Salvage

## Overview

An Australian soldier finds himself press-ganged into service aboard a Corti salvage crew. Having badly wounded him during his capture, the Corti use some aggressive experimental treatment that winds up boosting him to his physical peak. The Aussie language barrier may turn out to be the least of his problems, however, when it turns out where the ship they're salvaging came from...

## Plot Summary

*NB: This section is lifted from Rantarian's plot summary posted here. It also includes other goodies and you shoud check that out too.*

### Season 1 (chapters 1-14)

"The Zhadersil is discovered by a Corti-owned salvage and reclamation crew. It is a massive ship, from a time before recorded history, and is far too large for them to manage on their own. Seeking a cheap, disposable solution, they purchase a group of slaves to guard it: a Chehnasho mercenary, a Gaoian renegade, a Rauwryhr technical specialist, and an injured human.

Efforts to regenerate the human, Adrian Saunders, get messy when a mutation takes place and saturates his entire body with a constant supply of the regenerative drug, Cruezzir. It’s got its drawbacks, like a constant hunger for protein-rich foods, quick and haphazard adaptations to the effects of drugs and repeated injuries, and unpredictable neurological changes, but it manages to get him back on his feet. Needing additional food, and being in orbit of a deathworld, Adrian himself is sent down under the watchful eye of the Gaoian slave, Chir. The latter is astounded when, instead of killing beasts with the standard Dominion firearm, Adrian Saunders ripped the monstrous predators apart with his bare hands.

Adrian discovers that the rest of the slaves are, in fact, slaves, and takes exception to this. As part of their escape plan, the Rauwryhr, Trycrur tricks one of their captors into confirming that Adrian lacks a functional cerebral detonator to keep him in line, and takes them hostage with a fake dead-man’s switch. Adrian does the same to their other captor at the same time. With the element of surprise and overpowering force on their side, they convince their captors to release them, only to have their negotiations interrupted by a robotic death machine: the dinosaur terminator. Adrian puts it down with an explosive-spear launched by a bespoke kinetic spear-launcher, but their Corti captors use this distraction to take back control of the situation. Adrian ceases to give a shit, and intimidates them into surrendering once and for all. They cut a deal with one of their captors to release them from their captivity, and eventually get them home, in return for leaving her the fortune and glory of the Zhadersil, although Adrian discovers he can’t go home as Earth is stuck behind an impenetrable containment bubble.

The Hunters land ten ships on the Zhadersil’s massive flight deck. They don’t have an invitation, but Adrian gives them a welcoming gift of explosions before showing them the door. A thousand Hunters are swept from the flight deck as a lack of gravity and shielding opens it to hard vacuum. Adrian springs through space and lands on the last surviving Hunter vessel, breaking his way in and carving the surprised occupants to pieces with a fusion blade. Finding himself drifting out into space in a ship he doesn’t know how to fly, Adrian takes a lesson from his former captor in piloting. Hunters declare war on humanity, issuing their great ultimatum.

Adrian is recovering slowly from his feats, and his former captor has received orders to hand him over to the Corti Directorate. Rather than risking certain death by agreeing or outright refusing, she transfers him into their custody with a fully functional fusion sword in his possession. They had planned to trick the Directorate vessels into complying with the Hunter directive to jettison all humans, and thereby fake Adrian’s death. This doesn’t work according to plan, and Adrian is forced to rely on Plan B: killing everyone between him and freedom. Seeing that his investigative team are returning to the command deck with a delivery, the Corti shipmaster demands to know what they’ve brought him. Bursting onto the scene with a fusion sword at hand, Adrian Saunders shouts “A surprise, motherfucker!” and makes plain his desires for freedom. As part of his winging-it approach, Adrian declares war back at the Hunters, and convinces the Corti that maybe he’d be better off on another ship after all.

Back on the Zhadersil, the group manage to get the command deck open, and their captor finally decides to put an end to their relationship. She shoots poisoned darts at him, only for them to stick into the makeshift leather vests Adrian had carved out of the deathworlder beasts. In a show of surprising dexterity, Adrian manages to snatch the final dart out of the air, and flings it back at the traitor, punching a hole deep into her chest.

