We were called in by Prof. Ming. Firewall maintains a list of the most dangerous ex humans in the solar system (humanity that take modifications to the limit). They had a lead on Dr Jacobi Newman, a former Argonaut scientist who fled his post on titan university after being caught running illegal experiments on trans humans using titan technology. He was believed to be in the outer system selling viruses to a bio conservative terrorist group who wanted to limit tech to protect the current social order. They were religious and hated uplifts and AGIs.

We were tasked to find out where he was and bring him in if possible, or at least obtain his stack. We were also tasked to find out and deal with anything the bio conservatives have been up to. Surveillance spimes had picked up a fragment of a conversation between Regus MacVillan, leader of the Living world bio conservatives terrorist cell and an unknown person. The phrase 'warm and nice job' to be performed by an asset. It was determined the phrase was an anagram for Dr Jacobi Newman. The conversation originated from a bulk carrier called Callisto heading to Jupiter. The Jovian republic have less extreme bio conservative leanings but wanted to stop the terrorists. Regus was responsible for destroying the Branson Vesta station near Jupiter. He claimed to have only intended to damage the station but a cascade explosion cracked the habitat.

We Ego cast to a habitat orbiting Jupiter where we checked the mesh and found the Callisto was docked in port 4. Nova talked to a contact abd discovered living world are on the governors hit list. She also got a recent image of Regus. Living world were based on a habitat called Colonnade which was near the moonlet Leda. It was rumoured they had purchased nana viruses and were believed to be planning an attack on Crpo, a habitat inhabited by AIs and synth morphs.

We went to investigate the docks. It was guarded by soldiers in orange uniforms. Nova bribed some guards to give us access to the Callisto. Prof. C spotted Regus and three other individuals boarding. We followed them pretending to be engineers. I hacked into the ships systems and obtained the manifest. Regus was travelling as Sagen Harris. After the ship departed Nova sat next to Regis and talked about having a message from 'warm and nice job'. They went to the cargo hold where we ambushed them. I had turned off the security monitors to ensure we did not alert the crew.

We defeated them after a fight though they had some nasty rail gun pistols. Ketrah took Regus's stack and we searched the body. He had on him Liquid thermite, grenades, MRDR, Oxtocyn A, portable QE communicator. We dumped the bodies and equipment out of the airlock. I got some cleaner bots to clean the mess and adjusted the manifect to remove any record of Regus and his companions. When we got back to the habitat I jury rigged an isolated simulspace for us to interrogate Regus in. Nova bought a skill chip with psycho surgery and started the interrogation.

Eventually she succeeded in getting information from him. The nano virus had been hidden on his body in a concealed cavity. Newman had designed the virus but left a week ago to meet another client called One step beyond. They had planned on releasing he virus on Crpo to destroy the infomorphs there. The Living world HQ was at Graphs garage on Colonnade. I searched the mesh and found a news article from a year ago. They were a cell of sublime ex humans. They were implicated in a theft of antimatter from corporate facilities on mercury.

We reported back to Ming who suggested the Jovian governor would want Regus. The governor questioned our motivations in handing Regus over but was willing to tell us the location of One step beyond in exchange for the stack as it would be to his benefit if we disrupted them. Their base of operations was the Kipling asteroid in the asteroid belt.

The governor sent us a file with the info he had on One step beyond. Nova talked to a contact and arranged passage on a transport to the kipling base. One step beyond were Ex humans who took self modification to the extreme and believed the fall was a missed opportunity for evolution. They were extremely violent terrorists who believe in wiping out trans humanity and starting again. Kipling asteroid is an abandoned military base. We organised extra weapons including a plasma rifle before leaving as it was looking like a fight was inevitable.

The transport took about 12 hours to get to the Kipling asteroid. There were two normal looking figures waiting to offload the cargo and another ship docked in the landing bay. We crept away while they were unloading. I hacked into the security system and took control of the cameras, And through them determined who was in the base. The barracks was floor to ceiling with biomass with limbs and other body parts sticking out. The armoury had an Ex human predator morph. Another was in the store room. The briefing room was empty but the sick bay had two predators and a menton morph. In the mess hall was four normal looking morphs. The maintenance bay had airlock to the outside, two vehicles and a predator morph. The officers quarters was empty but in the command centre was four predators.

I put the cameras on loop to feed false images then we crept to the sick bay. We surprised the predators and dispatched them, though one bit me quite badly. The plasma rifle was very useful against them. Nova fired a twitch charge at the menton, disabling him after getting injected by something when she tried to take his weapon. We then headed back to the landing bay. I locked all the doors as we left as the other predators in the base had started moving. I unlocked the door to the ship that was there when we arrived. Inside was two predators who we quickly dispatched.

I gained control of the ship but Nova suddenly went blind so I had to put the ship onto automatic rather than letting her fly. Probably for the best with Novas history of piloting. Her muse reported some unknown code was attacking her cyber brain and advised she shut down. The prof then put her in the airlock in case she needed to be spaced. Shortly after he noticed some strange lesions appearing on her neck. When a tentacle burst from the lesion we blew her out of the airlock.

Ming informed us that the restoring of Nova from backup did not go well and she was suffering from clinical depression so he was having to withdraw her from the active duty roster. I suggested erasing the broken Nova and restoring her again from the backup in the hope the restoration went better next time. After a discussion with her, she agreed to erasing her damaged ego and re-restoring her from the backup. The process went better the second time. Ming confirmed the menton was Jacobi and that he had been resleved as an infomorph for interrogation.