It was the kind of day that felt long. Longer than most other days. Everything had gone wrong, Philip mused, through no fault of his own.

But despite his genius and good looks, things had kept getting worse somehow. It had all started with that god damn bitch Kali. The slave at the root of all of his problem.

He had been on her trail since the beginning. But she had seduced him in order to deceive him! Setting up a date with him shamelessly, only to stomp harder on his pride later, feigning not even knowing him.

The audacity! He could only imagine what he would do to her once he had her cornered. Her beautiful face screaming in agony, begging him to stop, to have mercy. Light cuts all over her shameless body.

Ahem, maybe this wasn’t the right time to fantasize. He thought to himself as his personal tool was growing. Yeah this was not the right time to think of all the delectable punishment he had in store.

Peeking behind a corner, he saw the squad he had forcefully recruited into hunting the renegade slaves working on opening a blast-door.

Marco had shut down every door leading to the hangar! The idiot. He should only have locked down the ones in front of the slaves. Why had he tried to lock him out too? Mana-damn incompetent fool was what he was.

But still, they had managed to get some doors unlocked easily, but some were apparently harder to unlock, so they simply made a hole through it.

Well the idiots thought that was a bad idea at first. Had spouted nonsense about damaging the ship. That Marco would be mad. That he had to swear to take responsibility for. Of course he wouldn’t, but that’s not what he had told them.

They just needed to follow his damn orders. They barely even knew what was going on. Incompetent as always, but what could you do.

A hole was finally made, and he could see the hangar through it. Beautiful. The slaves clearly weren’t there yet, and he would have enough time to set up.

He saw a squad setting up what they could as a barricade against one of the doors to the left of where they were coming in. One of the officers saw Philip and walked towards him.

“Philip? Are you the reinforcements?” The man asked, completely forgetting proper decorum and not saluting his superior officer. He was lucky Philip didn’t have time to address the slight right now. Later, later.

Was that disbelief he had heard in his voice? Well at least the lad knew he was incredibly lucky it was him and not some other incompetent, awestruck as he must be.

“We need to re-organize this blockade. The goal is to make them surrender. To that effect we will not stop them from coming inside the hangar. What we’ll do is that we will let them think no one is here, and then once they are surrounded, reveal ourselves and let them surrender.” He said, looking at the makeshift cover they were setting up. No that was stupid, it would block them in the hallway, but then they would simply not come in and maybe even make a run for it back where they came from!

“But sir, wouldn’t it be safer to just stop them from coming in at all?” The man dared ask back.

“And why would we do that? Then they might run away and wreck more havoc in the ship. No, we hide, surround them and let them surrender once we reveal ourselves.” He said, nodding to himself.

“What if they don’t surrender, sir?” The idiot asked back. Was he stupid? Why would they not surrender? Then they would die! It’s not like they would have a choice…

“Of course they will surrender, otherwise they’ll die. Now stop asking stupid questions and get to work!” Did he even need to do this himself? It really was tiring being the only competent person around.

It ended today. He could already see it, a perfect victory.

****************************************

Kali knew they were close to the hangar now. Knowing how much time they had lost on these damn doors, she was pretty sure there would be a welcoming committee once they breached the last door.

Looking back she saw all of the former slaves. Some looked eager and hopeful. Some clearly didn’t truly dare to hope, but couldn’t help themselves to some extent. Hope had affected everyone in the almost hundred strong group.

One thing was for sure though. They all looked at her as their leader… If this continued she might even get a leader type class.

Not that she wouldn’t like one! She just didn’t feel like it was really her, in a sense, and probably the only reason she hadn’t actually gotten a leader class yet.

She and some others had actually lost their [Slave] classes, replaced by [Rebel], [Freedomfighter] and other similar classes.

Herself? Her [Slave] class had transformed into [Breaker Of Chains] changing her former [Slave] skills completely.