The Zhadersil awakens, conducts self-diagnostics, and declares Adrian its new Shiplord."

### Season 2 (chapters 15-28)

"Jennifer Delaney is lost in space, having been abducted by Corti before escaping and infecting her would-be saviours with a long list of common diseases that humans carry in their bodies. She’s losing hope when Adrian Saunders stumbles across her drifting vessel with the intention of stealing it. Whether this constitutes an actual rescue is debatable. She discovers he has somehow co-opted a salvage operation and is running a small fleet of stolen ships out of an ancient derelict.

He is alone, with the exception of her, with everyone having abandoned him in favour of returning to their respective homes. They had left because they wanted to go home, and because they were afraid of the human, his anger, and the inevitable Hunter response. Their thoughts remain with him, however, and they do not relent under government pressures to reveal where the Zhadersil is parked. Even if they had, however, Adrian had already taken the Zhadersil into deep space, and when the Dominion trace warp paths back to their origin, they find a deathworld and nothing else. Discovering this, the alien trio go out in search of Adrian to warn him of the peril he is in.

Adrian discovers this for himself when he visits the deathworld to hunt down more food, and is set upon by members of the Dominion investigative force. Adrian turns the tables on them, and fires their own landing vessel through the capital ship. He follows this up with a series of threats and demands before forcibly boarding the starship and abducting their doctors.

The trio re-discover the Zhadersil while Adrian is out, and stumble across Jen. Lacking a translator, they are unable to understand each other. She thinks she’s a hostage, they’re terrified of her tearing them to bits, and they’ve all been infected. Adrian forces the doctors to contain the situation, and save his friends from deathworlder viruses. They are busy trying to save everyone when the Celzi arrive and deploy tactical teams onto the Zhadersil. They are woefully unprepared for what awaits them: self-navigating bombs, and automated plasma-throwers are more than they can handle, and then they come face-to-face with Adrian Saunders. This does not end well for them, and Adrian Saunders is now ostensibly at war with the Celzi Alliance as well.

When the crew are fully healed, Adrian releases the doctors back to the Dominion by tricking his way aboard the Dominion orbital factory at Irbzrk, and convincing them to repair their vessel on the Dominion budget. They narrowly avoid discovery, and escape with food, supplies, and a repaired ship. With this done, the team are able to restore power to the Zhadersil, re-activating the Devastator cannon. The Dominion follow, and find themselves faced with a heavily armed vessel and evidence that their target was able to steal a pair of Celzi cruisers in addition to other vessels. An agreement is reached to work against the Celzi Alliance as a group of privateers.

Happy with how things are progressing, and in need of more food, Adrian and Jen take a quick trip to Affrag and enjoy the comforts of a tropical island paradise, while Chir and company start raiding miners for supplies of explosives. Their rendezvous is interrupted, however, by the arrival of a force of Hunters patrolling the area. In what can only be called a disturbing statement, Adrian knocks Jen out so that he can hunt down the Hunters, severing their heads and filling them with explosives so as to use them as improvised explosive devices against their comrades. Despite escaping with their lives, Jen was not happy, and was enraged to discover Adrian had left immediately after returning her to the Zhadersil. He had fled back to Affrag, where he could try to distance himself from his sense of shame.

While Adrian hides himself away, life on the Zhadersil progresses, and the rest of the group develop a growing relationship with the Irbzrk orbital factory. Discovering that the Hunter Swarm-of-swarms was intending to attack the station, they begin to organise a full evacuation to the Zhadersil. Jen, however, was a Human, and was intended to be sent on her own way. This didn’t sit well with Chir, Trycrur, or the Corti doctor, ‘Grizzles’, they’d turned native, and they insisted on joining her.

