“How much longer on the repairs?” Ricky called over to his shoulder to his brother Rocky, who was by the ship.
“Not as long as we thought is my best guess?” Rocky was deep inside his Net-comm unit interfacing with the shipboard AI controls.
“I’m going to need you to be more specific.” Ricky was scanning the skies soberly. The sounds of light fighter single seat attack ships screamed across the skies in the distance now at regular intervals. No doubt the interceptor that Amiga had destroyed had raised some alarms and now many others were out scanning for it. Judging by the sounds which were growing closer, it would not be long before they found the wreckage, and by proximity, the crew of the research vessel.
“Six hours until full repairs. Fifty-six minutes until all hull breeches are secured. That’s the best I can say.”
“We definitely do not have six hours.” Ricky scowled up into the clear blue sky. “Probably don’t have fifty-six minutes either. Is there any way to move this along?”
“The problem is that this is a simple research vessel and not meant for Titans like us. There’s only the one repair drone.”
Ricky turned to regard the group who were now either lounging in the sub-tropical sunlight or in the case of Amiga and Bingo, scanning the jungle for any sign of the cannibal natives to reemerge.
“But as a research craft…” He began while taking a few steps back towards it. “Isn’t it equipped with a more advanced replicator?”
“I’m pretty good at figuring out technology.” Rocky responded half-heartedly. “But I’m no scientist. Truth is, I have no real idea what this ship is for or what it can do.”
“Perhaps I can help there.” Eligah stood up from a rock he had been resting upon with some effort. He was quickly helped by his daughter, whom he promptly began to shoo away. “I may be old, but I’m not completely helpless yet.”
“What kind of replicators does this ship have?” Ricky asked while waiting for the older Titan to shuffle to his side.
“It has fully capable replicator technology.”
“Can we replicate more repair drones?”
“I do believe we have some programmed recipes for repair drones.”
“Rocky, get on that. I need to cut the time down where we’re sitting out in the open waiting for those Zenith flyers to come over and kill us all.”
“They’re getting closer.” Rocco mused from his position, standing on the hull of the ship now equipped with his flight pack. “They’re searching in a grid pattern I’d guess.”
“They aren’t going to pick up on the downed fighter’s distress or homing signal anytime soon.” Rocky smiled while programming the ship’s AI to begin replicating another drone. “I managed to jam the signal, but someone really should go and try to find the piece that’s sending the signal.”
“On it.” Bingo went into action quickly. For a Titan that had not been used to being a team player, he sure was falling into the role quietly.
Ricky stood for a moment watching the others. Amiga had taken one of the flight packs to scout the island. He had given the orders that needed to be given, directed everyone to the best of his ability, but now felt as though he could be doing more to improve their situation and immediate survivability.
“I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but maybe I can help?” He called out to the small wolverine.
“Don’t bother, I can scan for the signal and track it back to the source.” Bingo replied while walking over to the nearby wreckage of the downed interceptor.
“Right.” Ricky responded.
“I think the natives are beginning to circle again.” Came Rocco’s voice from above.
Ricky turned to look, zooming in with his Net-comm monocle. He could see distinct movement coming from the leafy edge of the jungle but could not see much detail from his vantage point.
“Can you see if they’re getting ready to attack?”
“Negative.” Rocco returned. “But they’re thinking about it.”
From the opposite direction, Amiga came roaring over the horizon, a low-lying hillside covered in thick, triple canopy jungle under the powerful thrusts of the flight pack. In a few mere moments, she was landing next to Rocco on the hull of the ship.
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“What did you see?” Rocco was the first one to ask as she cut the power to her flight pack, which wound down with a whine.
“The skies are swarming. Interceptors, light fighters, and hundreds of drones. They’re searching the islands. It’s just a matter of time before they get here, and not that much time either. I think we need to start setting up a defensive position.”
“Right.” Rocco began looking around the nearby landscape. “Maybe if we can chase off the locals, we can use the jungle to fight them off. They’d have a hard time targeting us from above.”
“They’d just bomb us.” Rocky offered as he continued fiddling with the ship’s interface. “Or set fire to the jungle with napalm or something.”
“How much time do you think we have until they reach this island?” Ricky asked, deep in thought.
“Minutes. Maybe a half-hour. Hard to say for sure.” The female Foxen replied.
Ricky looked around, scouring his thoughts for some tactical advantage, and seeing none before him. As Rocky said, unless there was a deep enough cave somewhere, there was nowhere on this island that would be safe from the aerial bombardment once they were located here. Their prospects for survival dropped even lower if the drones and interceptors on their way were equipped with smart munitions.
