After finishing his cocoa, Jack head upwards to his room. When he entered the room, he simply stood at the doorway. He didn’t know how to act any more. Although the DNA test proved that the old man truly was his Grandfather, Jack didn’t know or more precisely, remember, the feeling of a family. He had been five when he was separated from his parents and thrown to the Island.
Saying that they were family and all of this was left to him by his parents was all nice and well but, Jack couldn’t relate to any of these people. Although he wasn’t completely on guard against them, he didn’t trust them either. Alex had told him that all this would take time to adjust to and it was okay to take it at his own pace. It was ludicrous to have him trust them just because of a simple test and just their word.
All the Faction Leaders, Krieg, Ellen and the rest, none of them blamed him for being so cautious all the time. It could neither be blamed on him or condemned in any way either. This could only be fixed with time, it couldn’t be rushed, neither could it be forced in any way. “Time….” As he murmured that to himself, he took one last look at the room and exited the door.
He didn’t feel comfortable in the room, so he headed to the only place he did feel comfortable in, the Laboratory. Since he could remember, he felt most secure and comfortable around various machinery. As he headed back to the basement, he passed the kitchen as well. Just before he was out of reach, he heard Krieg say, “Don’t push yourself too much. Jack isn’t going to disappear again.”
Jack stopped the moment he heard that and leaned against the wall as he decided to listen in on the conversation. Ellen answered, “He is my sister’s son, my nephew. The last time I saw him, he was so tiny.” Krieg agreed, “Yes and I remember what happened when he disappeared the first time. You with half the planet were searching for traces of him and your sister.”
Krieg then sighed, “Freddy’s charisma… It was on a completely different scale. He could even make an enemy like him. However, what no man can understand is…. Why Kriegrich Empire?”
Ellen sobbed a bit as she agreed, “Although we weren’t in war with them at the time, there were still dozens, if not hundreds of better locations.” Krieg then let out a deep sigh, “Unless we can find them, we will never know. But lately, Boss has been thinking deeply on the matter though.” Ellen raised her head and looked at him in confusion. Krieg patted her head lightly and said with a serious expression, “Both him and Madame are both ESP-ers with a SS rank ability. It is really odd that he only has a A rank ability [Metal Manipulation]”.
After saying this far, a sign of shock was in Ellen’s eyes as she asked in shock, “You mean that he has another ability as well or has hidden his real ability?” Krieg helplessly nodded his head as he said, “Either way, until we find them, we can only speculate. As for concrete answers, we can only hear them from the person himself.” Ellen nodded her head as she rose up to wash her cup.
Seeing that the conversation had finished, Jack silently decided to head to the basement. On his way there, he tried to remember what his father had been like. As he mulled on it, he remembered something that happened just before he had been taken by the military. His Father had taken him to a small hill nearby the village in the middle of the night. Since Jack was small, he didn’t understand the conversation back then and with the events that happened soon after, he had forgotten about this conversation until now.
The small Jack was sitting on a boulder and as he looked at the starry sky, his father next to him said, “Don’t blame your mother for what happens in the next five years. This is all on me and when we meet again in the future, I promise I will tell you everything.” He then patted Jack’s head and said in soft words, “This is all for the sake of settling Karma, I am sorry little one.” As he said that, a small tear escaped his eye. Back then, Jack didn’t understand the meaning behind his words but looking back at it now…. Jack’s eyes turned cold as he mumbled, “He knew that this would happen… But how?”
As he went over the information he knew and had learned in the past few days, he could only reach one conclusion, something big was going to happen soon. And, for better or worse, he was going to be one of the lead actors in this giant play. As for the reasons, he decided that if he met that man again some day, he would without a doubt beat the answers out of him.
To him, all these people were none other than strangers, strangers that didn’t mean him harm. He wasn’t blind or stupid, he could see that they truly did care for him, however, he just couldn’t make himself trust them. Even now, he was always ready for the possibility of them betraying him. The only person he did trust was Hedi.
He had fought side by side with her for years and either one of them had had the possibility to kill the other one at any time. This trust wasn’t easy to build and now that it was built, it was worth more than any other. With that in mind, Jack sat down at the table. He looked at the Tracker on the table with a blank gaze as his mind was preoccupied with several other thoughts. He thought back to the time spent on the Island and also about what he should do from now on. As he thought back to the time spent on the Island, his fingers involuntarily traced the barbed scar that ran across his neck.