From Affrag, Adrian was monitoring the situation. Alarmed to discover the news, he switched leapt [sic?] to their rescue, arriving shortly after Jen and the others had already made their escape. Forcing the refugees back from the Zhadersil, he drew the Hunters away with an antagonistic message. Warping far from the orbital factory, he lay in wait. He waited as they boarded in numbers never before imagined, dying to traps like meat in the grinder, and swarmed after him. Only at the last moment did he activate the Dark Star Protocol, the incredible blast of radiation that would kill absolutely everything in range. Power depleted, and circuits finally dead, the Zhadersil died once more, while deep in its cargo bay a single stasis pod showed it still had power. Adrian Saunders had survived."

### Season 3 (chapters 29-42)

"The private colony on Cimbrean, luxury incarnate, is where Chir decided to make their next stop. It was the perfect place to lay low while chaos engulfed everything, especially since whatever Adrian had done had resulted in a fleet of cooked Hunter vessels. That the Hunters considered the colony ‘harvested’ actually made it a better place to hide than anywhere else. Zripob returned to the group, finding them on Cimbrean, and began stockpiling ships and weaponry, and organising raids on Celzi Alliance traders in order to disrupt their economies. Their activities are so successful that they draw the attention of Cameron White, a psychotic human murder-machine in the employ of some rather shady parts of the Corti Directorate. So pleased was he by the opportunity to hunt a fellow human, that Cameron White made the bloodiest introductions imaginable, and filled the recently-saved Irbzrk Station with cold dread. Cameron White, you see, liked to watch society unravel, to see if flail weakly as it tried to stop him, or to even to comprehend him. He liked to watch them squirm, and he scared the hell out of Jen.

Meanwhile, Counsellor Hrbrd of the Corti Directorate had assembled a small, off-the-books team of criminals, including the surprised-to-be-alive Adrian Saunders. A bit of genetic tweaking had Adrian looking like a blue-chewbacca, or a ‘blue-bacca’ if you will. Joined by his short, elderly, Latino handler, Margarita, along with Askit the Corti cyber-tech, and Gdugnir, a Chehnasho pilot seeking the whereabouts of her late husband. They were originally tasked with investigating just why the war was dragging on so long. It was this line of inquiry that would lead them first to the corporations, and later to the Hierarchy. A touch of torture was all it took to get the ball rolling.

Back on Irbzrk the group started bringing things under control. They built Deathworlder pacification weapons, the famous Irbzrk stun-gun, and established militia trained to use them. It wasn’t likely to be enough, but none of them were equipped to deal with any creature as malevolently evil as Cameron White.

It was Gdugnir who discovered the link between Cameron White and the corporations, and it was her personal vendetta against the man that moved the questions in this direction. When he discovered that the madman had been set loose on the crew of the Zhadersil, Adrian was ready to join her, and they set off immediately and without clearance for the distant orbital factory. Cameron White was just executing the last stage of his sick plan when Adrian and company arrived, and as White prepared to strike the mortal blow against the red-headed pirate queen the ball of blue hit him. It beat him within an inch of his life, then left him bloody and broken for the locals to finish the job.

Waving farewell to his friends, Adrian then returned to his new life of corporate espionage and sponsored terrorism. They strike at the corporations responsible for perpetuating the war, all while their sponsor publicly condemns their activities. Jen and the others continue their efforts to suppress Celzi trade, and use their newfound power to clear out unaffiliated pirates and Hunters in their sector of space. It’s about this time that Darragh Houston enters Jen’s life, having been sent as a messenger by ‘Kirk’, the Rrrrtktktkp'ch whose first interaction with humanity was the very public display of violence committed by one Kevin Jenkins. He conveys a request from Earth, asking her to cease such impressive efforts against the Celzi and offering her the Governorship of a proposed colony. It was only the mention of Adrian Saunders that got her interest, especially the use of Pig-Latin when describing the species of her blue-furred saviour.

From there she was quick to locate him through the endless flow of reports about the new blue-furred terrorist causing havoc in the Corti core worlds. She arrives to a meeting where Askit acts as the envoy, only to have it interrupted when Adrian’s base of operations was hit by some kind of missile. The Allebenellin heavy troopers had arrived, they weren’t happy, and they were working directly for the Hierarchy. Askit hacks the Allebenellin weaponry, turning it against its owners, and follows up with coordinating a withdrawal with help from Gdugnir, who had already stolen the same ship Jen had arrived on and accosted the rather unfortunate Darragh Houston in the process. After collecting Adrian and releasing Darragh, the group steal Jen’s ship and draw the enemy away from her own companions, thereby abandoning them once more.