Her [Greater Endurance] had become [Greater Strength], [Sense Desire] was replaced by [Break Chains] and her last old [Slave] skill [Unnoticeable Presence] had become [Inspiring Presence].

All in all she felt amazing with the changes. Still, she was only level 11 and knew she was far from strong compared to some people. Her [Slave] class had never leveled fast as she had always tried to resist whenever and how she could, even as insignificant as it had been most of the time.

The result on her leveling however was clear. Having been a slave since she could earn a class in the first place, she knew she could have been level 20 or maybe even 30 if she had truly embraced it.

The thought repulsed her however, and she knew she would die before being put in chains again. Maybe that was why she had earned a more unique class, that and the fact that she had freed almost a hundred other slaves.

The group was mostly quiet, whispering instead of talking out loud, making sure not to bang some of the makeshift weapons they had picked up, like metal sticks they had made with the cut up doors.

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It wasn’t much, they still only had 6 ‘real’ weapons. They had however used the cut up metal from the doors to craft huge metal shields, and sometimes weapons, just in case.

Someone tapped her gently on the shoulder, bringing her out of her thoughts. They were almost through the next door, and it could be the last one. It was hard to tell.

Just as she came towards the front, close to the door, she could see that the tool was almost done cutting a big enough hole for one person to go through. Not counting smaller species, but they had been all human slaves on the ship.

A man named Terry was in charge of the whole process, and was right now motioning them to be ready if it was the last door. As he was about to let the huge metal plate slide out of the hole, Kali got ready herself, taking cover behind the rest of the door, but close enough to be able to shoot through the soon to be hole.

As the metal chunk fell out, she, and half of the people by the door, snuck a glance to see if there were enemies on the other side.

Kali felt relief at the sight that greeted her. They had made it to the hanger! And she didn’t see a single enemy in sight, which she found strange. There should definitely have been at least a skeleton crew handling things over here. No?

So where was everyone? Some of the others weren’t as cautious and started to go through, thinking there was nothing to fear.

She tried to motion some of them back, but they mostly just grinned wide and motioned around the room with delight, showing her there was nothing to fear, they were almost free.

As the first never got shot or ambushed, more and more people started to go through, and more and more started to speak loudly as they felt the danger was over.

Was it really that simple? Had her diversion really worked that well or had something else happened? She couldn’t help but feel suspicious. If she had learned one thing it was that life was never this easy. Former masters had played devious tricks on her more than once for their own pleasure, and this clearly felt too good to be true.

“Go in there and organize them, set up a defensive position and then use some scouts to check things out. I do not believe they left the hangar free for the taking. If there isn’t an ambush or something similar waiting for us, I’d say start looking for bombs.” She said as she turned to Terry. So far there weren’t more than a dozen that had gone through, some were still cautious, but not all of them.

“Sure thing Kali, but the bombs part? You really think they would go that far?” He asked, while checking his gear and getting ready to go.

“Probably not, but I’d rather not have a nasty surprise just as we are about to take off.” She said.

“True, alright, time to secure us some freedom, eh?” He said with a grin before going through.

“Aren’t we all going?” Someone behind her asked as they were not blocking access for the others.

“No, we let them secure the area first, I don’t believe for a second that there is no one there to stop us.” She said, and the mood clearly changed behind her to worry.

Not the best thing to say Kali, she told herself. But the fact that they still hadn’t found anyone made them all hope that maybe, just maybe, she was wrong.

Kali herself? She truly hoped she was wrong too.

Gunshots proved her right a second later. Luckily they had had time to set up cover. As the enemy came out of hiding, the few combatants they had crept through to take up position on the other side.

Honestly? They were lucky the enemy had tried to ambush them further into the hangar, as it had let them get a foothold on the other side. She could barely imagine if they would have had to somehow go through the small hole in the door while under fire…

“Where are you hiding Kali?” She heard someone shouting her name.

