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Again, the Major’s tone and
psychic signature were entirely unreadable.
    “Um… Nova Squad is in position and the secured Comm channel
is now open to the Squad.” Lieutenant Commander Diana Adeline’s somewhat
nervous voice came over their receivers, cutting off any response Serros might
have made.
    “Understood, Ops, and thank you.”
    “She’s beginning to leave the table.” Major Hadarr quietly remarked.
    “What’s this about kissing, Captain?” Commander Marcus Perez’s
voice cut in, laughter bubbling over the channel.
    “Is that some sort of Human expression for a mission going
well?” Major Ca’rrakk rumbled.
    “Oh, I see. Like the Kiss Of Death ? I saw a Human produced
Vid of that title once.” Lieutenant Naxos commented, his s ’ s drawn out and sliding like parchment into a folio tube.
    “Yeah, yeah, let’s focus. Target’s on the move; time to
commence pursuit.” Captain Serros broke in.
    The Captain and Major nonchalantly made to leave, following
the probable route of their target. A few minutes later, Lieutenant Rygel’s
voice cut into their ears announcing, “Caught sight of the target; she’s on the
rooftop, not the lower level. Repeat, target is on the rooftop.”
    “Copy that. Major Hadarr, you take the street level in case
she doubles back; I’ll take the roofs.” Captain Serros ordered.
    The Major nodded once and then was gone, her form a faint
blur as she sped away through the crowd down the stairs. Serros blinked a
moment in thought, then she too focused and activated her Arca Dexterity,
Speed, and Agility Enhancement, practically rocketing up the stairs towards the
roofs.

CHAPTER 4
It took Captain Serros less than one minute to make the roof–top
and another to override the door locks by utilizing a quick hack with her
biotech–based CPA. By the time she reached the roof it was empty but she didn’t
let that discourage her; she’d poured over Lieutenant Z’arr’s dossier and knew
her to possess a DSA as well. Instead, Serros spent a moment accessing first
her SP and then TXL Enhancements, extending the normal range and focus of her
vision across the immediate cityscape of Ophere. When that tactic failed, she switched
to first low–light and then thermal range.
    There!
    Serros spotted a single, lean heat signature speeding at the
rate of close to one mile per minute across the rooftops, gracefully leaping
over each obstacle in her path. “Target is on the roofs heading north; in
pursuit.” Captain Serros updated her team, then launched herself after her
quarry, pace more than matching Z’arr’s.
    Glittering city lights, flashing holo–adverts, the whirring noise of sky transports and the hum of ground vehicles, as well as the
blended voices of hundreds of sentients seemed to spin around the Captain as
she ran, creating a peculiar, dream–like sense to the experience. The city
itself was a marvel of black–glass and bright, steel colored durexium facades.
Flat in design, most were well over three hundred stories in height and rooftops
some several hundred feet across.
    In seconds, Serros could feel that she was gaining on her
target, each passing moment bringing Z’arr closer, especially because the
Vosaia seemed to be slowing even as Avara’s momentum was picking up. With a
thought, the Captain dropped the thermal vision enhancement of her TXL and
adjusted sight back to slightly augmented normal range. When she was only about
a dozen feet away, Captain Serros saw her chance as Z’arr prepared to bound
gracefully from one rooftop to the next over a twenty–six foot gap.
    Pouring on the speed and launching herself upward through a
flashing green and gold holo–advert touting the must–have value of the latest
generation of Sphinx CPAs, Serros leaped an additional twenty feet past the gap’s
requisite length. She twisted mid–air to land face–foreword and directly in
front of Z’arr. At touchdown, Serros executed a slight spin to move with the
motion of