When Robin opened his eyes again, everything was painted red. He saw that he had shot the man directly in his face which deformed his head and splashed blood everywhere.
Robin instantly shut his eyes once more and collapsed like a wet rag.
He didn’t want to see that.
It wasn’t his fault, right?
He tried to kill them!
He would have killed Patience…
It wasn’t his fault…
There was no other way, was there?
Robin huddled on the floor and tried to process what he had done, until a hand softly touched his shoulder. Patience had recovered and came over.
“We have to leave, now!” She said with a low but firm voice.
“It wasn’t my fault!” He screamed and looked her in the eyes. Blood was still flowing down her face, too much to be only from her.
“I had no other choice, he wanted to kill you!”
“Robin!” She forcefully shook him, “We! Have! To! Leave!”
Patience helped him up and pushed him towards the exit. When they reached their ship, Robin had calmed down just enough to open its canopy to let them in. Patience was even mindful enough to grab the toolbox they had left outside. Who knew if they were labeled by Jim and would leave a trail back to them?
“Repulsor…100% reaction, check.”
When she climbed into her seat, she heard that Robin slowly and step by step moved through the checklist for take-off. He probably looked for something to concentrate on and distract his thoughts from what had happened. Unfortunately, Patience was pretty sure, they didn’t have the time for that shitty list right now.
“Rob, just start the fucking repulsor and get us out of here! If there are more of those guys, we are royally fucked.”
“Valves…flow is constant, check”
“ROBIN! Get your shit together and take us out of here!” Patience pleaded.
“....please!” She added with a soft voice.
This finally reached him, the engine powered up and Melody II began to hover. Moments later, they were back in the skies above Rucasur and on the direct route to Seka. Patience slumped down in her seat. She had tried to stay focused and drag Robin along, but she too was a wreck. Her thoughts were not only all over the place, but she also had many bleeding wounds and her leg needed medical attention.
Now that they were safe, everything crashed in on her at once.
‘I’ve nearly died. That wasn’t some fight in the ring, that guy literally tried to kill me…’ realization slowly set in.
“That was a close call, Rob. Way too much adventure for my first story!” She tried to lighten the heavy mood, when suddenly the ship's systems began to blare with a loud, beeping noise.
*beep* - *beep* - *beep* - …
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“That definitely sounds like an alarm, what is it?” She asked, weary and not ready for any other action.
***
“ROBIN! Get your shit together and take us out of here!” Robin heard Patience screaming from the seat behind him.
“...please!”
She was right, he had to pull himself together. Yes, what had happened was a real shit show, but they were forced by the circumstances and while it ended horribly, they weren’t at fault. He had to get them back to the city. Then they would have enough time to think everything through.
He skipped the rest of the checklist and powered up the systems. The Melody II soon took them through the skies again. With being back in the air also came the exhilarating feeling of freedom that pushed back most of his dark thoughts…for now.
Robin checked the route they had to take. He wanted to get them directly to Seka without any detours and definitely without wasting a night in the inn.
He heard Patience trying to make a joke behind him as he aligned the ship towards a north-west course and checked the remaining fuel. Should be enough to take them back to…
*beep* - *beep* - *beep* - …
An aggressive beeping pulled him out of his calculations. He checked the displays and found a blinking red light by the close-distance radar.
Someone was entering their security bubble!
When they traveled over Seka, Flight Control assigned them a corridor to ensure that no collisions would happen. Outside of the controlled airspace, the pilots had to rely on their ship’s systems to ensure safety. One of these systems creates a ‘security bubble’. On the one hand, that system sends out a radial energy signature for 2,5km around the ship. This signature informs all nearing ships of an approaching vehicle. On the other hand, these 2,5km were covered by a radar scan that checked for any trespassers of one's bubble.
This ensured that the pilots of the two nearing ships had enough time to change course and prevent a collision.
“What could that be? We haven’t met a single other ship for all the time we flew outside of Seka.” He wondered out loud. Before he could think of any plausible idea, Robin and Patience both could hear a low but constant rumbling.
*dumm**dumm**dumm**dumm**dumm**dumm**dumm*
“Fuck, is there someone shooting at us?” Robin immediately recognized the sound of a ballistic turret. In the simulator he often played together with Timothy, he heard them fire more than once.
But this wasn’t a simulator or a game, was there really someone shooting at them?
*dumm**dumm**dumm**dumm**dumm**dumm**dumm*
“Patience, hold on tight. We have to pick up speed. Whoever this is, the Melody is quite fast if I put her under strain and should leave most other ships behind. Try to get the model of the ship following us through a hailing request. Left display, top right button!” he gave instructions and pushed to throttle forward to raise the speed limiter. Instantly they were pushed back into their seats - speed really was Melodies forte!
240m/s…270m/s…300m/s…330m/s…
*dumm**dumm**dumm**’tsching**dumm* *’tsching**’tsching*
More warnings began to blare in the ship, red lights indicated damage to different ship systems. Robin knew which one, even before he checked the display.
The Melody lost speed just as fast as she gained it moments before and fell back to 150m/s, still fast but not even close to normal cruising speed. Definitely not fast enough to get away from their pursuer.
He changed directions constantly to make them a harder target to hit and hesitantly explained their problem.
“Uhm…not good, we lost one thruster. No chance of outrunning anyone now. Any feedback from the hailing?”
“It says CxSenV2? I have no idea, is that even a ship’s name?” Patience responded with slight panic in her voice, as she was thrown from side to side in her seat.
“A Corax Sentinel, sounds plausible. I’ll try to shake it off in between the buildings down there.” Robin explained and pushed the ship downwards to the reemerging greenhouses he could see in the distance.
The Sentinel is more like a multi-purpose platform than a specific ship. You choose the Sentinel as the basis and configure it to your needs. Cargo, personal transport, mobile operations center, combat, whatever. Speed isn’t its forte and it should be much more sluggish to control than the Melody II, even with only one thruster remaining.
*dumm**dumm**dumm**dumm**dumm**dumm**dumm*
Robin evaded one more haze of bullets and dove down into the narrow but empty streets between the buildings, the Sentinel still in hot pursuit.