“Oh fuck!” Robin cursed when he saw the sharpshooter suddenly fired at a seemingly random spot and Ang’Tue appeared out of thin air.
“Old man, how are you?” He called over the comm channel, but didn’t get an answer.
“He is too far away. On this damn planet communication is restricted to an uncomfortable degree.” Alena said with an impassive voice.
She sat next to Robin high up in one of the trees surrounding the crash site, hidden away by a thin layer of leaves, and looked through the scope of the huge sniper. After she inspected the scene below for some time, Alena looked back at Robin who was about to panic.
“The old man is still alive, if only barely. The enemy is stripping him of his equipment. Seems like you were right: they try to catch us alive.”
“Burn in plasma… This is not starting as we have planned.” He said but still calmed down visibly.
“I told you, as did Landom and my brother, Ang’Tue is not only a risk to this operation because of his mental instabilities but he also lacks skill in an armed conflict.” Alena chided him.
“I know…” Robin growled, “But you were there, too. You know it was impossible to turn him down.”
She sighed and her tone warmed up a bit, “Yes, you are right. He wanted to prove his worth. And while that is completely unnecessary, I can relate. However, never would I have thought that he would be this oblivious to the weaknesses of his G-Anomaly…”
“He never was hunted before. Sure, as an Eltaran he always had to keep his presence a secret. But never was someone actively searching for him specifically. Don’t you remember his bad entry when we first met him in Dreamer’s Hope?” Robin tried to explain and shook his head to clear his thoughts, “If we get through this disaster, I’ll talk to him. For now, let’s continue with the plan and not waste Ang’Tue’s effort to distract the enemy.”
Alena nodded and returned to observing the enemy.
“I could take out their sharpshooter…” She said, her finger reaching for the trigger.
“No, don’t.” Robin stopped her, “You would give away our presence and position. We need to get the most out of it before we are found.”
“Fine.” Alena grudgingly agreed. It wasn’t easy to hold still while one of your team fell into the enemy’s hands but she knew Robin was right.
While Alena continued the observation, Robin began to prepare their descent from the tree. Carefully he dropped down the stupidly long rope Landom had used before to climb into the hole in the mountain and prepared an ARA for each of them.
Just as he wanted to tell Alena to go down, the woman suddenly chuckled in amusement. A rare sign of joy he only saw once, when she was fighting with her life on the line.
“The guy has stopped Ang’Tue’s bleeding with a stim and now cuffed him with Suppression-Shackles. He has dropped any kind of wariness towards the old man.” She said, “Those things wouldn’t stop him if he lets loose, right?”
“No, they won’t.” Robin said and took the remote control out of his pockets. He looked at it, wary of its intended use.
“Just in case everything goes south and this thing doesn’t work, keep one bullet left. We might be happy to have it by then…” He said with a low voice and stashed the remote again.
“Are you crazy?” Alena snapped and swirled around.
“Ang’Tue was unstable even before he got shot and shackled. It was you who told me, just a few hours ago, to prioritize the crew’s wellbeing over everything else…”
“And he is part of this crew!” She hissed, still angry at his thought about killing one of their own.
“Alena!” Robin shouted with a low but stern voice, which made her pause.
“You haven’t seen him fighting at full force.” He said with dread on his face, “Even in this situation, where we are getting attacked by an unknown enemy that is much better equipped for combat than we are… I’m much more afraid of Ang’Tue losing control than of everything these people could throw at us.”
“It can’t be that bad, can it?” She asked skeptically.
“It’s worse, believe me.” Robin said and handed her the ARA, “Now let’s get down there and make sure to kick these guys asses so the old man has no need to give in to his inner demon, okay?”
Just a few minutes later, the two reached the enemy’s ship. They had to make a small detour to avoid the turrets that were watching the forest, but since they mostly concentrated on the Hubble and the location of Ang’Tue and the sharpshooter, it wasn’t that much of a hurdle.
Alena quickly took cover behind a huge mound of earth that had been created when Hubble skidded through the forest while attempting to brake with its nose.