“How long on the repairs now?” He called out to Rocky, who had disappeared momentarily inside the vehicle.
“Roughly five hours.”
The sound of a supersonic jet in the distance streaked ever closer to their position, echoing throughout the clear blue sky. As things were looking truly bleak, a thought suddenly popped into Ricky’s mind, one so simple that he kicked himself for not thinking of it sooner.
“How is the hull integrity? Are there any breeches still?”
“I’d have to run a scan.” Rocky replied. A series of numbers began scrolling his Net-comm HUD as the scan was running. After about a minute, he replied. “All previous breeches the bullets had punctured have been sealed.”
“So, it’s air-tight now? It’s space worthy?”
“Looks like it, technically. But the thrusters and navigational systems were severely damaged, there’s no way we’d make it into orbit. Especially not without the hundreds of attack craft swarming our location. They’d lock onto our position immediately if we took off from the island and we wouldn’t be able to outfight or outrun them.”
Ricky waved his hand in the air, dismissing his brother’s ideas and words. He next turned to Eligah.
“Look, I dunno much about space craft, but is this research vessel rated for ocean travel?”
Eligah’s eyes narrowed and a grin crept across his pudgy little face, following the Procyon’s logic.
“Well yes, as a research vessel it is designed for some underwater work, but this is mostly a space vessel, meant for research on asteroids and uncharted planets. I know what you’re thinking, and just because a vehicle can survive in space doesn’t mean it can withstand the crushing pressures of the deep ocean.”
“I don’t need it to survive the crushing depths.” He looked across to Rocky, who was already beginning to follow the logic.
“Right. We just need it to get away. I’ll have to run a few numbers through the ship’s AI, but I should be able to come up with a manageable depth we can go without doing any damage. We’ll just have to hope it’s deep enough that avoid any of the aircraft’s detections.”
“Alright, everyone get back in.” Ricky called out to the Titans gathered around the vehicle. “And cross your fingers they won’t be deliberately searching underwater.”
* * * *
The Rhapsody came to a full stop just outside the official “wake” area of the largest of the space stations orbiting planet Titan, The Fortuna. Ships large and small were coming and going from the bustling space docks of the gigantic station, from personal craft to the largest of freighters, most everything that was shipped out into the entire system from the planet below first came here. It had been a long trip getting back to civilized space and it had been several long months since the pilot of the personal spacecraft had last been in Titan space.
“Maintain orbit.” The pilot used his EEG function, “thinking” his command into the built in Net-comm system in his body armor, which was in turn linked to his ship.
The heads-up display on his helmet’s visor indicted the received command, a large “Orbiting” text displayed before shrinking down and moving to the upper right corner of his display. He then stood out of the pilot seat and stretched his tired muscles within the confines of his body armor, which encased his frame fully.
The large wraparound monitor of the cockpit switched to a display of the hulking station, the planet below and all of the traffic between the two.
The bounty hunter then issued a command to Gabriel, his suit and ship’s linked AI system to search all relative news stories pertaining to the rebels from the incredibly lucrative bounty issued from the Zenith Corporation. The first archives to come up through the database were from incident itself. It seemed as though several days ago, a major insurrection in Kallerish City, on Gothamir occurred. The Zenith Corp. was placing the lion’s share of the blame on three Procyons who planned and carried out the attack.
The attack had started in one of the towering Astroblocs, and several hundred zenith drones had been destroyed, as well as dozens of soldiers killed. The bounty hunter had studied these reports on the long flight back to the home system. The thing that he thought the Zenith officials might have missed, were a few older stories out of another continent, Gunrock. There was a news story two years ago that claimed three Procyon brothers had caused a stir there also. He had no way to connect the two incidents, but he knew that it was no coincidence.
The biggest issue he had now was simply where to find them. They had somehow escaped the city he figured, or were in the very least lying low. Lying low in the same place where thousands of drones were actively searching for you was usually a poor choice.
The bounty hunter thought it over for some time, not sure which move to make next. He had a feeling it was simply a matter of time until these rebels struck again, in which case he could swoop down and respond, but it was never his style to simply sit back and scan news feeds until a lead came along. He was a much more proactive Titan than that.
No, Lupis needed to make something happen. Though he was not quite sure as to his own status at that point, he made the choice to go planetside and dig up some clues.
“Kallerish City.” Lupis gave the command, and the Rhapsody blasted off into the atmosphere