While Needle and Noah were frozen in shock, I dashed over to them and shoved Needle away from Noah. He dropped the helmet and fell on his ass, skidding backwards a bit.
“Noah… I-” Needle stammered.
Keshi, Sil, Needle, and the nearby soldiers that had seen the commotion saw Noah’s face. The bystanders were shouting and pointing, and a few of them had already pulled their tablets out to record Noah. Some of them were even calling out that there was a human in their midst. More and more soldiers were starting to turn and try to get a look. Curiosity worked against our favor.
“Fuck!” I shouted.
I quickly snatched Noah’s helmet from the ground and slammed it over his head. I grabbed his arm and pulled.
“Come on, let’s get out!” I said.
Noah started stumbling after me as I shoved my way through the crowd. A lot of the people who saw were just staring, and nobody was bold enough to try and stop an upset Togumo. I didn’t want to take any chances though. Somebody would at least try to nab Noah. Even if they didn’t have evil intentions, humans were still illegal, and this was a military base. It would be completely normal if a soldier captured an illegal alien to turn over to the government.
Luckily, after I shoved past a few groups of people, we broke line of sight with the original group that had spotted Noah. And since Noah had his helmet on, the human that had suddenly appeared disappeared just as fast. However, I did hear shouts of “did you see that human? Where did he go?” starting to rise. It was starting to spread like a wildfire.
“Noah, Saka, wait!” I heard Keshi call out from behind me.
I didn’t turn back. Noah flinched slightly when he heard Keshi say his name, but he kept stumbling after me. Sil started calling out too, but it was quickly drowned out by the shouting of the soldiers still talking about a human. The commotion masked our retreat. In my peripheral view, I saw Captain Ceel’s towering frame looming over everyone else. She was staring very hard at Noah, and quickly started walking away from us, towards one of the cargo hold exits. Shit.
I pushed through the last group of soldiers standing in front of one of the exits, and closed the door. I was still grabbing Noah’s hand. I used my other arm to shut the door, and we started running.
“Noah, are you okay?” I asked.
“Does it look like I am?” Noah said. “I just had my helmet taken off right in front of a crowd. Needle is such a fucking dumbass.”
“Yeah, he is. We need to find a way out of here, or we’re fucked. I think our only option is to steal a ship, Noah.”
“I don’t like our odds.” Noah muttered.
We continued dashing through the hallways, streaking past anyone who happened to be walking by. Ceel hadn’t made any announcements or anything yet, but that could change at any second.
“Noah, how did Needle even pull your helmet off?” I asked. “I thought you had it locked?”
“I did! Until I took it off and put it back on before the party. I fucked up and forgot to lock it again.” Noah groaned.
“Are you serious? Come on, man.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t get on my ass about it, I know how badly I messed up.”
“Sorry. Let’s focus on getting out.”
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We were steadily making progress towards the fighter bays, and there were no hordes of armed soldiers to stop us. The soldiers at the party were unarmed, us included, and the ones wandering around the ship didn’t have weapons, either. The war was over, so nobody carried weapons around in case of attack.
“What about our guns?” Noah asked. “I don’t want to leave our stuff here.”
“Shit!” I said. “Okay, I think our living quarters are on the way to the fighter bays. Let’s grab our guns and make our way to the ships.”
I didn’t want to lose our opportunity to escape, but chances were that we might even have to fight our way to the fighter bays to steal a ship. On top of that, once we got out, we’d be wanted people. Being unarmed didn’t look so good.
We made a small detour to get to our little two bunk room that we’d lived in for the past three months. Noah grabbed his Fune 2, and I grabbed my beloved energy shotgun.
“Anything else you’re bringing?” I asked.
“Nope, nothing. This gun, my suit, and my tablet are the only things I’ve got. And I’m not taking the stupid medal.”
I nodded. We didn’t have much in terms of personal belongings anyways, and we were in a rush. We burst out the door and started making our way to the fighter bays again.
Suddenly, my comms device started crackling in my ear. I’d kind of forgotten about it after I’d gotten it replaced. I raised my hand to throw it out so the ship couldn’t track us.
“Listen to me, Noah and Saka.” Ceel’s voice came whispering through the comms. “I’m helping you get out.”
“Alright, Ceel.” Noah replied. “I appreciate it.”
What the fuck? Noah didn’t seem surprised that Captain Ceel was helping us, and he even called her Ceel. Where was the captain part?
