Date point: 4y 11m 1w 6d AV
00h 04m 00s AA
Ted was sprinting behind Jason, weapon out, and dodging pulse fire from Chehnasho and coil gun fire from overhead ships.
Great mounds of earth were being thrown up all around them, shockwaves killing anything near the impacts.
Jason had just assured them that they would need to take a direct hit to be injured by the shockwaves, in which case they’d be dead anyway, though this didn’t inspire much ease in Ted.
“Hide behind that thing!” shouted Jason, pointing at a massive rounded structure, which had shimmering heat waves rising above it.
They’d been taking cover behind a half ruined building, but a mass of Chehnasho slavers had just spotted them and opened fire, forcing them to run.
Taking several stiff shots to the back, they made it safely to the cover of the structure.
“I think this is one of the smelters, Jason.”
Jason, not taking his eyes off of their surroundings, asked, “I’d already figured that. Why do you mention it?”
“It means we must be close to the mine!” replied Ted.
Jason ran to peek around the building, trying to avoid accidentally joining a skirmish between a ground based Locayl group and a mass of Chehnasho, looking for a sign of the mine.
While he was watching, from in between the buildings, along catwalks and pouring out of the buildings themselves, a tidal wave of Vzk’tks, un-uniformed Chehnashos, Locayls and Robalins surged entirely through the skirmish, killing the slavers, but leaving the Dying Light troops untouched.
“There’s your answer, Ted. Let’s go, we have to try to talk to them!” Jason yelled to Ted, running out of cover, towards the mass of sprinting slaves.
Swearing, Ted ran after him, cursing the lack of cover.
Jason roared into the crowd, “IS THERE ANOTHER HUMAN HERE!?”
Not a single one of them acknowledged his question, instead, merely continuing their charge.
The two humans spread out, trying to wade into the group, shouting their question.
“HAVE YOU SEEN ANY OTHER HUMANS IN THIS MINE?! ANY OF YOU?!”
A Locayl slave suddenly stopped directly in front of them, their words penetrating his battle focus.
“Humans? What are more humans doing here?” the Locayl asked.
As the tide of slaves continued to roar past them, pulse weapons going off and explosions filling the background all around them, Jason caught the importance of the word ‘more’ that the slave used.
“You’ve seen another human here!?” Jason asked excitedly.
Even amid the battle, the alien began to give a deep voiced chuckle.
“Human, this whole rebellion was caused by the human, ‘Rob’ and three little Gaoians.”
Ted moved forward, “Can you take us to him?!”
The chuckling alien went quiet, looking at Ted.
“I cannot. The human is not with us. His little Gaoian friends were trying to find him before they escaped though. I can take you to them if you desire?” he rumbled.
Explosions began to kick up all around them as coil guns fired into the buildings on their left and right.
Beginning to run, the Locayl roared back at them, “Follow me!”
Catching up to the slower alien, Jason asked him, “Who are you?! Why are you helping us?!”
Turning around another building, raising two pulse pistols in his upper set of hands and beginning to fire, he answered without looking, “I’m Commander Guntraga of the Dying Light. Your human and his friends set me free.”
00h 04m 00s AA
“Tricko! Where are we going!?” shouted Chanuck.
As they veered away from the main group that was headed to the hangars, Tricko looked back and replied, “Rob was going to be sold in the arena! We should start there first!”
Chanuck stopped running, grabbing onto Tricko’s arm to stop him as well.
“Didn’t you hear Guntraga? We have to go now! There won’t be another chance like this!”
Ryst dragged both of them into the cover of a building, pulling them both inside a deserted barracks.
The expression on Tricko’s face was furious, as he said, “I will not abandon Rob to die here. He’s the whole reason we have this chance. We never could have made this happen without him.”
Ryst’s tone was guilty as he turned to Tricko, “There are only so many ships on this moon, Tricko. If we don’t get on one of them, we’re going to die here the same as him.”
Understanding that he was alone in his drive to save both his clan brothers and the human, Tricko began to deflate.
Gazing from Ryst to Chanuck, he asked miserably, “The two of you think we can’t save both him and ourselves, right?”
