The next morning, Talon Squad got up early with the engineers and checked outside. As predicted, the centipedes had all retreated to their nest when the sun rose.
They climbed down the wreck and took stock. The ATUCs and their contents were largely fine, though the centipedes had clearly rifled through what they were able to, and tools and containers were scattered around the scene. Dekken began gathering the tools they'd need.
"We'll focus on getting our ramp set up and cutting the doors open wide enough to get the crates out," said Dekken.
"Hey," asked Reclan. “Do you have an extra plasma cutter I could borrow?”
"Uh, sure. In that case there," he said, pointing to a small black crate.
Confident the area was secure, Talon Squad scrambled back into the wreck and began assembling supplies in the fab shop. There were three large, rolling carts that they intended to use to transport the unconscious captives.
After checking over the carts, Reclan set to work tinkering with the plasma cutter she had borrowed, largely just to kill time. They had decided not to blow the charges until the engineers had made their cuts and started moving boxes of parts. They didn't know how the centipedes would react, and they wanted to make sure they were ready to go as quickly as possible.
When the doors were cut, Talon Squad helped load the crates onto the ramp and lower them down via winch.
"Alright," said Dekken. “We'll take it from here. Go get our folks."
Raivyn nodded and led the crew back to the door of the fab shop, where the carts were waiting.
"Alright Doc," she said. “You do the honors."
Doc clicked the button on a tiny remote and there was a low, concussive BOOM that shook the whole wreck.
D'Jarric flung the door open and ran in, arms raised and ready to fire on any enemies. Vanbrook followed close behind, sword and gun drawn and energy buckler activated. The other three filed in behind them, each pushing a cart.
The first centipede to come their way was blasted away as soon as D’Jarric saw it. Reclan groaned at the site of it, but managed to keep her breakfast down. A group of five scurried towards them, and between D’Jarric’s energy blasts and Vanbrook’s nova crystal rounds they were dispatched quickly, though the rumbling of the fight brought bits of dirt tumbling down from the ceiling. Vanbrook noted the instability but dismissed it. They were committed now.
Running along at a good clip, they soon reached the feeding chamber. It was guarded by at least three dozen centipedes, all of which charged towards the noisy invaders. D’Jarric blasted centipede after centipede, as quickly as he could. Vanbrook leapt into the thick of it all, sword buzzing with energy and revolver barking with rapid shots. He quickly ran out of ammo and started stabbing the centipedes in the eyes and between their armored plates with pinpoint accuracy. Doc fired his rifle from where he stood, and Raivyn rained deadly bolts of T-rays on the monsters. Reclan, meanwhile, set her drones to work, flying among the centipedes and hitting them with electric shocks.
Raising his buckler to ward off a set of drooling fangs, Vanbrook looked over and saw D’Jarric being overwhelmed. He slashed wildly at the attacking centipede and rushed to help, but D’Jarric took a nasty bite to one of his arms, which began buzzing and sparking. Vanbrook took two more down in short order but they had rallied their forces and were overrunning the two fighters.
Reclan grabbed her newly modified plasma cutter and activated it with a screaming hiss. Held like a chainsaw, the tool featured a half-foot metal blade that formed an arc of plasma on the cutting edge. Reclan had added a full foot to the blade and increased the plasma energy output tenfold.
She let out a war cry and ran in, slicing a centipede in half lengthwise from its head into its third segment, a glimmer of hatred in her eye. A spray of ooze splashed onto the Dromean, but she simply turned to her next victim, chopping its head off cleanly.
The others attacked with renewed vigor, and soon found themselves the only beings in the room left standing.
They took the next half hour to pull the semi-conscious crew members of the Ferryman off the ceiling. All told, there were thirty-five souls piled up on the carts, including the two lost engineers and the madman who’d nearly shot D’Jarric.
“That’s only a small portion of the crew,” said Raivyn, triple-checking to make sure no crew members were still glued to the ceiling. “Do you think this is the only feeding chamber?”
“I’d guess so,” answered Doc. “This is the biggest mound, and the first engineer who got taken was dragged here from a different entrance. The pile of bones in the corner suggests we were too late for some folks.” There was a moment of grim silence.
“I’m down an arm,” noted D’Jarric, “and I think I’d be best used to push one of the carts one-handed and letting someone else take up the rear with Vanbrook.”
Raivyn nodded. “Sure, I’ll do it. Hopefully the way back will be cleared for us anyway.”
The squad pushed their loads back up the hill, Vanbrook helping Reclan with the steeper parts. She was no weakling, but she didn’t have the brute strength of the robot or the Solaran. Things flattened out eventually, and Vanbrook fell back to walk with Raivyn. He stayed quiet. He’d been trying to keep his distance, though he missed the relatively friendly banter that had once defined their relationship.
Stolen story; please report.
A loose patch of dirt fell from the ceiling, and Vanbrook grabbed Raivyn by the shoulder to hold her back. The loose dirt was quickly followed by a full cave in, and Vanbrook and Raivyn dove back to avoid being buried alive.
When they finished choking on the dust that had filled the air, they looked around quietly, trying to catch a glimmer of light or the sound of the others’ voice through the pile of dirt and rock.
Reclan’s voice came through on the squad’s comms channel. “Van! Rai! You guys alright?”
“Yeah,” answered Vanbrook. “Go get everyone packed into the ATUCs and come back with shovels or something. We’ll see what we can do from here.”
“Okay, providence shine on you guys,” said Reclan.
“Even in the dark?” asked Vanbrook with a smirk.