His eyes were cold as he thought back to the person that gave him the scar. “He was one of the Seeded Students….” Over the years, they had learned of the more “intricate” workings of the Academy. Amongst the one hundred kids that were transported to the Island, 3 were the so called “Seeded Students”. They came from the influential or big families of the Empire and they all had certain advantages over the other kids.
All three of these kids were the shining stars of their families and had been raised with preparations for the Island. They all also could bring a few items from the outside to make their own lives easier on the Island. These advantage seemed like they didn’t mean much individually but when the three were to team up….
This was what had happened this time as well. Their parents were all friends or connected one way or another so it wasn’t hard for the kids to team up. Since all of them had advantages from the outside, they reigned supreme and were the main people that massacred the rest. Usually, after taking care of the other 97 people, the three would take the remaining time to train their ability.
From time to time, there will be some special people amongst the 97 other participants that manage to snatch a spot from one of the seeded participants. This time, there were two that caused an enormous headache to the Seeded Students: Jack and Hedi.
Their kill count was the highest and by their hands, one of the Seeded Participants had fallen while the other two had manage to escape with grievous wounds. If their own wounds hadn’t been as serious as theirs, then those two would not be alive either. “I wonder who will survive in the end….” As he mumbled that to himself, he sighed deeply as his eyes focused on the Tracker.
He wasn’t sleepy so he powered up the laboratory computer. When it had started working, several notifications appeared that told Jack that the computer needed to be updated. Jack sighed as he clicked “Yes” to everything that told him to update something. It took the computer nearly an hour to finish all the updates.
He had gotten he passwords for the computer from his Grandfather. He didn’t just watch the update during that hour bout rather, his mind was swirling around a special invention he wanted to create. His physical abilities were good but his Ability wasn’t exactly made for combat…. He was currently quite high on the Most Wanted list of the Kriegrich Empire, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that he would not have a quiet and peaceful life.
He needed to create some weapons and defensive armour that he could use to make sure he survived another day. The way he decided to combat this problem was to create a high tech suit that he could carry everywhere that wasn’t eye catching.
The blueprints for the suit, weapons and the command unit were done however, he lacked a power source. Since it was a high tech suit of armour that could block all Energy Rounds and Physical Rounds, shoot out Physical Rounds and Energy Rounds, he needed an extremely powerful energy source. However, at the same time, it needed to be small, small enough that it was inconspicuous enough not to be noticed. This energy source was the main problem this suit was only possible in theory. The other was the command itself. It needed to link his mind with the suit.
The AI technology was extremely primitive despite all the high technical advancements around the Galaxy. Jack needed to create an AI that could help assist him in battle, check his condition, manage the things needed. These two were the biggest obstacles at the moment, well, Jack already had an idea on the power source and currently was mentally running test on whether it was a feasible idea or not. However, the AI System was what gave him the biggest headache.
Humans were so pathetically behind in creating a good AI System that Jack wanted to cry. “These idiots…. All the technological advancements are towards weapons. General commodities have fallen so far behind that it a joke.” As Jack familiarized himself with the technology available on the market, all he could do was curse all the scientist, mechanics and engineers.
In private laboratories and government offices, military bases, there were AI systems but they were basically only in charge of surveillance or turning lights on and off. The only option Jack had left was to get an AI System and improve it or build one from scratch himself.
However, all AI Technology was extremely classified and near impossible to obtain unless you had either enormous amounts of money or status. Since he had neither, his only choice was to create a completely new AI System on his own. This wasn’t going to be any short term project, even if he could create an AI in a short time, he would need a lot of time to work out all the bugs, glitches and improve it. Although, this would be a long term project and a costly project, he needed to keep himself safe.
His Ability was weak in direct combat and had a lot of weaknesses but this suit would be able to negate nearly all of them. As Jack was lost in his thoughts, the computer finished installing all updates and had restarted. Jack threw all of those things to the back of his mind for now and focused on the program for the Tracker. Without Jack knowing, hours passed and it was morning now.
After Krieg and Ellen had woken up and made breakfast. When Krieg went to wake up Jack to eat, he discovered that the bed was empty and there were no signs of him having even slept there. Krieg was alarmed and quickly searched the house for him. The last place he went to look was the basement, where the laboratory was. When he saw that the lights were on, he sighed in relief as he went in and saw Jack standing in the middle of the room with a giant hologram around him.