With Margarita likewise rescued from the Hierarchy threat, Adrian and company head directly for their boss. The Allebenellin, arrive at Counsellor Hrbrd’s office and eliminate him, only to be terminated at the last possible moment by Margarita and her sniper rifle. Jen manages to find him during the rescue process, confronting him at the very moment the building exploded from an explosive barrage. Jen was nearly killed, and neither Darragh nor Adrian were in any condition to mount a proper rescue. Adrian sends Hrbrd with Darragh, and infects Jen with his Cruezzir-mutated gut-bacteria. With her in hand, and Gdugnir getting the ship into position, he leaps from the building and into the ship. Then, with the authorities scouring the area, all involved are forced to either flee the planet and scatter, or find a safehouse on-world.

Adrian and company were, for the time being, stuck where they were.

### Season 4 (chapters 43-60)

Jen and Adrian are back together. Adrian reveals he turned Jen into a superhuman like himself. Askit helps find a spaceship they can steal, so that they can get to the wormhole station in orbit. Stealing the service shuttle and posing as maintenance staff, their plan goes perfectly right up until they find the Allebenellin had been waiting for them.

Instead of Adrian’s terrible plan to just ‘kill all the enemies’, Askit suggests an alternative plan to don vacuum suits and vent the atmosphere, thereby achieving the same effect in much less time. It all seems to go well, right up until the point the Hierarchy sends in cloaked drones with fusion blades. Margarita is killed in the opening encounter, and Jen only manages to destroy the drone attacking her because it is covered with Margarita’s blood.

She lets Adrian know about the situation, and they make a plan to fall back to the service shuttle. Adrian withdraws more slowly, battling the invisible robots to buy the others time. The wormhole drive activates just as Adrian makes his return, dropping them all in low orbit around a Celzi Alliance homeworld, and by unfortunate coincidence sending all survivors drifting out into space. Gdugnir failed to survive the transition, and loss of atmosphere that came with it. They are rescued from their fate by the Celzi warships that are in orbit.

Lying about their identities, they talk their way out of being imprisoned, and are given guest access to the ship they are on. The fleet in question is being sent to deal with the pirate threat that has crippled the Celzi economy.

Cimbrean, in the meantime, has been hit by the Allebenellin, and is suffering a slow defeat. It is during this encounter that Trycrur shuffles off the mortal coil, although she has actually had her brain digitised for later examination. They barely manage to fend off the Hierarchy forces, and use the opportunity to make their escape from the former pirate colony. Cimbrean as they knew it has been thoroughly destroyed.

The Celzi fleetmaster uncovers one layer of deception, and believes that Adrian and Jen are actually independent criminals fighting against the Dominion. He offers them a contract to help destroy the same pirates Jen had recently been leading, which they claim to accept. They arrive at Cimbrean to discover it completely in ruin, but manage to recover Hrbrd from the ruins. He is taken captive by the Celzi, but they learn more details about the threat they’re up against.

Zripob arrives at the asteroid mining base of ‘Carltopia’, a place run by a human with a very unpleasant disposition. Zripob would later depose King Carl with the help of a fusion blade and a gathering of very angry rebels.