“Especially so,” said D’Jarric.
Vanbrook set to moving the larger rocks out of the way, hoping to get out sooner than later. Raivyn joined him.
“Thanks for holding me back, that was real close,” she said quietly.
“No problem,” he said, grunting as he yanked a small boulder out of the rubble.
“And thanks for coming to get me when I was captured by the Astralbians.”
Vanbrook smiled, saying, “I don’t know if you needed me on that one. As I recall you ended up rescuing me.”
“Well, I may have gotten out, but without that bike it’s hard to say how far I’d have gotten.”
The two worked in a strange silence for a while. It wasn’t comfortable, but the edge was taken off of the awkwardness.
"When I was a kid living on Aerat I was a bit of a psychic prodigy," said Raivyn.
Vanbrook paused, looking at her for a moment.
"I know," he said.
She smiled weakly. "Humans are not the most psychically gifted race, even among biologicals. Krauqians actually have psychic traditions that predate their meeting the Astralbians. Humans don’t. We unlocked our potential by studying the Astralbians who enslaved us. Then there’s the Talpadarians. They don’t often produce particularly powerful psychics, but they do tend to have more psychics per capita than humanity. The Aeratan nation doesn’t even screen children for psychic abilities until about 12 or 13.
“When I was 8, I was a typical Aeratan human. I was a dedicated student and studied martial arts, but I wasn’t looked on as a prodigy of any kind - just another kid. Then one day, a new student came to my fighting academy. She was taller, stronger and meaner than anyone I had ever met. She wanted to show everyone that she was going to rule the academy, and she picked me to make an example of.
“I don’t know what I did to earn her attention. Maybe it was because I’m small. Maybe it was because I excelled at the sport. Maybe there wasn’t any particular reason. Regardless, she made my life miserable. Spread rumors, pushed me down, made fun of anything I did, whether I did it well or not, and got the whole class to start calling me “Shrimpy.” Typical kid stuff, but I was a kid so it tore me up.”
They had stopped working at this point, having realized on some level that they were probably better off waiting for the others to return with tools. Vanbrook sat across from Raivyn in the tunnel and watched her with interest. She sat with her knees up to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs.
“One day the instructor, unaware of the issue, had the two of us spar,” she continued. “Her longer limbs and bigger build gave her a definite advantage, but I managed a couple hits.
“The style I studied included holds and grapples. Eventually she held me in a grip that exploited her size; my small frame couldn’t work up the strength and leverage to get out of it. Then she leaned in close and whispered, ‘Got you now, Shrimpy.’”
A sad smile crossed Raivyn’s face.
“Such a silly thing, looking back on it now,” she went on, “but I didn’t feel that way then.
“I lost it. I focused on nothing but tearing her off me. My head hurt from the concentration, then suddenly it all exploded outwards, like a bursting dam. She flew across the gymnasium and slammed into the padded walls. I turned towards her, keeping the pressure up, pinning her to the wall. The stare of horror that she gave me is burned into my memory to this day.
“The instructor tackled me to the ground, my concentration broke, and she fell to the ground. I was escorted from the room quickly, but she lifted her head up and shouted a single word as I walked out the door. ‘Freak.’ The whole class was chanting it as I was marched to the administrator’s office.”
Vanbrook hung his head in shame.
“I’m not really sure what happened to that girl, but I know she recovered, physically, anyway. Last I heard she got married, has a job as a baker, and has a drinking problem. My life, however, was changed forever. It started with interviews with psychologists and court appearances that I didn’t understand. I was put into military school by a court order, and groomed to be what I am today.
“I was taught how to direct the T-waves my mind produced to influence others through telepathy and manipulate objects through telekinesis, and even how to shoot concentrated bolts. I turned out to be an extremely gifted psychic, and memorized the ethical standards of the Aeratan Army, then those of the Republic Navy when I had graduated from school and left Independent Aerat to become a citizen of the Republic.
“But I made my own vow, never to use my abilities for cruelty again. I work so hard to use my gifts to fight bullies, but never to abuse the innocent. The line can be blurry, but I would walk on broken glass to stay on the right side of it.”
Silence reigned for a moment. Assured she was finished with her story, Vanbrook nodded, saying, “I am so sorry, I had no idea what that word meant to you.”
“I know,” said Raivyn, burying her head in her knees, “and you don’t need to apologize twice. Look, we’re very different people. We’re going to have spats as long as we’re both on Talon Squad, but, differences aside, you’re a valuable part of things. I don’t want any bad blood.”
Vanbrook smiled wanly, considering the sentiment for a moment.
“No worries,” he said, trying to mask his own vulnerabilities with bravado. He was happy to have things patched up, but somehow he wanted more than a simple truce. “What do you say we keep trying to dig a bit? I don’t want them to find us sitting on our butts.”
They stood up to start working at the cave-in again when they heard a scratching sound.
“That wasn’t the others, was it,” said Vanbrook, looking at one of the tunnels they had collapsed to block off the centipedes.
“We better get digging,” said Raivyn in a worried voice.
“Can you clear this with your abilities?” asked Vanbrook. Raivyn hemmed and hawed.
“Maybe, but moving lots of loose stuff is harder than moving big, heavy stuff. It’s the difference between trying to grab handfuls of sand and picking up a stone. I’ll do what I can.”
She dug at the cave-in, trying to reach out with her mind to pull on the dirt and rocks. It began to move, but suddenly more loose dirt was falling from the ceiling. The scratching noises from the side tunnel grew louder.
“Okay, new plan!” she said, running to the side tunnel.