Meanwhile, Robin inspected the ship and its closed entry.
“UAS style, Interceptor-class. It’s made for quick responses to emergencies and is decently weaponized. Nothing you would send into a big fight but definitely enough to catch any stragglers.”
“Do you think they are UAS people?” Alena asked.
“Maybe. We already know that there are factions within the UAS that have opposing ideas on how things should be. Perhaps one of these factions couldn’t sit still any longer and send a team to finish us off.”
“That wouldn’t explain their interest in the data from the monolith though…”
“Right and a few more things also don’t add up. Of the three figures that boarded the Hubble one probably is a Mohait. They shouldn’t know about this mission at all. It is a tightly kept secret by the human faction within the UAS. So, why would a Mohait be here?”
Not expecting an answer, Robin turned to the ship and inspected it with his senses. Since he had come closer, he could feel the hull being surrounded by a strong energy that he learned came from an active shielding system.
A quick Echo Pulse confirmed his worries when the whole ship lit up in blue.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Different from the air-compressing shield he had installed in the Melody II, energy-based shields didn’t react to biomatter or slow moving objects. Only energy projectiles or fast bullets that contain much kinetic energy were intercepted. That allowed people to enter and exit their ships without the need of shutting down its shields, which otherwise would be a great risk in a combat scenario. For Robin however, there was another factor to concern.
Time wasn’t on their side though and as such, he didn’t hesitate to shove his hand through the invisible energy bubble surrounding the ship.
His eyes went wide and he almost pulled back his arm when his passive sense exploded like never before. It felt like his arm was asleep, prickling and itching without end, but multiplied by a dozen times.
“Damn… fuck this shi-i-i-t!” Robin gritted his teeth and concentrated on the metal surface he was touching. He needed to close his eyes to be able to activate his skill at all and even then, it took him three attempts until he finally got a rough image of the door’s schematics. After identifying the lock’s location, Robin switched to his newest skill and reduced the resistance of the mechanism that kept the door shut. After bypassing the authentication check the magnets inside the frame were powered up and began to pull open the heavy door.
Immediately he stepped back and scratched his arm.
“This skill is nuts… fuck!” He cursed, “Alena, check the situation.”
“Roger that.” She said and put down the sniper, hiding it behind another dirt mound.
Straining her ears, she listened to any noises she could hear through the helmet and also touched the metal floor inside the ship. After a few seconds she nodded at him and jumped through the door.
“Clear, no one is coming. I could only feel some slight movements in the front of the ship. No information on their numbers, though.”
Robin nodded and also climbed into the ship, following Alena towards the cockpit. His pulse was rising again. He knew what the next step would be and despite having more than enough time to mentally prepare himself, Robin couldn’t shake off the fear crawling up his spine. He tightened the grip on his energy weapon and tried to concentrate on one specific thought: we cannot risk being stuck on this planet!
They encountered no closed doors on their way to the ship’s front and soon peeked around a corner to observe the situation in the cockpit.
There were only two seats, one for the pilot and one for the copilot. Both were occupied by a Mohait, who focused on the visuals of the turrets and the continuous scan results from the Hubble. They neither noticed that someone had boarded their ship, nor that Alena and Robin were slowly sneaking up from behind.
Robin gave his weapon one last check and looked over at Alena to wait for her sign. She had already pulled out her sword and nodded first at Robin then at the Mohait sitting on the left, then she slowly moved to the guy in the right seat.
When they were just a meter behind their oblivious targets, Alena gave him another firm nod and rushed forward in one fluid motion, her sword raised.
Robin also reacted and jumped forward. However, he let go of his weapon and instead took the surprised Mohait in a strong chokehold. Having the seat’s headrest between himself and the enemy, he could put on much more pressure than the small enemy could fight against. That however didn’t discourage him from trying and the Mohait instantly began to thrash around wildly.
The fear of death and the panic due his lack of air pumped adrenaline into his body, giving him strength to fight back. It was no use, though. Robin didn’t let off and clamped his arm around the guy’s throat like a vice. His mind raced with thoughts and panic also surged when the guy didn’t stop struggling.
