calls them, thanks them, and tries to get a sense of what's next for each of them.
Pursuing the cure seems to be a common theme in those conversations, and plans upon plans reel in his head.
"Guess I'd better get to work", he mumbles to himself, and he sets out to lay the groundwork. He has people to see.

Graham starts with Sonia. Whoever pays her must have access to funding, must have a budget for fighting the effects of The Cloud. And whoever that person may be could be under an even larger umbrella, a more comprehensive authority that acts to keep zombies at bay. There is potentially a whole chain of contacts, here, and Graham is prepared to talk to everyone if need be.