Aboard the Celzi warships, things are heating up for Jen and Adrian, and just as it looks as though they’re finally going to get that intimate time they’re interrupted by another attack. The ship is damaged, and deploys fire suppressants that have a very serious neurological effect on the humans present. Adrian sets out to destroy the invaders, but eventually succumbs to the toxins. Jen follows when Adrian starts going on a rampage, but under these conditions she comes to believe she’s not only injured Adrian severely, but that she needs to escape without him, thereby abandoning him to his fate. The escape pod returns her to Cimbrean, landing her in the middle of nowhere. *(Copier's note: At this point, intermingling of this series and The Deathworlders begins.)*

Adrian is still recovering from his experience when the fleet encounters a Hierarchy warship, far more advanced than anything they have at hand. The fleet suffers immense damage from a barrage of mines and missiles, including the ship he, Askit and Hrbrd are currently on. The latter two are caught in a sealed room while the rest of the ship’s atmosphere is lost. Askit manages to get the Counsellor to an escape pod, but opts to let the Counsellor experience his own journey… which immediately ends with an exploding missile. Adrian has Askit take over a missile so that they can ride it over to the only surviving ship: the one belonging to the Hierarchy.

Turning missiles against the Hierarchy ship as a distraction, then fighting their way aboard, Adrian faces down a pair of cybered-up space dragons. The ship goes to warp as the human and Corti fight their way forward, finally bursting onto the command deck while riding a subjugated space dragon. Killing the Hierarchy agent, the pair are dropped into the gravity well of a singularity, their ship already damaged and falling to pieces. The ship doesn’t make it, but with the help of the escape pod they manage to break free of the gravity well and slingshot into deep space.

### Season 5 (chapters: 61-74)

Keffa enters the story, serving as a pirate amongst Zripob and Chir’s crewmen, and is on mission with Darragh when they discover the escape pod containing Adrian and Askit. Darragh accidentally shoots Adrian in the eyes when he emerges suddenly, blinding him with a stun-gun.

They take him to the Carltopia station, now a bustling hive of pirate activity, and Doctor ‘Grizzles’ tries to help Adrian’s vision, but discovers his eyes are healing naturally. Grizzles, however, has managed to reconnect with the Directorate, and is taking his orders directly from them.

The ultimate result of Adrian’s recovery is that his visual acuity is vastly improved, and he can see details in near-infrared. Freeing himself as soon as possible, he embarks on an adventure to head back to Cimbrean, only to make a detour towards Zripob’s starship which had been targeted by Russian military forces acting on behalf of the Celzi. Zripob had a plan, and managed to use traps to kill members of the Russian incursion.

The ship is ultimately damaged beyond repair during Adrian’s battle with the Russian special forces, forcing them to make a crash landing on Cimbrean while Zripob abandons Adrian to his fate. Adrian and the Russians join forces as part of an alliance of convenience, and manage to crash land the cruiser in the ocean despite being targeted by a cannonade from the secret colony below.

Meanwhile, Askit had renamed the asteroid base to ‘New Askitoria’ in all systems, but the base had been sabotaged by enemy infiltrators, and the Hierarchy were on their way. Most of the base is evacuated, but Askit remains and is there when Zripob returns.

Adrian is arrested along with everyone else. He discovers that Jen was on the planet, and had made her way back to the colony site just in time for the new arrivals, but had left just as Adrian had arrived. Adrian is questioned by a very frustrated Captain Owen Powell, but is ultimately allowed to do what he needs to do, and rebuilds a functional starship from what remained on the planet, along with a working sensor suite that will help the human colonists know what’s coming. Adrian recovers tech from the crashed Allebenellin ship, including the module containing Trycrur’s mind.

Jen has, meanwhile, returned to Irbzrk Station and is trying to make a bank transaction. Somehow it ultimately turns into a bank robbery. She isn’t sure why her life keeps turning out this way. Chir, Darragh and Keffa are also on the station, albeit separately, and are having money troubles of their own. Chir is disinclined to start robbing banks, as this would make him a criminal in the eyes of the Dominion as well, leaving him no safe harbour. They do, as a matter of fact, accidentally rob the bank as well, and are forced to flee justice. Chir takes the first opportunity to subdue a very surprised crew of Gaoians, and steals their warship.

Adrian and Trycrur return to New Askitoria, discovering it is mostly empty. Adrian is pissed off at Zripob for leaving him behind on the starship, but the Hierarchy arrives just in time to spoil their conversation. Hierarchy Abrogators swarm the asteroid as missiles continue pummelling it from outside.

