The signals were about 60 kms away from the city. He told the shuttle outloud to head there keeping a high altitude. Being dark outside it would keep them hidden. 

While the shuttle was initiating maneuvers he went to the medical center. In there he took out two dermal injectors and injected himself one after another relaxing as soon as they started to take effect.

"What is that for?" Paul asked him

"To numb the pain, fight the effects of blood loss, and keep me going longer" Alex answered

"Didn't you say that medical pod can take care of you?" Paul asked again.

"Yeah, but if I go there it won't let me go until it's sure i am relatively stable, and since I got hit in the head it might take a while" Alex explained. If the pod decided that it would be better to knock him out to do whatever procedure it thought necessary, they would be forced to wait until it finished.

They left the medical center and went back to the bridge, to see what excacly they had to deal with.

The shuttle was hovering some 5km in the air. Using infrared they saw the signal coming from a carriage that was just arriving on a building in the middle of nowhere. The ship's AI counted 58 men in or around the building.

There was a big open field around the building and what looked like some type of garden on the back of it. There was some distance to the forest which means that getting close to the building without being seen would be very hard.

The problem was how to approach them, there was no convenient landing site nearby and they didn't want to waste even more time. And it looked like the forest had some really big animals for their heat signatures to be visible from this far up, and they didn't look like horses, luckily they weren't anywhere near the building.

They rushed through a couple of ideas while seeing the girls being taken from the carriage to the building, and settle on one that would probably give them a more chances of success as quickly as possible. Alex rushed to the medical center and Paul to his original shuttle coming back with clothes.

Alex quickly took out two canisters from a cabinet one with filled with alcohol and one with a very fast acting anesthetic the medical pod uses. He went to put on a space suit while Paul filled a dermal injector and a small canister with the anesthetic.

The main idea behind the plan was simple, knock out as many people as possible. The anesthetic would knockout someone if injected, or as an alternative have them breath in the smoke after it is thrown to an open flame.

So, starting a small fire inside the building in a place where it wouldn't spread would knock out many people because the smoke spread even if the fire didn't.

Alex went to the workshop and took out a battery and wires the battery had somewhat high voltage even if it was small.

The second problem they had was how do you get there, there wasn't any place to land and since inside a planet's atmosphere and gravitational pull the shuttle needed to use hot air propulsion which was noisy and hot. The shuttle's AI wouldn't allow it to go anywhere where it could directly hurt people, damage property or start a forest fire, so the closest landing site was the sea which was a lot further than it had been from the city.

The only solution to that problem was for Alex to jump out, he could easily survive a drop from 100 meters, probably a little higher since this planet's gravity was closer to earth and lower than his home planet's.

So, dropping Alex half a kilometer away was enough for the noise of the engines to be faint enough that it could probably be ignored as a distant animal's roar, and he could then run to the building in less than a minute.

When they got finished with the preparations the girls were inside the building just inside the door, they noted that for some reason there was some sort of conversation going on between the criminals and the new girl but they were in a hurry and and set their plan in motion quickly, hoping for the situation not to turn even worse before they implemented their plans.

When they got into position Alex wrapped the cannisters inside the bundle of clothes and picked up the parabolic microphone's base to use as a makeshift shield if need be. They turned off all lights, opened the hangar door and after a small running start he jumped.

Midair, he just hopped that his air was true and he landed on the small path that leads to the building. Luckily, he landed on the path, and after a small roll he took off running toward the building.

Paul guided the shuttle back high up to keep an eye on things. He would use infrared to follow what's hapenning since the shuttle's infrared camera was better than Alex's vision he would guide Alex from above. But they couldn't use x-rays since some parts of their suits react to certain types of radiation, and with x-rays parts of the girl's sleeve and back would glow.

When Alex got near the building he realized how big it was. It was a four stories dark gray stone building. Whoever built it didn't go for pretty but functional, it was a complete rectangle box with doors and barred windows. There were lanterns lit around the building making it hard to approach without being seen, but luckily there weren't a lot of people in front, just two guys tending to horses.

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He circled the building while inside the tree line trying to find a good place to approach from. On the back of the building there was a big garden with some flowers which reached up to his knees. Using it for cover he crawled as close as he could to the building. There was still a big gap between the gardens and the building, and there was an open door back there and some men that were heading inside the building.

Looking around for another way in he realized why these men were here "they are drug dealers" Alex said in a low voice even if knowing that with the helmet on only Paul would hear

"What?" Paul asked

"These flowers, they are a type of opiate, in high doses it causes hallucinations" he said

"Ok, got it. Look the men near where you are going in" Paul said "But the girls are still on the other side by the front entrance"

 Alex opened the anesthetic and spread some on the clothes, then headed toward an open window taking a couple flowers with him. Inside he saw an empty room, the door on the other side that lead to the building was open which was perfect.

