“I won’t ask you again,” the man said. “Who sent you?”
Sasha looked from blaster to blaster. As strong as her God Tool was, it couldn't deflect lasers. Not unless the shot at the weapon itself, which was a stretch and a half.
"I told you," she said, "we came on our own. All we want is to find our friend."
“Uhuh. And who's this ‘friend’, huh? What’s his name? Pablo?”
“‘Her’ name is Iris. She’s a wolf. White fur. Really quiet.”
"Doesn't ring a bell. Neither does some random cat showing up out of the blue. Who're you supposed to be, Captain Mittens?”
Sasha narrowed at the man. Although the blasters could kill her quite easily, the urge to whack him in the face increased ten-fold. She looked to Mr. Erin, who reluctantly nodded, his wand held low at his side. Considering how many scavengers had cropped up, diplomacy was out the window. And they did have a mission to complete. She smiled, the panther suddenly all too aware of how large the command deck was. Plenty of room for her to maneuver.
“Fine," she said. "We were actually sent by- GT NOW!”
Her body jerked sideways, straight into the unsuspecting scavengers, her staff knocking them aside like pins. The rest snapped into action, but she was already on the move, zipping away as blasters hit metal. She bounced off the ceiling, slamming down on another scavenger and flinging herself again. She had to stay moving. That was her way. Like a rubber ball flung in all directions. It was the only way her gravity skill could be effective.
Your staff has a nice reach, but it's lacking reserves. Your skill is useful, but don't over-rely on it. If you can use GT without activating your field, I'd say you'd make a far more dangerous adversary.
That's what Mr. Erin had told her. She'd known it all along, but hearing him say it aloud made the idea finally click. GT was not a powerhouse. It couldn't keep up with most of the other weapons in the cosmos. But GT wasn't weak. It had its own way of fighting. And she'd been practicing for weeks how to use it.
"Somebody shoot already!"
She dove behind a broken console, letting it get obliterated by lasers while she zipped away. There was less room to maneuver than she thought, but she was making it work. She was thinning their numbers. A little. But she didn't need to knock them all out.
“Anytime now, Mr. Erin!”
As she said that, the firing came to a screeching halt.
The scavengers trained their guns forward, but none fired a single round. Even the hologram look-alike stood waving his gun towards her, his mouth screaming at her with no sound coming. She dropped to the floor, her hand waving to be on the safe side. Nobody moved an inch. They were all frozen courtesy of the yellow glyph at their feet. Mr. Erin let out a small breath, his glowing wand still aimed at the floor.
“Freezing this many takes a toll, y’know,” he said. “It’s not something I prefer to use, Sasha. Not on this many people.”
Sasha patted the hologram look-alike down, a hand coming out with the control mechanism for Mr. Erin's barrier.
"They can repay you with their stuff," she said as she clicked her liaison free. "It's only fair, right? They try to shoot us, so we take their stuff."
"I wouldn't go making that a habit, Ms. Panther."
"Too late." She marveled at the warmth coursing through her as she dawned one of the scavenger's coats. "Oooh. Yeah, I'm definitely keeping this. Oh, and this one's got grenades. And I guess a blaster would be nice. Oh sweet, chets!"
"Sasha, running low on time."
"Oh. Right."
She stopped stealing long enough to run up to the hologram look-alike, smack him with her staff, and return to her slightly annoyed liaison. The glyph had started to blink below them. That was as good an indication as any they needed to make themselves scarce, though the idea of watching them unfreeze and freak out was tempting.
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"Manage to find anything worthwhile?" Mr. Erin asked.
"Well, there was this."
She showed off a small commpad she'd snagged. It had a series of dates and time stamps but wasn't anything Sasha could understand. Still, she had a hunch Mr. Erin would make use of it. She handed it over, the weasel giving it a brief glance over.
"Hmm. A logbook? This might actually come in handy."
"Think it'll help us find Iris?"
"I'm not sure. It looks like rendezvous points. And this handwriting. It's Allegian."
"What?"
"Oh. Allegian. It's the third most common language in AIC space."
As they spoke, Sasha heard shouting from behind them. They'd been slowly making their way out of the ship wreckage, but as they heard the yelling, their pace increased to a small jog.
"So what does that mean, exactly? Sasha asked.
"Well, considering how few AIC members travel this far, it could be a memento from a survivor. Or it could be something stolen from a tourist."
"And which one-" A laser whizzed past her. "Oh. Looks like they know we're still here."
"We should probably speed up."
"Agreed."
They both took off, the sounds of gunfire growing louder as they ran straight for the ship.
***
Mr. Erin clicked the monitor to life, a robot scanning over the notebook placed at the center of their table. A cascade of data began to appear on-screen, the dates and times flashing next to a holographic projection of the papers. The way he'd set it up, narrowing down their suspect list would be as easy as a commpad search. In theory. Technology was far from her strong suit, so Sasha could only watch the weasel at work.
“Hmm. It looks like the penmanship is a match for only 100 individuals.”
“T-that still sounds like a lot.” She sat back in her chair. “Anyway to narrow that down?”
"Naturally. If we do a cross-reference for trips near Frostum..."
Bold text flashed on-screen.
ERROR
"Is that bad?"
"It's annoying, yes." Mr. Erin returned to the previous screen. "Alright. Maybe..."
ERROR
Sasha groaned. “This is gonna take a while, isn't it?”
The weasel didn't respond. Sasha sighed, moving to go pick up her comics.
***
"Finally!" Mr. Erin exclaimed some three hours later. Sasha jumped from her sleep, head peaking from behind her book.
There was a holographic human floating in front of the monitor. She had scarlet red hair and freckles, but little else about her seemed remarkable enough to get excited bout. It was just some random woman. Sasha yawned, rubbing her eyes as Mr. Erin went on his eureka tangent.
"I had to cross-reference with AIC current and former members. And widen the age group so I could cast a bigger net. But I needn't have bothered because the answer was so obvious I overlooked it. All I had to do was run a feature scan on the insignia designs tied to the original 100 users and-"
"Mr. Erin."
"Hmm? Oh, right." He deflated. "Well. The point is, I found the notebook wielder. Her name was Risa Gwenn. This was her personal logbook, containing the final moments of the SS Carpenter, both before and after it disappeared."
He flipped through the pages, Sasha's dreariness fading somewhat as she leaned forward to see.
"January 15th, 2199. Ship voyaging out to Warp Space. January 20th, 2199. New Planet identified as Frostum. January 21st, 2199. Lost contact with the tourist. The list goes on."
"Does it say anything about how the ship crashed?"
"No. That period was skipped over, I'm afraid. Still, I think this may be the clue we've been searching for. The final entry especially. January 23rd. 2199. The tourist came back. It's just a theory, but I imagine this 'tourist' person may be your missing friend. There are no records of the Carpenter taking on an extra passenger, but I also didn't find any records of a wolf being among the staff."
Sasha nodded. She didn't completely understand the jargon, but if it was a clue to Iris, she'd trust Mr. Erin's judgment.
"So what now?" she asked.
"It's simple," he said. "We have to find where this Risa woman resided. She hasn't left Frostum yet, so she remains our greatest lead."
"So we're going back, then? Yay."
"It shouldn't take us long, don't worry. I'm transferring her data into my commpad as we speak. Finding her should be as easy as following a tracker.
Sasha groaned. Even if she had her new jacket for warmth, it didn't make trekking through the snow any less tedious. Still, if it was for Iris's sake she'd suck it up. With a sigh, she pulled back on her stolen coat, mentally preparing for another journey through the frozen tundra.