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Space Crusader
Space Crusader #8: Moral Philosophy

Space Crusader #8: Moral Philosophy

Lukin had been observing this whole time the events unfolding at the location where his assistant was. Although the viewing had to be done from their native ally's perspective it all proved too valuable and insightful to pass up.

The rescue team had arrived at their crash site a while back, comprised mainly of a pilot, two medics and three infantry soldiers. Two out of the latter had quickly departed using land vehicle that had been brought with them, most likely to fulfill the orders given by Augh'un.

While the xenobiologist kept taking notes on his data pad in the crashed ship's cockpit, Azail entered, the various wounds on her body now closed up using the bio foam that stimulates cell repair. "They are now tending to Gab'el. The two that took off to retrieve Ashi'in, they had standard kits and were armed with Rail Rifles. You really think this native, Whill'aem, might really be able to take them, huh? I hoped your manic bouts would have finished by now, but you were either always this delusional or only now did it get worse."

"You've come to me once more to... what? Insult me more than you usually do? The wager has been made, regardless. Retracting myself now is not an option, it is either a chance at winning or surrender for an immediate loss. Regardless, the data we are collecting right now is invaluable, both from the point of view of my usual studies and... other interests." Lukin said coldly as he watched the live feed, seeing the native as Ashi'in communicated with it using illustrations it could understand and then proceeding the evacuation process.

"Other interests? You might as well spell it out. Military interests was clearly one of the first things that popped to your mind. You haven't been hiding that at all before." Azail continued as she leaned herself against one of the cockpit walls, arms crossed.

"Hmm... you think that'd be the only one? Expectable. Grunt with a grunt's view. Oh, I do envy the simpler ways of living." Lukin said with a chuckle as he multi-tasked between dishing out insults and keeping up with the recording.

Azail, being extremely annoyed with that demeaning statement, was about to give Lukin a less polite piece of her mind, until a loud slapping noise came from the recording. The two Anghelans then witnessed the unfolding scene between William and Godwin.

"It just gave a piece of the suit to that one in the form of a weapon... after slapping it?" Azail asked confused, yet curious.

"I have been keeping track of chemicals its body would release into its own system. Until now a large amount of it was adrenalin and cortisol, but it seems ever since it got here endorphins and dopamine had been trickling in. The information from Ashi'in did not help with reducing the levels of the first. Hmm... based on its brain activity involving the Hippocampus at this moment... might be someone close to it from its past. Huh interesting..." Lukin mumbled as kept on tapping away at notes.

"What is so damn interesting to you? The fact that a piece of the suit now needs to be retrieved at a later date? That we'll be interfering more?" Azail grumbled exasperated at this point by the mess that this whole operation had become.

"You realize all the research we had been doing until now was from a relative distance, yes? Always putting precaution and not risking altering the course of how their world works, right? Well... the moment we crashed and Whill'aem came to the impact area... even if we like it or not... we will now be a part of this world, even if momentarily. Plus, now I can observe from a much better point of view. From that of a being that lived its whole life here!" Lukin exclaimed with excitement in his voice.

"Is there anything major to even learn from this? What is there to gain from observation of... i don't know what to even call their disorganized running about... an attempt at an evacuation?" Azail said while staring at the screen herself.

"The fact they even know how to do one is impressive. Have you watched closely? Whill'aem's first concern was not how to strategies against the enemy or go to fight them, but under the impression of fighting stronger enemies it chose to instead help the others at this location to escape via hidden routes already built into the place! Not only that, but it gave part of the armor to one of them, one it seemed to have a close relationship with, possibly familial. Do you get it? Do you understand the potential we are seeing here?"

Azail listened and her golden eyes kept staring at the live feed before looking about the cockpit, unfocused as if staring at a visible horizon, in contemplating. The irises would move as her pupils would focus with a realization.

