Jake changed the radio frequency and sent out a message. “Jaxxen, this is the Rusty Bucket. Do you hear me?”
“Rusty Bucket, this is Jaxxen. We hear you. We would like to know your intentions.”
“I would like to offer you support if it is required.”
“Rusty Bucket, we are currently having issues with our power systems. We would like to send an expeditionary team down to the planet, but we have no shuttles left after the battle. We humbly request transport down to the planet to collect resources to fuel the reactor. We have deactivated the weapons in the fighter bay. You are welcome to enter.”
Jake changed his orbit to match the two spaceships. As he got closer, Jake could see that one of the ships had been broken in half, but the other ship was still in one piece. It bore a resemblance to a bird, with a thick main body, a long thin neck, a bulbous head, and two forward-sweeping wings. The place Jake was heading to was at the bottom of the main body. Jake was having issues with the landing bay lights; they kept turning on and off. Just as Jake was lining up for final approach, the lights on the Jaxxen shut off and didn't come back on. Everything went dark, and the only lights were the glowing of the shuttle's console. As Jake was closing in on the landing bay, he switched on the landing lights. To his horror, the Jaxxen had shifted, and on his present course, he would crash into the side of the landing bay. Jake jerked on the controls, and the shuttle veered to the right just before it flipped onto its back. Jake could see the painted yellow deck markings seemingly inches from his face. He slowed his forward momentum and raised the shuttle away from the deck before flipping it over and landing as close to the airlock as possible.
Jake got back on the radio, hoping for a response. “Jaxxen, Rusty Bucket has landed. Requesting permission to board.”
Looking outside the shuttle, Jake noticed movement. He activated his necklace of breathing, and there was a knocking at the hatch door. Jake walked back to open the hatch, and one person walked into the shuttle. Jake hit the button to close the hatch again as a gust of air blew over the two of them. The newcomer was wearing some kind of exosuit with a helmet with a darkened visor. As the oxygen finally filled the shuttle, Jake deactivated his necklace and gestured for the newcomer to remove their helmet. A hissing sound and a burst of oxygen came out of the bulky-looking helmet. As the helmet was being removed, the first thing Jake noticed was the color of its skin; it was pale blue with a slight green tinge. The next thing he noticed was her face; it was distinctively female. Following that were the long Medusa-like tentacles that floated down like they were in slow motion.
“I see why this shuttle is called the Rusty Bucket,” the lady said.
Jake decided to identify her.
Race:
Nordicless
Level: 52
More information provided by the system: The Nordicless race is a miner race of the universe; they are commonly seen as slaves to the Grand Empire of the Warring Path.
“That it is. Do you have any more Nordics that are coming down to the planet with me?”
The Nordic's mouth dropped into a frown as she said, “Sadly, that last power loss caused an explosion that opened up the hull. Only I survived as I was down here waiting for you to land. On that note, nice landing; I haven't seen a landing like that before,” she said with a smile.
“I'm sorry to hear about that. What are your plans for now then? I can still bring you down to the planet if that's what you want.”
“I don't know. The Jaxxen is wrecked, and I don't have a ship capable of some form of FTL to get out of here. So I was thinking maybe I can come with you?”
“My objective is to destroy the invaders of this planet. So if you would like to help with that, I would be happy to have you come with me.”
She looked at him with a grin. “I would love to help you destroy these home invaders. This planet and the other two used to be the home planets of my race and our cousin race, the Jentie. They actually looked a lot like you.”
“What surprised Jake was that there are so many species that are of the humanoid type. The idea just seemed odd to him.”
“I would be happy to have your help. That brings the team up to four.”
“There is more than you down on that planet. I was told that the planet was overrun by beasts.”
“That it is, and no, at the moment there is no one else on the planet. My plan is once we get down there, I'm going to go on a hunting spree to level up. There is also a place down there I would like to check out; it looked like a hanger, so my hope is there might have been something left behind.”
“That's probably the best idea.”
The Nordic sat down in one of the shuttle's seats and buckled in. Jake guessed that was a cue that the conversation was over. He went back up to the cockpit and lit the engines, shooting out of the Jaxxen before lowering his orbit until he could start the deorbit burn. As he was doing this, the Nordic asked a question.
“Is this a soul shuttle?”
“Yes, it is. Why do you ask?”
“Well, it's nothing.”
“You've got me interested now. What is it?”
“It's just that a soul shuttle is linked to your soul, so its form and look are representative of what you are.”
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
“So, you're saying I am a rusty piece of junk, or at least my soul is?” Jake said in a dejected tone.
“No, don't take it too seriously. It is still at a low rank, and so are you, so your connection to it is not as solid to give an exact representation of your soul.”
“Oh, I didn't introduce myself. I am Jake Everval. It's nice to meet you.”
Jake said this as he looked back at her, hoping for a name because thinking of her as the Nordic is getting annoying.
“My name is Erica Blake. I am pleased to meet you too.”
“We're coming up on the deorbit burn,” Jake said as he flipped the shuttle around and burned the engines before flipping it back. On cue, the shuttle started to shudder, and the sounds of the Rusty Bucket re-entering the atmosphere reverberated throughout the compartment. As this was happening, Erica reached down and put her helmet back on.