Krieg’s eyes turned big because holograms were usually used in military grade technology. What surprised Krieg more was that Jack could “touch” the hologram. He then saw that Jack was wearing some gloves that he hadn’t seen before. As Krieg spectated Jack interact with the hologram, Jack let out a deep sigh. Amongst the various dots that represented planets, one of the was blinking with a red light. When Jack enlarged the specific planet, Jack saw that the tracker was near the border of Kriegrich Empire. Kriegrich Empire had 12 planets that were completely under it’s control but there were some other planets that had some territory that belonged to the Empire.
Planets occupied by various Empires or Kingdoms were not anything unusual but this planet itself was neighbouring the border of the Empire. The Tracker traced the signal to a small little town a hundred kilometers from the nearest outpost of the Empire. The village itself belonged to the Aldurin Republic, if the Empire tried to forcefully search the area, it would impact the diplomatic relations between the two heavily. Worst case scenario, the two could even go to war.
Although Jack didn’t care whether they went to war or not, if they did, it would be hard to locate Hedi because she might get caught by the military or killed. Since the beacon was active and moving around, there was a high chance that Hedi was still alive and kicking. Besides, with Jack’s knowledge of Hedi, she was no pushover or idiot either, she wouldn’t stay there for long, so his only option was to borrow a ship and pick her up soon. As Jack went over the situation in his head, Krieg suddenly coughed, “Time for breakfast.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Jack looked at Krieg and then smiled wryly. Just as Jack smiled sheepishly, his stomach let out a grumble. Krieg laughed and said, “Come on lets go.” As he smiled back, he turned around and started heading upstairs. Jack put the Tracker down and took off the gloves and put them besides the Tracker. He then headed upstairs to the dining room to have breakfast. As they finished eating, they sat down and drank coffee, Jack had cocoa of course. Krieg asked Jack, “So, you finished the Tracker?”
Jack looked at the cocoa in his hands and nodded his head. He then clarified, “All that is left now is to go there and make sure it is working properly. Before that, I don’t know if the signal caught was the one made from the beacon I made or not.” Krieg nodded his head but Ellen looked confused as she asked, “You finished it already?”
Jack nodded his head and looked out the window, “Yea, I couldn’t sleep last night, so I figured I might as well tinker with it a bit but before I knew it, Krieg told me breakfast was ready.” Krieg let out a hollow laugh as he said, “You need to sleep a bit more. Your body isn’t completely healed yet, don’t overwork yourself.” Jack nodded his head. He could see that they were worried about him. Krieg then asked, “How do you plan to pick her up?”
Jack shook his head and answered, “I don’t know, probably try to board a merchant ship or travelling ship. I can’t exactly show up with a private ship.” Krieg nodded his head and sighed while Ellen asked in confusion, “Why not, it is far safer that way, no?” Krieg explained before Jack could, “He is wanted by the Kriegrich Empire and the planet that the little miss is on, has three powers fighting over it. Kriegrich Empire, Aldurin Republic and Myriad Alliance…. If he showed up on a private ship, things would be far more complicated.” Ellen nodded her head understanding the situation now.
She then fell into thought as she suddenly asked, “Doesn’t our Merchant Faction trade with them on a regular basis? If you talked to Martin, I am sure you could tag along with one of the ships that head there on a regular basis.” Hearing the suggestion, Krieg fell into thought while Jack also thought about the idea. Krieg then said, “It isn’t a bad idea to be honest. It is safer than taking a private ship or an international one.” As the three discussed the option of it, Krieg left the table for a bit to go and let Jack’s Gramps know about it.
Ellen and Jack made some small talk and after a while Krieg came back and said, “It is settled. Your Grandpa talked to the Martin and we are in luck. The next ship that is scheduled to go is the day after tomorrow.” Jack nodded his head and rose up from his seat and started heading back to the laboratory. Seeing this Krieg asked, “Where are you going?” Jack turned to him and said, “To make preparations.” Krieg then nodded his head and talked to Ellen a bit before heading out.
Two days passed by in a flash and the day to leave arrived. In front of the house, a black SUV was parked, waiting for the two to finish saying their goodbyes before the flight. The two were of course Jack and Krieg. There was no way they would let Jack go alone, so Krieg decided to tag along with a few old fellows from the Mercenary Faction. In total there were 11 people with Jack included. After Ellen reminded them to stay safe for dozens of times, he hugged them and kissed Krieg before the two sat in the car and left. When they arrived at the station where the ship was docked, they were greeted by a few people from the ship.