Opening the container he poured alcohol on most of the clothes leaving some with him in case he could do it in another location and threw it inside through the gaps in the bars. Tearing a small fabric and wrapping it on one end of the flower stem he poured some alcohol on it and using the wires he connected the poles of the battery creating a spark right by the cloth causing it to catch on fire. He threw it inside and it landed on the bundle of clothes he had inside lighting it on fire immediately.

Then he backed away, looking up for a good place to hold. He couldn't jump to the terrace since it was very high but he could use a midway point. Wrapping everything back up he jumped toward a window on the second floor. When he reached it he grabbed the bars to help him get a footing on the window.

"They won't simply ignore the fire" Paul remarked

"Then they'll probably try to put it out, knocking them out immediately. If we put it inside the building it might knock out a lot of them before they realized what's happening and unless they have hermetic suits, or isolated ventilation systems for each room and given their level of technology I don't see that being true" Alex answered

The second jump was harder than the first because if he jumped with too much force he would most likely push himself back too much and land back down on the ground. So, he decided to simply jump one floor up and from there jump to the roof, both times had to use grab his target to make sure he doesn't go too far back.

On the roof he waited for Paul's confirmation, the space suit would be enough for him not to suffer the effects of their improvised knockout gas. The roof of the building was the best place to wait because it gave him the ability to jump down anywhere around the building surprising whoever need be.

Paul's confirmation came after a few seconds, "It looks like it's working, one man went to the room and immediately fell down" Paul relayed "I can follow the smoke using infrared, its spreading outside the room". 

After a few more seconds Paul updated him "five more men fell down on the corridor" the plan was going great, even better than predicted because most of the men were inside the building. This was really good, keeping this up they wouldn't need to do anything but pickup the girls.

There were yell from the inside then Paul said with aprehension in his voice. "the men realized something was wrong when another one fell down, looks like everyone is panicking." 

"The panic is helping us, more men fell down rushing toward the smoke" Paul said the tone of his voice clearly indicating that like Alex he was hoping their plan would work almost perfectly.

"Something is happening" Paul said, his tone shifting from upbeat to concerned, this quickly made Alex concerned as well.

"What?" Alex asked

"The smoke.." Paul said making Alex worried with anticipation, he was on the terrace and because if that he couldn't follow what was happening through so many floors with his infrared vision

"...The smoke is somehow being blown away" Paul finished his sentence

"How?" Alex asked

"I don't know, it simply left the building, I don't know how, the men there don't seem to be doing anything, the temperature that was rising steadily somehow dropped" Paul said "And the fire is gone too"

Alex heard screams from the girls when Paul piped in "they are moving to outside the building looking for you. From their movements I think they believe the fire was setup by someone"

Alex decided to prepare the rest of the clothes, even if they know someone is here its still possible to knockout some more men. And rush in and take the girls.

"The girls were taken outside" Paul said with a tremble in his voice.

Alex went to the front of the building and saw why, both Angela and the other girl were being held with swords aiming at their throats and there was a man holding Alicia by the neck. He had his hands stretched in front of him for some reason. Most of the men went to the back of the building, leaving only the man holding Alicia, the two men holding Angela and the other girl side by side, and another man covering for them.

Feeling hope again Alex set the clothes on fire and threw it down jumping aright after it. The fire and smoke would knock out the man with Alicia, and  if he landed near the men with the swords things would be easy. Simply take them out and deal with the other man after that. Then they could take the horses and leave before any of the other men even realized they were gone.

Midair during the jump things changed, he felt a force like someone had put a repulsor in the walls and it pushed him away, so instead of falling down near the men he was thrown away and landed in front of them but further afield.

The sudden change in direction made him loose his balance and he landed awkwardly, but after regaining his footing he turned around and started running toward the girls, not knowing what just happened but trying to make sure to get to the girls as quickly as possible before the men could gather their thoughts.

But before getting there he was suddenly floating in the air. Again it was like someone had used a repulsor plate. But this time, since he was being pushed away from the ground the only location for it would be the ground. Looking down he couldn't see a plate, and it couldn't possibly be under the ground since it would also be pushing the ground up, but the ground was undisturbed.

Looking around trying to make some sense of what was happening he looked at the men and noticed that the man who was holding Alicia by the neck was somehow looked strained while still holding his hands in front of him, was he somehow controlling this? Did they somehow have technology but preferred to use these primitive tools for everyday use and only use advanced technology if in trouble? It didn't make sense, even if it would explain how the fire and smoke were taken care of so quickly, but it still wouldn't explain why they had let get that far.

Not knowing what to do, Alex threw the shield toward the man. He suddenly felt vertigo again when he dropped to the ground, the shield somehow was pushed back midair, almost as if it had encountered a repulsor field coming from the location the men and the girls were. But, there was no way a repulsor was located there because they would have all been pushed just like the shield.

Not knowing what to think Alex decides to run perpendicular to see if he could get to the side of the building but he was again floating in midair the man again pointing his arms toward Alex.

Empty handed Alex floated there trying to understand what was happening, knowing that things just became way worse than before.