“Have you finished your preparations?” The woman standing in the middle of the small hangar laughed when the door opened and Robin and his companions came face to face with the pirates. As expected, they were Cetro - the same technology fanatics as the missing Hash and his TechnoBloods.
The small crew didn’t step out of the Jingur yet, but remained standing in the doorway. Only Fengo, the pilot, stayed further back in the ship while the others observed the surroundings. Robin now could see two additional pirates that his senses didn’t pick up before, since they stood at the other side of the hangar.
“Welcome aboard the Red Sun, I’m not sure you’ll enjoy the stay but at least you didn’t start shooting at sight, so maybe we can do this like civilized people!” The woman said.
She was the one that had the weapon still holstered and obviously the boss of this band of criminals. Like Landom, she wore an armored suit but no helmet. The suit however definitely granted more protection and was colored in the ship’s black and red. She didn’t have any hair, instead many thin cables or tubes came out of her head and vanished behind her back. Her face was quite beautiful, even though she had many metallic and electronic pieces sticking to her skin. Somehow she managed to combine aesthetics with the Cetro’s urge to merge with technologies.
Landom took a few steps forward into the hangar. The rustic interior hinted at a more practical oriented approach. Many boxes and some small cranes stood around, big shelves with crates and random junk adorned the walls. The shutter behind them was still open, a containment shield ensured that the atmosphere inside remained stable.
He, too, gave the two guys in the back a closer look since they each stood behind some kind of big turret. Maybe anti-ship weapons?
“I’m Landom Walzor of Seka Security. May I know what you are looking for?” He asked the woman in charge.
“Landom, dear, you have some artifacts in your possession that we need to further deepen our connection with the Great One. I hope you understand that we have to insist on you handing them over into our safe care.” She said, beaming him a smile.
“You see, that may be a problem because…” Landom began but was immediately interrupted by one of the flunkies to her right.
“Boss Jennet doesn't like problems!” The man snarled in such an instantaneous and automated way that Robin wondered if he was trained or if they had replaced his brain with a robot already.
“Yeah, no shit… who does like problems?” Landom sighed and continued, “We come from Seka under orders of the research department, but not with artifacts or anything - we are transferring a guest of the UAS main HQ. The ship with the artifacts left a few hours before us…”
“Is that so?” Boss Jennet raised an eyebrow and looked at Robin, “You are that guest?”
“Yup, hi!” Robin said and waved at her.
“What’s that?” She asked with a chuckle and motioned at his Disruptor, “A secret weapon?”
Her goons somehow found that funny and all began to laugh at the same moment.
‘Definitely trained…’ Robin concluded and shook his head.
“Yeah no, that’s a drill. Never seen one before?”
“Being funny, eh?” She said dismissively and focused back on Landom.
“So, dear, now we do have a problem.”
“Boss Jennet doesn't like problems!” The dude from before actually jumped in again, leaving Robin and Landom speechless.
“You heard him, I don’t like problems… tell me, what should we do now?”
“I can offer you to check our ship yourself, after that everyone just goes their own way and none of this ever happened.” Landom suggested.
“Of course I will accept the offer to inspect your ship, but we probably won’t find anything, right? You seem to be an upstanding man, Landom. I do believe you that we’ve caught the wrong ship. However, after this… meeting, we can hardly just leave empty handed, can we?”
“What do you want? The ship?” Landom scoffed. They really didn’t bring any valuables, so what do they wanna steal from them? At least it didn’t look like they would end up in a shootout for now.
“...”
“...”
There was silence in the hall for some time before Robin stepped forward to stand at Landom’s side.
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“Boss Jennet, right? You are the head priestess of this community?”
“Oh? You know more about our ways?” She asked curiously after hearing his choice of words.
“I have done a few jobs for one of your communities already, yeah. I was even invited to join you once, but unfortunately had to decline.”
“Interesting! See, that's why I love this kind of life. You never know who you might meet next.” She gave him a smile but shook her head.
“However, no, I’m not the priestess. I’m just the captain of this ship. Who invited you, young man? Maybe we can come to an agreement if we have common friends.”
The Cetro didn’t want to kill them out of fear of retribution - the UAS normally doesn’t go all-out because of some pirating, but if their people were killed? Yeah, that was written on another page.
However Jennet also couldn’t let them leave just like that, without appearing weak in front of her men. Initially Landom wanted to stop Robin from interfering, but as this was a stalemate, he hoped Robin could help to tip the scale in their favor. Now he could finally relax a bit, since the negotiations actually sounded promising.