“I know you are here! Show yourself, coward!” The voice was familiar…

Peeking through, she saw at the far end, hiding behind some troops, the man they had put into the slave cells. And he looked riled up. Very, riled up.

****************************************

Philip couldn’t believe the incompetence of the soldiers. One of them had gotten spotted before they could even surround the stupid slaves!

They couldn’t even hide properly. Mana take them! The ambush wasn’t a complete failure however. They still got two fast kills even before the slaves had time to react. But now, they had a foothold inside the hangar, protecting the door and letting more through!

He knew she was here. So deliciously close. They were pinning down the slaves for now who barely shot back. It didn’t seem like they had many weapons at all. Everything was still going to plan, kind of.

He looked around frantically for something. But he couldn’t see her. But he could feel it in his gut, she was here. Where though?

“Where are you hiding Kali?” He shouted, loud enough to be heard by everyone.

“I know you are here! Show yourself, coward!” He said, fuming that she would deny him this. They were as good as done, and he wanted, no, needed them, to surrender now so he could get to the good part.

They were wasting so much time here with meaningless violence when it was clear they were superior to some weak slaves.

A door opened behind them and some more armed crew members arrived full throttle, reinforcing them. They were about twenty. In total, Forty? Almost fifty? It was hard to count when everyone was moving about. He smiled at the arriving troops, and turned around to face the slaves once more.

“You are done for! Just surrender and let’s stop wasting time! There is no need for you all to die today.” He said smugly. They were worth way more alive after all. Plus, he didn’t want Kali to die to this rabble. She was his.

“We will never surrender!” He heard her unmistakable voice shout back at him. But where was she? He still couldn’t see her.

“Sir, Marco should soon be in position behind them. He took some troops and went the long way around while we set up here. Shouldn’t be long now.” The lower ranked officer informed him.

Well, he was almost impressed. Someone who wasn’t completely useless. Of course it would have been completely useless had the troops here correctly followed his orders but it was a welcome surprise now.

****************************************

“Kali! We got incoming behind us!” Someone yelled behind her.

A few men were trying to hold them off from the hole in the door, but suddenly the whole door moved, opened fully and they had no more cover. Bullets quickly found themselves embedded in their soft flesh.

The people close to them ran to her position with more and more people rushing to get through the last door. This was bad. Really bad.

Kali wasn’t ready to give up yet though. If they could push through the troops blocking them in the hangar, they could get in some of the ships, and from there, it was another story altogether.

“Gather all the ‘shields’ you can find.” She told someone to her right, eyes blazing.

She got through to the hangar herself and took stock of the situation.

Both sides were basically stalling. No one dared to go out of cover, the enemy, because they didn’t need to, and they, because they didn’t have enough weapons to really pin down the enemies and move forwards.

Slowly, people gathered behind her with metal shields, some were big, some were small, some weren’t even really shields, just some junk they had found lying around on the hangar floor.

Their eyes were blazing with determination, and she could feel her skill [Inspiring Presence] in full effect. It wasn’t really an active skill, more something that augmented that side of her, when it showed.

Would it be enough? They were barely more than three dozen at most, some not even real fighters. Some would die, but that was ok. Something they all seemed to agree on was that this was better than being slaves again.

Sadly, it was clear that in this moment, not everyone thought like them, some were clearly waiting to see if this last effort would yield any result, but would not risk their lives.

Honestly, it didn’t bother her. Kali understood the will to live. But her dignity was more important. She remembered the days of her childhood before tragedy had struck. She had finally found that rebelious girl inside her again. If she was going to die either way, let it be under her own conditions.

Looking around, she said something to the rest of them, before taking a look over her shoulder. Behind her she held three visible fingers for everyone else.

Then two.

Then one.

Then none.

Without looking back, she charged in silence, yelling was stupid in her opinion, carrying a huge metal sheet with her [Greater Strength], easily covering her and a small group of people behind her.

It was do or die.