As they introduced the ship and talked about the length of the trip and such, Krieg suddenly asked, “Isn’t the security a tad too much?” What Krieg was talking about was that there were men from the Mercenary Faction all over the ship with guns in hand and besides the Merchant ship, there were three Mercenary ships parked outside waiting. It was usual for a single Mercenary ship to escort a ship to the planet but this time there were three. The young man that was their guide smiled and gave a sheepish laugh as he explained, “This time, the Boss is coming with us so the security was tripled.”
Krieg’s eyes opened wide as he asked, “Martin is also coming there? Why?” The young man shook his head as he said, “There have been some problems with the people we usually trade with. They are being pressured by the Kriegrich Empire not to trade with us so he is coming personally to negotiate with those merchants.” Krieg nodded his head as he quieted down. This was nothing new to them as the Kriegrich Empire always tried to use it’s big scale and military might to intimidate others into not trading with them but merchants pursued profit.
Kriegrich Empire was the worst trade partner for them as they thought too highly of themselves and always haggled over every little price and didn’t know how to relent in trade. They overpriced everything they wanted to sell and severely lowered the price of everything they bought. No merchant wanted anything to do with them as they only suffered losses dealing with those idiots but for better or worse, their military might truly was strong and all sorts of accidents may happen to their ships in space.
They needed that protective umbrella that is the Empire, so they have no other option than to trade with them. Then the young man looked out the window towards one of the Mercenary ships and added, “Besides out Boss, the Mercenary Boss is also coming along. From what I can gather, they are planning on chocking the Empires influence there.” Krieg nodded his head as he thought back to what Jack’s Gramps had said. He had told him that they had been trying to reach an agreement with the local and international merchants for a long time now and the two Bosses were heading there to put and end to these talks now.
If they succeeded, their Regedas Alliance would have a lot more routes for trades and Mercenaries would also have a lot more job offers. This was simply how the business worked, the more connections and partners the Merchant Faction had, the more money flowed in for the Government and the more work Mercenaries had. Then, the more could Government invest in the Mercenaries and Merchants and so on. The cycle repeated itself and so the connections and power grew. As the power grew, the more options came into play and with that, they had more ways of earning reputation or making money. Krieg and the rest then went into the quarters they were given and focused on their own things for now. Although they gathered every once in a while to chat or go and eat, they mostly did their own things.
Jack tinkered with machinery, Krieg read a book and so on. They were told that the ship needed to travel in Hyper Space for a week before they arrived in the Star System the planet belonged to. From time to time, Martin and Ivar also popped by to talk a few words and remind Jack to be careful. They also talked about mundane things and Jack learned a lot about his father’s days as a Mercenary. And like that, the week flew by quickly and soon they arrived near the planets atmosphere. As Jack looked out the giant window from the Observation Deck, Krieg smiled and said, “Welcome to the Garmoun Planet.”
As the ship descended, they soon neared the airspace of the city that was the target of the trip. The little town wasn’t far from the city only about fifty kilometers. When they reached the airspace, they suddenly received a transmission, “Halt. This is restricted airspace and the city is currently at Defence Alert Stage 1. Unless you have a specific clearance, trespassing into the airspace will end in us shooting you down.”
Martin frowned when he heard the transmission and ordered all the ships to halt outside the airspace as he communicated with the authorities of the City to gain entrance to the city. After half an hour of discussions, Martin frowned even deeper as he gathered Ivar, Krieg and Jack. He said, “Kriegrich Empire has made aggressive military drills at the border so the city is currently on high alert. I was unable to gain entrance to the city via the ship, so the only choice we have left right now is to dock the ships at a neutral docking city and transport the goods via land.
Ivar fell into thought and said, “If it is like that then things will get a lot more complicated. I suggest we leave one ship with it’s crew here to guard the ships and take the rest with us. Also, I will contact Headquarters to send us reinforcements.” His gaze then turned towards the horizon, in the direction of the Kriegrich Empire, “I have a feeling this will become very problematic and complicated.”
Martin nodded his head and had the navigator to locate the closest neutral docking city and make course there. After that he turned to Jack and asked, “What are you going to do?” Everyone’s gazes turned to Jack. On this trip there were three different parties with different objectives involved.
Martin wanted to trade the goods and sign the contract with the merchants for long term trade. Ivar was here to negotiate with the Government here as they wanted to hire the Mercenaries to reinforce some cities that were closest to the border and also to mediate the alliance talks between Aldurin republic and Myriad Alliance situated on the planet. Although they had a common enemy, the Kriegrich Empire, their objectives with the alliance were different. The third party would be Jack’s. They were here to bring Hedi with them.