Forced to say it aloud, both of them felt disgusted with themselves but still had to answer, “No, we can’t.”
Unbidden to his consciousness, Tricko was forced to confront the trust that his brothers had put into him by making him their clan leader.
Yielding grudgingly to his higher calling, and hating every part of himself for it, Tricko said, “Let’s get to the hangars.”
Ryst and Chanuck both breathed with relief. They’d been terrified that Tricko wouldn’t let it go.
“Tricko, Rob can handle himself. He’s a Deathworlder. Rob might already be off-world for all we know.” said Chanuck.
Grunting in answer, Tricko pushed the doors to the building they were hiding in open.
Before he could even answer, Guntraga suddenly skidded to a halt in front of him.
Confused, Tricko asked, “Guntra-”
Against all reason, two more humans ran up behind Guntraga, armed to the teeth.
Turning to the humans, Guntraga said simply, “I’ll leave you here then.”
And before Tricko could so much as say hello, Guntraga ran off again.
“Are you Tricko? Guntraga told us about you. Are you him?” asked the shorter one.
The shorter one seemed to be in charge, as the other human was hanging back behind him, watching the pathway that they were on.
“Y-Yes, I am Tricko. Who are you, humans?” he asked incredulously.
“Inside! Not out here!” the human hissed.
The two humans moved inside the same barracks building, followed by a highly confused Tricko.
“Humans, explain. Please.” muttered Ryst, just as confused as Tricko.
It was actually Chanuck who answered, “You are part of Rob’s crew, aren’t you?”
The humans looked at each other, doing the same thing that Rob had done when talking about technology; ‘smiling’ as Tricko remembered.
“Yes, Robert was on my crew. I’m Captain Jason Nolan and this is Ted Burnquist, environmental scientist.”
Ryst moved forward at these words.
“Human scientists are also warriors?” he asked.
The second human spoke for the first time, snorting as he said, “Fuck no they’re not. Let’s hurry this up and get the fuck out of here, Jason.”
Taking Ted’s words to heart, Jason asked, “Can you take us to Robert, Tricko?”
Forgetting about the sudden shock of seeing more humans, Tricko’s face fell as he said, “No, Captain. We do not have time. All of the ships from the hangars will be gone soon if we do not leave immediately. We cannot help you.”
Again, the human called Jason did the ‘smiling’ thing again, which was not translated as Tricko expected, as the human lacked an implant, and the expression seemed severely hostile.
“What if we gave you a lift off of this moon?”
00h 06m 00s AA
Robert was running as fast as he could, being forced to take detours around burning buildings and large battles taking place between slavers and the sudden army of Locayl.
There’s no way there were this many Locayls in the mine, thought Robert.
A ship crossed his path overhead, and the craft turned towards him, coil guns pointed directly at him.
There was no possible escape, as the closest building was over ten feet away, and Robert braced for sudden death.
But, it never came.
The ship turned away from him quickly and flew to another area and began to rain fire down upon the slave city.
Not holding still long enough to ponder why he’d been spared, Robert continued running, hugging closer to the buildings.
Explosions continued to rock the city, causing the buildings to shudder under the shockwaves and, every few seconds, Robert felt when a nerve-jam grenade went off, sending varying degrees of pain through his skull.
At last he found what he’d been looking for; what he knew would be happening the second the explosions had started.
A great rush of slaves was overrunning the many hangars that housed all of the ships that the Rising Plague owned.
Strangely though, there didn’t appear to be any Chehnashos in the area, other than the few Chehnasho slaves milling among the others.
Instead, trying to hold the slaves back, were Locayls using mounted pulse rifles to push the slaves back.
It was a losing battle, though.
Seeing that their goal was being blocked from them, the slaves began to roar and turn their weapons on the Locayls standing in front of the doors and walking on the catwalks.
Thousands of raging Vzk’tks, some scattered Chehnashos and Robalins, and even fewer Gaoians charged at the gates of the hangars, beginning to tear the Locayls apart.
A great bellowing pierced through the racket of fighting.
“I AM COMMANDER GUNTRAGA OF THE DYING LIGHT, AND FELLOW SLAVE! STOP THIS FIGHTING NOW!”