"Previous research we had confirmed their brutality, their religious beliefs and generalized information on social hierarchies they had as well as the most commonly met behaviors. But... all of that focused on the bigger picture, on how things at large are..." Azail said trying to verbalize her thoughts.

"Yes. We'd been thinking of them as primitive and barbaric when looking from a distance. But how exactly are they in close personal situations? This is the first time we see it properly! I have a myriad of observations written down based solely on their way of interacting with one another, the fact that Whill'aem is prioritizing the others' safety over gaining a better chance at fighting by using increased numbers... did you notice that some were unwilling to leave It behind? Without speaking, simply by analyzing body language and reading the situation... They. Were. Opposing. Leaving. They knew a threat much stronger than them was coming, yet... some were willing to stand against it! What do our soldiers do whenever we have a dire situation on the battlefield?" Lukin said as the fervor in his speech dimmed into a shamed tone.

"Units prioritize mission completion and life preservation. It's standard procedure." Azail responded with a tone as if it simple common knowledge.

"Erroneous. Our units prioritize individual self preservation and even mission completion is secondary based on a case study data sheet I have read about. What is ironic is that statistically working together should increase over-all survival in most scenarios or a minor sacrifice could mitigate a major loss. These are all things discussed between our war analysts." Lukin said as he turned to make eye contact with Azail, his expression seeming dissapointed.

"So... what? You want someone to lay their life willingly or to go into suicide missions? Our military had to restructure to work around this. We both know of older age reports writing about when our military used to punish desertion and not following orders severely. At that time our military was at their lowest and the following decades when they used benzodiazepines to block fear stimuli didn't make it any better. Hell, it made most of our units at the time be unable to function without it!" Azail yelled annoyed back at Lukin with a scowl.

"THAT IS WHY I MUST KNOW WHY!" Lukin said with gritted teeth as he yelled slamming his fist down on the console's frame. "I need to... no... I have to know WHY... why can this thing do it... why can someone inferior by comparison to us do it. It is clear it knows self preservation... the importance of keeping alive, but... it... sigh... I need to figure it out." Lukin said lifting his trembling hand up, a bruise already forming on the part of his hand that slammed on the metal frame.

As they spoke the life feed began showing William exiting the building, the creak of the door from the transmission getting their attention. The guard and the scientist grew silent as they watched transfixed while William began looking about the courtyard.

Soon enough... the fighting ensued and a fight it was. The native was proving more than capable with the suit, maneuvering with it rather elegantly even, at least by military standards.

"Hah. Truly unique, it seems to be doing rather well even when outnumber. It seems the operatives are even taking higher positions for an advantage shooting." Lukin spoke with his minimal tactical knowledge saying.

Azail though noticed the finer details of the situation. "Yes... but something is weird. The one shooting above had delayed reactions... hold on... he is... backing away from the edge... but I can hear shooting..." As Azail tried to figure out what was going on, her focus got shattered.

The silence of the cockpit exploded with a soul wrenching symphony of panicked screams, echoing in on themselves with misery. An unholy organ symphony of sheer terror was now forcing the two Anghelans to shield their hearing organs.

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"W-what is with that sudden transmission?!" Azail yelled as she approached the console, her eyes hastily scanning the display. Her golden eyes widened as she noticed the source as being from near by the location of the RF suit, but with a '-0.2' designation. "I-it's coming from the evacuees... the sword!"

Lukin took a moment to bounce back from the recoil of the sudden sound. He began focusing on the display and as he listened to the explanation, he then looked back to the live feed and the biometric read outs coming from William's suit. "It is hearing the transmission too... it figured out what is happening... its system is being flooded with adrenaline and noradrenaline... it is producing so much... the suit's system is increasing its replicated heart beat to match previous neuro recorded parameters..."

As Lukin observed the numbers they kept increasing higher, much higher than the readouts said the body should be able to handle. "By the Emperor..."

Azail watched as William struggled against the operative that restrained him, listening to his own tormented screams, the begging whines that his angry voice would die out into.