“Great to hear! It has been some time since I met them, maybe you could even help me reestablish our old contact!” Robin enthusiastically exclaimed. Perhaps he could not only get them out of this situation, but also finally find a lead on Hash’s whereabouts!
“Sure, which community did you have dealings with?” Jennet asked, seemingly also happy to have found a way out.
“The community is called TechnoBlood, they are led by their head priest Hash.” Robin said and immediately felt the mood in the room shift.
All Cetro raised their weapons and Jennet’s face twisted into a grimace.
“How do you know…” she began, while Robin gasped at their extreme reaction and took a few steps back into the ship.
“What the fuck…“.
Landom immediately moved to the side to shield him with his body, also raised his gun and aimed at the woman. That triggered an instantaneous reaction from one of the guys behind the turrets and in a blink of an eye, Landom shot backwards as fast as the projectile that had hit him in the chest. Before anyone could react, he was already hammered into the wall of their ship next to Fengo.
“Boss Jennet doesn't like it when someone points a gun at her!” The trigger-happy pirate yelled.
‘Burn in plasma…’ Robin cursed, shocked by the sudden escalation after the officer flew past him like a flash. Reflexively he pulled the trigger from the Disruptor he still held in his hand, but nothing happened.
Since there wasn’t any immediate retaliation from their captives, the pirates hesitated to continue the shooting and looked at Boss Jennet.
While Fengo hurried over to Landom, who had slid down the wall, Robin’s hand suddenly began to itch like hell. His passive energy sense was going wild. The Disruptor did… something, but he couldn’t tell what. Therefore he tried to buy some time.
“Fuck! Was that really necessary? I thought you were also looking for a deal! And what’s wrong with Hash’s community?” He yelled from the doorway.
“You are working with the traitors? Do you even know what horrors they…” Jennet screamed, but didn’t get any further as the Disruptor began to glow in a bright light. Robin felt a massive energy spike and made sure to keep the weapon pointed forward, while the woman turned and ran towards the hangars exit with an unnatural high speed.
“Open fire, kill them!” were her last words before she vanished through a door.
‘Speed mutation, that’s a rare one!’ Robin gaped and prepared to close their ship’s entry. However, before any of the pirates could open fire again, a small round projectile came out of the Disruptor and flew slowly through the hangar. Arcs of energy rose from the glowing orb like little solar flares. Everyone was captivated by this marveling sight. Robin in contrast could feel his body screaming Danger with every fiber. The energy contained in that little globe was crazy.
Not waiting to see what would happen, he hit the button and the ship’s door began to close.
“Fengo! Get us out of here - now!” He yelled and shuffled over to Landom’s side. He threw back one last glance, just in time to see the projectile suddenly expand to at least 10 meters, barely fitting into the hall. The glow receded and the last thing he saw, before the door finally closed, was the air rippling like a mirage and the pirates fleeing for their lives.
“ROMAS, help me with Landom!” He ordered his AI and began to look for the wound. Hopefully his suit was armored enough to tank a hit from such a gun.
‘A weapon made to smash through a ship’s hull… yeah, fuck’ Robin shook his head and felt the ship beginning to vibrate, also whatever happened outside was still ongoing as his whole body itched like hell.
Just as he took a closer look at the burned armor and the vibrations rose to a dangerous level, he felt their thrusters finally powering up.
“W-w-what did you do to them?”
Fengo’s fearfully trembling voice came over the ship’s comm and Robin stood up to take a look out of a window that was a few meters to his side.
They had already gained some distance and he could see the Red Sun, hovering in the middle of the dark void. Now it really resembled a small sun. There were cracks and rifts all over its hull and a gray light was shining through the gaps, giving it a beautiful touch, beside its quite disturbing nature. More and more cracks appeared and before long, the whole ship was broken down to little pieces. For one short moment, Robin could see the ripples in the center of the ship’s remains again, before they vanished together with the gray glow.
* Anomaly is comparable to phenomena that occur during ship jumps
* The Disruptor has destabilized space in a very localized area (74%)
* Color of anomaly’s glow: warm white (81%)
No sound could be heard, no vibrations remained, no light glowed - only thousands of metal pieces drifted peacefully through the void.
‘Metal and flesh… no matter how fast you can run, that is not something one could flee from.’
“Save that as a recording and make a plan on how to help Landom, if there is any life left in him!” Robin tore his gaze away from the creepy scene and returned to the man with the smoldering torso.