Jack thought about it a bit and said, “If you can lend us a small ship, we have no problem with rendezvousing with you at the Docking City.” Ivar nodded his head and said, “I can give you a small raiding ship and people to fly it but remember, take extra care. The situation here is quite odd and until we have a complete picture of what is going on, always be on alert.” Everyone nodded and Ivar had a ship brought over from one of the Mercenary ships.
The ship had two pilots on it and when Jack and company boarded the ship, the pilots looked at the people present with utmost respect. The nine Mercenary Faction retirees were legends amongst the Mercenaries so to them it was an enormous honour to shofer them around. After getting the coordinates of their destination from Jack, the ship immediately set off towards them. As the ship travelled, they learned more of the current situation and when they heard that Kriegrich Empire had started invading the border, their faces grew cold. After half an hour, they got an updated map from Ivar that showed how far the Empire had advanced.
Seeing that the beacon was past the advancement line, the faces of the eleven people turned exceedingly ugly. Krieg said to Jack in a low tone, “This is bad. Currently, the signal is on their territory and there is a high chance she has been captured.” Jack didn’t respond but instead was fiddling with the gun in his arms. Currently, all of them were dressed in black battle gear that provided decent protection from physical rounds and had and Energy Shield that negated Energy Rounds.
The ten people looked at Jack, as if waiting for an answer. Jack then loaded the salve and inserted it into the rifle in his hands. He then loaded the weapon as he said with a cold smile, “Trust me, she hasn’t been captured yet.” Just as Krieg wanted to ask what he meant by that or how he knew that, one of the pilots suddenly said, “Incoming fire, embrace for impact.”
Just as the sentence ended, the ship shook. One of the Mercenaries with Jack said, “Drop us off here and retreat back to base. We will find our own way back.” The pilot nodded his head and lowered the altitude so they were a bit over 3 meters high.
As they maintained the altitude, they tried to hover as steadily as possible as they opened the hatch doors and the eleven people jumped out. The suits had a built in shock absorption that negated falling from twice as high. When the feet of the eleven people hit the ground, they all immediately dashed for cover as the ship turned around and headed back to base. This was currently the best choice of action they could take. The ship carried the Mercenary Factions Emblem on it, if they haphazardly had drove forward with it, it could have created a lot of problems.
Now there were only eleven random people on the ground and unless they gave others their names, no one could tie them to Regedas. When they noticed that the gun fire had died down, they huddled up and looked at Jack. Jack was the head of this mission so what he said goes. If he said find a way around, then they would find a way around, if he said charge straight through, they would charge straight through. Jack looked at the signal and saw that they were pretty close, only about 5 kilometers away from it.
Jack then said, “Okey, circle around, we don’t need to alarm them with our presence here. Our target is five kilometers away east from here. If we muscle our way through, we will attract more attention.” As everyone nodded their heads, Jack added coldly, “However, our own lives are the top priority, if you see that you were discovered, immediately kill the enemy and move away. Any questions?”
Not a word was said but rather, everyone loaded their rifles. Jack nodded his head and then loaded his own rifle and said, “Move out!”
With that, the small eleven man rescue squad moved out.
***
Five kilometers from Jack location, in a small cave hidden in the forest, there were about a dozen people. Amongst those twelve people, one small girl caught everyone’s eye. Her hands were covered in blood and in those two small hands, there were two military daggers.
Her eyes were cold as she talked to a middle aged man with brown hair. The man asked, “Who exactly are you? Those movements, that coldness…. You aren’t human.”
As the man said that, the little girl just snorted, “If you wanna die then leave. If not, then stop asking such stupid questions.” The man felt angry but he then sighed deeply, “I am sorry, this situation… Just…. I, a grown ass man, froze in fear while you Hedi, a small little girl, killed every soldier that came after us.”
Hedi then sighed as well, “When we get out of here, I will tell you where I come from and why I am like I am, okay?” The man nodded and said, “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. Every one of us has things we don’t want to tell others.” After that little conversation, the twelve people kept hiding in the cave as they thought of what to do.
If they went out, they would most certainly not be able to escape intact. However, they would starve to death if they kept hiding in there. Just as they reached the end of their wits, Hedi’s eyes started shining as she said, “Jack….”
Just as she said that, the voice of a young boy echoed out from the cave mouth, “I finally found you.” When the people in the cave looked at the cave entrance, they saw 7 men and a young boy in full battle gear standing at the mouth of the cave.