Warning signs would start popping up all over the biometric read outs and onwards they watched. They watched the horror unfold. William had freed himself and his propulsion system got overcharged to fly him, or more accurately said toss him high enough to reach the secondary operative. The following scuffle and fall was all on display as well. Their eyes couldn't part from the display showing how the soldier's head got erased on the stone surface it got repeatedly bashed on and held against. It was like a piece of metal getting reduced to visceral ribbons on one of their industrial grinders.

Lukin recommenced his note taking, also instructing the ship's systems through the console to record all the suit's data further. "It is forcing the suit to match its neuro impulses instead of reading its body's biometric parameters. The synthetic heart is pumping blood so fast through its veins, it had to reinforce the main arteries with extra nanofillament, but it can't keep up... the damage is being done all over the venous system at once... muscle oxygenation has peaked... internal body temperature rising, it has natural cooling systems, but they would fail without suit assistance.

"It is maximizing output... but how can it override the suit's organ replication parameters? The military's programmers had those hard coded when reading our genetic print to avoid the life support overloading the soldier's body and endangering them." Azail said as she watched with an awe that petrified her.

"Well said... the parameters are hard coded to fit our biological records, but the suit didn't read the pilot's DNA matrix as anghelan... the limits were never implemented in the first place." Lukin replied quickly, elucidating the minor mystery.

The dust had cleared and William kept staring at the headless corpse he now held, his eyes shaking in his orbits. He kept coughing up blood, his helmet irrigating it as quick as possible, recycling it back into his body.

As he heard rocks tumble to his head he turned his head peering at the other fallen angel that seemed to simply stare him down. He could feel his body and blood boil as the echoes of his family and friends screaming echoed in his mind.

There was only darkness around, nothing else mattered, except for that fowl being. Words had left his mind, reason had been eradicated. This feeling, he felt this fury before, on the battlefield when he witnessed the enemy using civilians tied to tower shields as meat shields to avoid.

He screamed at the sight of the fallen angel as he reached at his own head and feeling the maw like helmet, his clawed fingers reached at the edges of it and he pulled. The suit following his motions ripped itself open, transforming the toothy maws into a raised collar around his head with the teeth protruding upwards and around. William's brown locks were darkened with the crimson-maroon of his own blood, as they draped themselves over the spiked collar akin to bloody rags, dripping his life essence onto his back.

Zad'el looked him in the eyes through his helmet's HUD, the contact making his body shudder even worse than the scream did. Stubbed Rail Pistol raised, his limbs shook, his aim clearly off.

As the two engaged in this visual contest of wills, the Anghelan was first to break. Zad'el stepped back as any person would when encountering a predator in their path.

That simple movement was enough for William to start his deathly march forward. Big thudding steps, resounded onto the ground akin to the heavy low ticking of a clock before hitting midnight.

"It exposed its own head, yet it is not afraid..." Lukin said once more, feeling as if he's repeating himself just hoping that by doing so he'd come to a conclusion. His golden eyes peered to the side at Azail. "Are you starting to understand me at all about how I'm feeling... why am I feeling the need to answer that 'Why?' that is gnawing at the back of my mind?"

Azail did not respond, instead watching transfixed onto the holographic screen's feed. A single solemn nod is all that the xenobilogist got as a reply in return, before he returned his own eyes to watch the situation.

Zad'el found himself struggling to move back, but as his senses manage to return to him he'd start properly backpedalling to put distance between himself and the native.

This retreating movement would pause and resume as the Anghelan soldier would stop to shoot before continuing backwards.

William wasn't phased by the hellbolts anymore. By sheer instinct without even a prayer in mind, his left forearm manifested a spiked buckler of red light and he'd simply hold it to his head. His forearm diagonally placed in front of his face would still let him keep visual contact with his enemy using. his left eye.