“That was a stupid idea, damn it! I should have just shot him and gotten it over with... fuck.”
At the last moment, Robin had reconsidered his approach and decided to just knock out the Mohait - no need to kill the guy when there was such a good opportunity to take a prisoner, right? But even if he wasn’t trying to kill him, the man was fighting for his life under his tight grip and Robin realized that his hesitation to kill just made everything worse. This needed to be done, it was the only sensible way. He looked over at Alena, panic and shame mixed on his face.
It took her only a moment to act. Suddenly she stood directly in front of the Mohait, looking at the struggling and squirming enemy first, then at Robin. After observing his panic-stricken face for a moment, she reached out for the Mohait’s head. Still firmly held by Robin, she gave it an abrupt twist.
Immediately the struggling stopped and Robin felt the man slump down. The head now rested on his arm, wobbling from side to side after having lost its stability because of the broken neck.
In a daze, Robin let go and stumbled back. When he reached the wall, he slowly sank down and tried to stop the shaking of his hands.
“I… couldn’t… I thought…” He stammered without finishing the sentence.
“You thought ‘Why should I kill him, if I could knock him out’?” Alena softly asked and crouched down next to him.
“There is no shame in feeling revulsion towards killing.” She continued, “It’s not easy to take a life and even harder, if you not only have to pull a trigger from a distance away but do it with your own bare hands.”
“I thought we could take him prisoner…”
“Maybe.” Alena said, “But you need skill and training to knock someone out with the method you tried. What you did was just prolonging his suffering, giving him a slow and cruel death.”
“You could have done it, right? Maybe there would have been a chance if we had planned better…” Robin muttered as guilt gnawed on his conscience.
“I could, but I didn’t.” Alena said and stood back up, “Let’s assume we’ve knocked him out, then what? Will you leave him here on the ship? What if he wakes up and uses the turret to kill us? Taking him with us also wouldn’t have been an option and leaving one of us here to guard him would have been even less feasible.”
After Robin had calmed down a bit, Alena turned to leave.
“I don’t blame you, Robin. Despite what I said earlier today, I know that you are doing your best while working way out of your comfort-zone. Right now however, there is no room for concessions. We need to win this fight or we will die a miserable death here on this godforsaken planet in the middle of nowhere.”
“I know, you are right. I’m just not used to… this. I’m sorry.” Robin said, steeled his mind and also stood up to follow Alena.
Together they checked the displays in the cockpit.
“Can we use the turrets?” Alena asked after she pushed the dead pilot out of the seat.
“No, unfortunately not. Like most of the other systems they are DNA-locked and only allow access to registered personnel.” Robin explained after he went through the screens, “We might be able to find a workaround, but that will take much more time than we have right now.”
“So this ship is useless? Damn…” Alena cursed.
“We expected as much, didn’t we? Come on lets-”
Suddenly, the ship’s comm crackled as a connection was established.
“No one else is coming. They are either hiding in the Hubble and will be flushed out by Mason and the others or they have fled already.” A rough voice said.
Alena and Robin both froze in place not knowing how to react.
“I’ll bring the prisoner. Maybe we’ll get something out of him if we ask forcefully enough.”
Siller continued and Robin threw a quick glance towards the man outside. Luckily the window was a one-way see-through and protected them from being spotted. That did only help that much however, as they couldn’t answer without giving away that something was wrong.
Before that became a problem though, Siller unfortunately noticed something else.
“Bekker? Gutty? Why aren’t you manning the turrets anymore?”
“Shit!” Robin cursed under his breath and saw the man looking directly at the cockpit.
“Who the fuck are you?” Siller’s voice crackled on the comm once more, “What have you done to our men?”
“How could he spot us here?” Alena whispered.
“Probably the same way he detected Ang’Tue. Damnit!” Robin answered.
Outside, below in the forest, Siller pulled out a pistol and pressed it at the Eltaran’s head.
“You fuckers better get out of our ship right now or I’ll splatter his brain all over the floor!”