Adrian has a shotgun this time, evening the odds considerably, but Zripob takes the first chance of abandoning them he can get. Askit takes exception to this, screwing up the escape plan, and Adrian draws the abrogators into tunnels where he can take them out more easily. They capture the Hierarchy agent, but are targeted by more missiles, which Adrian shoots out of the sky.

They head to the Hierarchy agent’s ship and Askit claims it as his own, before heading to Cimbrean with their job done. They gift Powell and company a pair of deployment ships as a peace offering while filling him in on what’s happened during his brief time offworld. He then leaves with the intention of investigating Affrag before tracking down Jen once more.

With justice hot on her tail, and one of the fastest ships in the galaxy at her disposal, Jen decides she’d best get to work on her exploratory mission. She instantly manages to find a planet where she is not only shot down, but is taken to be a messiah figure who is destined to save the locals against the Dark One, a Hierarchy agent whose mission has been the rolling annihilation of every inhabitant of that little planet. The Agwarens help Jen recover, so that they can then lead her on a mission against the Dark One.

Zripob ends up on a Class 8 world, which is the only place his escape pod could get him. He activates his distress beacon, and is ultimately collected by an unknown force. This turns out to be a ship full of the Scourge, who infect him with a spawn of their own.

Adrian returns to Affrag with Askit in tow, seeking out the lost V’Straki colony, which he manages to locate. The Hierarchy agent from Agwar makes a report to the Hierarchy.

### Season 6 (chapters 75-91)

Adrian investigates the V’Straki colony, using a subverted Abrogator in place of an elevator to negotiate the extremely deep shaft. He comes across Xayn, a surviving V’Straki, and the two get into a bit of a fight. In spite of Xayn’s aggression, Adrian manages to calm him down for a conversation, and fills him in on what he’s missed in the last sixty-five million years. They return to Askit’s stolen warship, and set a course back to Irbzrk to get him some implants, where they ultimately discover that Jen had robbed a bank before fleeing into space, and that Chir had stolen a Gaoian warship and had populated it with his own crew. Given they needed the help of Doctor ‘Grizzles’ to install the implants, Adrian and company set off after Chir.

Chir and company head for Perfection, a Class 3 planet. Keffa and Chir are captured by a cloaked Corti abductor unit, while Darragh is simply arrested by the local police. Darragh is taken to a prison, while the others are taken to a Corporate black site. Chir’s vessel is boarded by the Allebenellin, but the command crew had already been subverted by their implants. Doctor ‘Grizzles’ is the sole functioning survivor.

Recovering in the subterranean city of the Agwarens, Jen had supposed she was safe. She did not expect the full-force attack by the Dark One’s Abrogators any more than the locals did, and the battle raged ferociously in those underground halls. With the help of her speed, agility, and heavy Agwaren weapons, Jen faced one after another and dismantled them with considerable force, stunning all Agwarens who witnessed it and confirming in their minds that she truly was the Chosen One.

Chir is interrogated at the black site by his supposed mate, Layla. She reveals she has been working for the Corporations, and leaves him to consider the offer in front of him: killing Askit and Adrian Saunders. This is not fully voluntary for her, however, as she is being forced into working for them. As a minor act of rebellion against her owners, she sends a message to Darragh.

Adrian takes up yoga to try and increase his flexibility, even if it comes at the cost of raw strength. Discovering that Darragh has been taken captive, they plan to hit the prison with full-force, and break him out. Adrian puts on a real show of shock-and-awe as he does this, sending the whole area into a confused and terrified frenzy as he rescued the nearly-naked Darragh from his imprisonment. Escaping the scene of devastation, they head directly for the Corti Information Broker, Vakno, and shake her down for details on where Chir and Keffa, and Chir’s ship, have all gotten to.

Askit, meanwhile, is having his own ship boarded by mercenary shock-troopers. They are not even remotely ready to deal with Xayn and his Zheron guns, and are repelled. Xayn’s weapons are more than the starship was built to withstand, however, and he accidentally hits some critical equipment when trying to retake the reactors. They are forced to abandon the warship in favour of the mercenary’s own vessel, the Devastator.