“I’m letting you take a transport ship to get off this warship. It’s the first one directly in front of you as you enter the fighter bay. It’s fueled up, and completely unlocked. You can use it to get to any station within 200 light years. Once you get there, just leave it. I’ll just have someone pick it up and return it to us. By the time that happens, make sure to be somewhere else.” Captain Ceel said.
“Thank you, but why are you helping us?” I asked. “You do know what just happened, right?”
“I’ve known for a while.” Ceel laughed. “That one hiccup with the simulation made me suspicious, so I asked Noah directly afterwards.”
I whipped my head towards Noah. “Noah, you knew that Captain Ceel knew?” I screeched. “And you didn’t tell me?”
Noah winced. “Look. I knew if I told you, you’d try to get us out of here as soon as possible. Ceel wasn’t going to tell anyone, and she’s been helping me out for a while. I’m sorry, I should’ve told you.”
“Fine.” I huffed. “Let’s just get out of here.”
“By the way, all of the soldiers have been ordered to not do anything to you guys.” Ceel said. “But don’t be surprised if a few opportunists try to nab Noah. The GU pays a lot of money to whoever turns in humans to them. It’s disgusting, really. Even if a poacher or a normal person finds a human, they all end up going to the same place.”
I didn’t have time to ask Ceel to elaborate, so I squashed my questions. I couldn’t stay upset at Noah, either. Thanks to Ceel, we’d been given a pass to escape. All that was left to do was to get to the ship and leave.
After a few more minutes of running later, we arrived at the door to the fighter bay. However, three familiar people awaited us there. Keshi, Sil, and Needle. I raised my shotgun.
“Whoah whoah whoah!” Sil said, facing the palms of her hands towards us. “We’re not here to stop you.”
Keshi nodded. “We just wanted to … say goodbye. We don’t mean Noah any harm.”
Needle was staring at his feet and his tail hung limply. “I … uh, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have done it if I knew.”
“The point was that nobody knew.” Noah said coldly. “Come on, Saka.”
I lowered my shotgun and we walked past the trip and into the fighter bay. Like Ceel had said, the transport ship was ready for us. Actually, it was likely that Keshi, Sil, and Needle had gotten it ready for us. She knew that we were close with those three, and Sil had the clearance level to start the ship.
Noah and I walked up the ramp on the back of the transport ship. I slammed a button on the side that raised the ramp. As the ramp slowly raised, Noah and I got one last look at Keshi, Sil, and Needle, who had turned to face us. The last thing I saw before the ramp closed was Needle finally raising his head and looking directly at Noah, his face clearly distraught. He’d messed up badly, but he didn’t mean it to be very malicious. Even though taking off someone’s helmet without their permission was pretty bad. Especially when that person in particular had been very vocal about keeping it on.
Whatever. We were likely never going to see Needle again. I made my way to the cockpit of the transport ship. I strapped myself in, and Noah sat in the copilot’s seat next to me.
“It’s been a while since we’ve been in a cockpit, huh” I said.
“Yeah.” Noah said.
I guess he wasn’t feeling too good. I started initiating the launch.
Ceel’s voice emanated through my comms device again.
“Good, it looks like you made it to the ship with no problems. Good luck out there, you two. It’s going to be bad. The news is already spreading fast, soldiers have already posted pictures and videos on this warship’s forums. It’s a matter of time until it spreads to the net. You’re going to have some bounty hunters after you, I bet. This is as much as I can do for you. Keep an eye out.”
“Thank you, Ceel.” Noah replied. “Hopefully we can meet again sometime in the future.”
Captain Ceel laughed. “You’re pretty optimistic, kid. Just go.”
I launched the transport ship. Flying this thing was pretty unfamiliar. It was a lot heavier than my old ship, and I was rusty. I managed to get it through the semipermeable forcefield of the fighter bays, and fly out into the dark unknown. The Spear of Kaine was currently in a well connected gate system, which meant that there were a lot of tunnels to choose from. I picked the one that led away from the capital. That would be the worst possible place to hide a human, after all. I entered FTL, causing the ship to jolt, and beelined for the tunnel.
I was glad to be out of the military, but everything else wasn’t looking so good. Ceel was right. Bounty hunters, mercenaries, and opportunists would be threats now. We’d just spent the last few months fighting for the Galactic Union, but now it was like we were fighting the GU itself. Noah and I had to hide among the stars.