Jake tried to start a conversation, asking Erica about the Jaxxen, but when he looked back, he saw that she had put on her helmet. Chuckling to himself, he looked back outside to find a good place to land. Jake found his landing site, but the only problem was that it was infested with bugs.
“We're coming in hot, and the landing site has been overrun by bugs. I'm going to try and level the playing field a bit.”
Jake launched a salvo of mana missiles, and his weapon system lit up the nose of the shuttle. A second later, hell rained down on the bugs.
Ding! Class level increased +3000 points
Ding! Grade level increased +1200 points
Jake fired the landing thrusters as Erica opened the hatch and started firing what looked to be a grenade launcher out the door.
Jake grabbed his rifle and exited the hatch after Erica. On the other side of the hatch, bug corpses could be seen around the door, and past that, only dust could be seen. Over to his left, Erica was ripping through bugs with her grenade launcher, and when it came to close range, she would switch to a battle axe. She looked as if she was dancing with the bugs. Jake crouched down behind a bug corpse, firing his rifle as fast as he could, bringing down bugs left, right, and center.
Ding! Class level increased +4000 points
Ding! Grade level increased +1600 points
After an hour had passed, the bug waves started to thin. Jake left his potions and went out to start hunting. Erica saw that Jake was leaving and followed.
“What's the plan? Where are we heading?”
“There's a mountain up ahead. That's where I saw the hanger, and if what I think I saw was right, we might just have the beginnings of a plan to strike back at the—who exactly are we fighting again?”
“The Grand Empire of the Warring Path. They are occupying one of the planets. If we knew which planet it was before entering the star system, we would have just bombarded them from space before they had time to counterattack.”
“I know which planet it is. I was watching as they left orbit. They are based on the second planet.”
“Really? If only we could send a message back to the main fleet, we could have our revenge on those bastards.”
“We will see what we can do once we get up there.” Jake pointed at the mountain. About halfway up the mountain, there was the hanger entrance, and flying around the entrance were a lot of very large dragonfly-looking bugs.
“Up there?” Erica said, pointing at the dragonflies.
“Yep. Just a few more bugs to kill before then.” Jake was looking directly in front of him.
“Erica, you take the left flank.” Then, Jake started firing at the cockroach-looking bugs that were heading for them.
Ding! Class level increased +500 points
Ding! Grade level increased +150 points
One of the cockroaches got past Jake's fire and stabbed one of its legs through Jake's thigh. Jake smashed down with the butt of his rifle, breaking its leg off before stabbing it in between the joints in its armor. Then, the roach fell on top of Jake as he was lying there, he could hear the chittering of more cockroaches coming for them.
Over on Erica's side, the roaches were starting to overwhelm her. Then, she saw Jake go down, so she decided that she would shift her fire to block the enemies heading towards Jake's position as she moved towards his position.
Jake was still lying under the roach as his leg was stuck. Jake was pulling hard to release his leg when Erica came over, standing over Jake, firing her weapon madly, sweating profusely from the overuse of mana. She looked down at Jake, and Jake looked up at her.
“Erica, retreat, save yourself. There's no winning here.”
Erica looked at Jake and with a swing, she chopped off Jake's leg and dragged him with her back to the shuttle. Getting back to the shuttle, she dropped Jake inside and turned and fired her weapon until she couldn't fire anymore before closing the hatch.
“I think we're done for unless you can find a way to save us because I can't fly this shuttle.”
“I can teach you the basics. Just get us up there.”
Erica picked up Jake and moved up to the cockpit. She put him down on the floor and sat in the seat, looking over the controls.
“I can't do this. There's just too much to do. I can't, I—”
“It's okay. It's not that hard. First, toggle the two switches on the top rear of the navigation cluster, then push the red button in front of you. Yes, that's right, those two. Now, the red button.” The console lit up, and the engines started to whine. “Okay, now here comes the hard bit. The computer is going to be in landing mode. You need to select the third drop-down on the main display. Yes, that's it. Now, select the bottom one. That will let the computer take off by itself. Once it has taken off, you will need to take manual control of the throttles. Yes, those two. Push them forward to 10%, no more than that. After that, go to the navigation console and select the orbit button. Yes, you're doing good. Just one more thing to do. On the main console, select the third drop-down and select the top one. Now, select the right button that popped up. That's great. We are now on our way to orbit. The shuttle will take us there by itself. So just have a rest and gain your strength.”
“I'm sorry about your leg,” Erica whispered.
“Don't worry about it,” Jake said unfazed.
Stats at the end of Chapter 8
Universal constant interface
Name: Jake Everval
Race: Human
Grade: TG note in the training grade each kill gives 1 class level
Level: 92
Class:
Trooper Shadow Mage Class
Level: 502
Profession:
Arcane Smith Profession
Level: 13
Stats points Available: 10,580
Mana: 160
Arcane: 3500
Stamina: 200
Health: 60
Strength: 116
Agility: 225
Intelligence: 350
Wisdom: 336
Perception: 157
Integrity: 336