Chir pretends obedience to get out of his confinement, and immediately decides that ‘fuck it, murder everyone’ is the solution he’s choosing. He begins his rampage with a full discharge of a stun gun into his oppressor’s least favourite orifice. He manages to save Keffa before the staff had begun operating on her, and takes up position to hold the room while she recovers from the drugs. Adrian Saunders arrives just in time to draw attention away from Chir, and commences his assault by levelling everything on the surface before going in hard. Chir and Keffa are rescued, and they all go after Layla. They abduct her forcibly.

The scout of the Irzht God Emperor consumes the Zhadersil and discovers that it is technology derived from their own. They decide to deviate from their assignment to hunt down the most recent commander of the vessel, Adrian Saunders.

Laphor Metmin, mercenary Shiplord, is recruited by the Scourge-infested Zripob to try and capture Adrian Saunders. He claims this is for the money, but the Scourge actually want him for infection trials. Any human they could survive in would prove an incredible asset.

Returning to the Corti core worlds, Adrian and company go shopping for clothes. They are attacked by reprogrammed escape pods that suicide bomb the district they are shopping in, all of which have been launched from Chir’s stolen ship. Doctor ‘Grizzles’ manages to arm the self-destruct, and launches himself free from the vessel. He is ultimately picked up by Chir, Askit and companions aboard the Devastator.

The groups get in contact and decide to meet up at an otherwise abandoned research station in a fairly unimportant system. Their meeting is conducted and ends with a decision to rescue Layla’s children from the Corporate forces, leaving Layla herself in stasis aboard Adrian’s own vessel. They leave soon after, headed back to Perfection, while Adrian, Xayn and Askit wrap things up. Their own departure is hastened by the arrival of an enormously powerful starship, the likes of which they’ve never seen before.

It becomes clear that the approaching starship is overwhelmingly hostile, and Adrian and crew flee. They are unable to produce a functional warp field, however, and are forced to improvise a new kind of weapon. The warp-based weapon annihilates an entire planet and causes a rift in space-time that threatens to consume everything in the star system. Adrian and company manage to escape while their pursuer is caught in the blast. Laphor and Zripob arrive shortly later, falling into the anomaly themselves and crossing over into the new timeline. They re-activate the scoutship in the process of engineering their own escape. It drops out somewhere in the recent past, with enough time to rebuild itself into the most recent, and therefore most complete, form it could access: that of the Zhadersil.

*Copier's note: from this point on, Salvage is no longer considered canon due to taking place in an alternate universe.*

Adrian discovers he’s accidentally changed history, and that now Doctor ‘Grizzles’ has been assassinated by the Hierarchy. Layla has a time-clone, whose new version is still in a comfortable relationship with Chir. With their combined might, the entire group hit the corporations and reclaim Layla’s children. They drop her off with her children on the next convenient station, but with the subsequent arrival of Laphor and Zripob, she is fated to never make it back home.

The Dark One shows up at Jen’s encampment to say goodbye, and to let her know that she was doomed: a Swarm of Hunters was on its way, and there was no other way off world; her ship was already mostly dismantled.

The A.I. aboard the Irzht scoutship is left to its own devices, and sets about learning about humanity. It determines that Adrian Saunders is most likely some kind of human deity, and is intrigued. It believes that it may be able to benefit from contacting this deity, with the hope of eventually making it back to its origin and making a full report.

The Dark One’s lair was difficult to access for Jen, but she does eventually make it. She had to climb to the top of a mountain before dropping down into an open area protected from the elements by a light-weight kinetic field. Here she managed to discover the whole place was set to explode with an anti-matter device. Jen manages to get a message out, asking for help, but it is unlikely to reach anyone before it is too late.

Adrian and company have likewise learned of the impending Hunter invasion of the planet where Jen supposedly is, and make a quick stop by Affrag to build Adrian a combat suit capable of withstanding that kind of battle.