Zad'el shots would either ricochet off the shield, graze his target when his hand shook too hard or if he hit... it was worse when he thought he hit it. The round would break part of the armor and show the wound inside bleeding, only for the projectile to be pushed out and the bleeding wound to keep pouring while the armor closed around it. The primitive native had no reaction to the shots that managed to land.

He kept repeating the motions as if stuck in a loop, only realizing he started dry firing with no charge after doing it three more times. With a gasp of realization he then turned on his hill and was about to attempt a proper run to give himself more space to reload, but the Anghelan was not used to the environment surrounding him entirely. As passed through thick brush, a lifted root caught the front of his foot and akin to a clasping manacle for a damned prisoner, it brought him down.

'No... no, no, no!' Is all Zad'el thought while hyperventilating in his helmet. He scrambled to reload on the ground and the xeno soldier did so successfully. Still, as he was just about to get his footing under him to continue his reversed advance, a hit to his side knocked him onto his back.

With a grunt and yell as he got tossed on his back, Zad'el let off a Rail Rifle shot trying to arm for the upper side of center mass. "DIE, YOU PRIMITIVE SCUM!" He yelled with hatred, the visceral image of his decapitated colleague and friend, shooting through his mind like lightning. He was intent to do the same to thing to the bastard creature that robbed his friend of his life.

The shot rang out with its usual lightning like electric discharge, the piece of metal that got shot going at an unbelievable speed, speeding out the barrel as a light up blur. Still, the missing sound of a body thud, sent a sense of impending doom deep inside Zad'el gut.

William stood over him, a deep bleeding grove going like a trench style graze along his cheek bone and along the side of his head above the year. His head was leaning just slightly off the shot's trajectory, but even that graze it was treated like nothing, despite the gushing blood, now dripping down the side of his head and neck.

His hands grabbed at the Rail Pistol, the red light claws sinking into Zad'el's hands. The wrenching of the gun along with the hard light finger dagger digging through his armor and into his flesh, ripped a scream out of his throat.

Zad'el kept trying to maintain hold of the gun, but the frantic movements and breathing made it clear he had lost any focus left.

His mind would flash between the current struggle and past memories.

The barrack room that he's been sharing with Cas'el for the past three years, how they turned it into a bit of a home for themselves. The additional privileges they worked together to earn.

"Zad? Zaaaad? Hello? Command center to private Zad'el?" Cas'el would say as he lightly tapped his colleague on the side of his face.

"H-huh? Ah, Cassy. Sorry, my mind's been all over the place. The last training simulation has been tough... we nearly eon..." Zad'el said with a slightly defeated tone.

"Hey, we had a really good streak, but you can't win 'em all, yeah? Don't worry too much about, we've been doing really good. How about a game of Space Dash?" Cas'el said with his usual at ease demeanor as he kindly extended one of the two controllers.

Zad'el could remember himself smiling as he sat down in the lean back low height comfort seat he had in his room. "Y-yeah. We did promise to finish it last deployment." He replied with at an ease expression as he then took the controller and leaned his head back on the chair's head rest, one last time.

William had wrenched the hellbolt crossbow from the fallen angel's hands, tossing it aside. He furious knight would then drop down on his knees, straddling the fallen divine's chest, while his knees pinned his arms against the ground. With both hands he than grasped the heretic's head, claws digging into its sides and leaking blue blood as he proceeded to lift and slam it back down, each thud accompanied by a roared growl, as the repeating motion proceeded faster and faster with each hit.

By the time his assault slowed, a few minutes had passed, the back of Zad'el head caved in considerably, blue blood and viscera coming out in blotches out from the cavity.

William's grip eventually loosened as his hands shook, crimson light claws disengaging. He then stood up only to crumple a few steps to side of the Anghelan.

Zad'el body twitched and spammed lightly on the ground, his helmet recording one last thing before going silent entirely. "W-we... dd-did promis-..."

With that the calm night took over the entirety of the Falis Keep and its surroundings. Only silence was left to fill the dead air.

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