The Hunters arrive in time to hear the beacon, and send in an invasion force to its location. This results in the anti-matter device detonating, and shatters the mountain range. Jen had already escaped by this time, returning to the encampment and hurrying for everyone to start moving away from the mountain. The rolling wave of ground was faster than they were, however, and nearly buried them all. All but destroyed, the remains of the assembled Agwaren forces led Jen towards a series of nearby caves where they could seek shelter from the inbound Hunter forces. This place they turned into their last stand, forcing the Hunters to extremes to dig them out. So focused was their attention that they barely noticed the arrival of Adrian and company until it was too late, and with the help of Askit’s cyber-attacks and the unexpected assistance of the A.I., they managed to slaughter the Hunter forces. Adrian, making a landing, managed to locate Jen and brought her out along with everyone else she’d protected, bringing them into a stolen Hunter hover-tank for a quick escape. Throughout this, Adrian fails to disclose his true identity. They reach the ship at last, but Adrian is hit by several Nerve Jam grenades at the same time. The V’Straki combat suit protects him from instant and agonising death, but damage is done regardless. They ditch the suit as they leave, dropping it out of the cargo bay with the small, suit-mounted anti-matter device armed, and make their escape to elsewhere on the planet when they realise the A.I. won’t let them through without talking to Adrian, who was inconveniently unconscious.

Heading for the tropics, they set up camp on an island just off the mainland. Jen maintains regular contact with the A.I., convincing it that Adrian is on a divine sabbatical, and would return at some point. Meanwhile they try to treat Adrian with the Devastator’s automated medical suite, and accidentally expose him to a neural injection of alien meth-amphetamines. Realising the urgency of the situation, they place him back on his own ship, in stasis, and try to convince the A.I. that they need to go on an errand. They are not successful, and are frozen in stasis at length.

Adrian wakes up months later, his stasis pod having powered down, and his body having partially healed in a state of Cruezzir-hibernation. With the help of Trycrur and some preparation, he ventures into space ready to give the A.I. a stern, god-like talking to. It all goes wrong when his attempt to blow up the flight-deck with an isolated false-vacuum collapse results in a wild wormhole that draws them all in. With the A.I. incapable of holding them in stasis any more, Jen and company manage to make their escape, acting on Adrian’s instructions, and Laphor and Zripob are also released.

Powered down and in the midst of a forming wormhole, Adrian’s ship is captured by Laphor and Zripob, although they damage their own ship in doing it. Adrian rips Zripob to bits while defending his vessel, but is forced to relocate to the less destroyed vessel in a forced partnership with Laphor. They discover that her crew has been largely replaced by the Scourge, or ‘Brain Bugs’, but they manage to get to the command deck where they lock themselves in, and are drawn into the wormhole along with the A.I. ship. It is only with Trycrur’s help that they manage to keep the ship together, and it is the A.I.’s wormhole generator that ultimately stabilises the wormhole and allows them to exit just after entering, along with absolutely everything else nearby wormholes had ever consumed.

Using the environmental controls to secure the rest of the ship, they start conversing with the A.I. in the hope that it will let them leave, and save the planet from total apocalypse if able, but the Creation Engine powering the mighty vessel is destroyed mid-conversation by the sudden return of the V’Straki, who are none-too-pleased to find such technology in the hands of an Artificial Intelligence.

With the wave of doom approaching, feeding constantly on the surrounding matter, Adrian is forced to return to his standard plan of simply blowing everything up. Using a larger version of the earlier plan, he annihilates all surrounding matter in an expanded false-vacuum collapse, causing an even more substantial wormhole anomaly to appear and significantly damaging nearby space-time. The ship loses power as it did before, but he manages to make his way back to the command deck in spite of the ship slowly melting into nothing and bug-brained zombies being everywhere. He and the other survivors manage to reach the escape pod and jettison as soon as power is restored.

They return to Agwar, to where the A.I. has already escaped, and where the V’Straki have followed. There are even signs that the Scourge, against all odds, managed to achieve the same.

## Canon Status

*Salvage* is considered canon up through Chapter 81. At this point, Adrian Saunders accidentally falls through a wormhole into a parallel universe, and the Salvage story continues from there, with the main storyline unaffected by subsequent events.