Robert watched a lone Locayl, wading through the massive crowd in front of the hangars, trying to stop the shooting.
“LET THESE SLAVES PASS!” he shouted.
The pulse fire and shouting slowly abated, until there was only the background of explosions left.
A Locayl, previously hidden behind cover, stood and said, “Commander Guntraga? I remember you. You’re supposed to be dead…”
Not lowering his voice, Guntraga raged, “WELL, I’M NOT! LET THESE SLAVES LEAVE THIS MOON!”
Bristling at being told what to do, by a superior who was supposed to be dead, the Locayl replied, “Captain Drixian says that we’re supposed to keep these ships secured.”
Suddenly becoming terrifyingly calm, Guntraga said, “And do you think you will be able to do that with all of these people shooting at you? Do you want to die?”
Realizing that his position was untenable, the Locayl glanced at the faces of the mass in front of him, many of whom raised their weapons again, looking intent to kill anything in their path.
Giving in to the inevitable, the pirate said, “Go. Damn you all. Go.”
And with a great renewed roaring, the slaves pushed forward past the newly unprotected doors, forcing their way into the hall that led into the separate hangars.
Robert, having watched all of this, ran to the hangars as well, hoping to find Tricko or one of the other Gaoians.
“ROB!”
Stopping in his tracks, Robert saw the same Locayl, the one named Guntraga running towards him.
“Do I know you?” Robert asked.
Coming to a stop in front of him, Guntraga said, “We have never spoken before, but I know you. I was one of the Locayl holding the little Gaoians back when Ryxus was going to kill the young one.”
The human’s expression hardened, and Guntraga hurriedly said, “I am glad that you killed that monster, Rob. It was dangerous to be a Locayl and not do as Ryxus said. I also believe I am about to repay that debt, in full.”
As ships began to take off from the hangars, screaming into the sky, and more slaves pushed into the hangar, Robert asked, “What do you mean?”
“This is the last bit of help I shall give to you or your friends human. Afterwards, I am getting on one of those ships and leaving as well, as I’ve just signed my own death warrant by the Dying Light, in order to save a handful of my kin.”
Becoming impatient, Robert snapped, “Tell me, Locayl!”
Chuckling, Guntraga said, “Would you like to know where your friends are? Both the little Gaoians and the humans?”
00h 07m 00s AA
“Captain Drixian! They’re coming from behind us now, too!” shouted a frantic sailor.
Blocking the hallway, that led to the armory that held Kingruta, were at least seventy Allebenellin, fully equipped with combat exo-skeletons.
They were trying to advance through them, but it had been slow going, as the combat suits the enemy wore were tough and, to make matters worse, a large group of Chehnasho slavers had just come up behind them and begun to fire on the Locayls.
“Form up! Raise a barricade on both sides!” roared the Captain.
Dragging debris, crates and dead bodies, they created a small perimeter on both sides of their attack group.
Hiding behind their barricades, Locayl pirates began to lay down suppressing fire on both sides, forcing the Chehnasho, who had no cover, to retreat around a corner.
The Allebenellin, who wore their cover, continued fighting where they stood, tightening up under the deluge of pulse fire.
Drixian, pressing his sudden advantage, yelled, “Those at the front; continue laying cover fire on the Allebenellin! The rest of you, push the barricade forward and advance on the Rising Plague troops!”
As his troops obeyed, Drixian moved forward behind the cover of the moving debris, shooting with all four of his pistols any time one of the Chehnasho tried to come out of cover.
This tactic had worked for years on the ships that they’d taken; used only when they found that they were outnumbered, as they were now.
Given that the entire city had been made out of ships, it still worked perfectly.
From behind their advance on the Chehnashos, the Allebenellin were having a hard time returning fire on the Locayl keeping them at bay.
Suddenly, Drixian’s breath caught in his throat as he saw a Chehnasho peek around the corner and throw a nerve-jam grenade at them.
As it rolled towards their barricade, Drixian and several other Locayl began shooting at it, trying to hit it and skip it back to its thrower.
Barely a second before it went off, the Captain shot all four of his pistols simultaneously, desperate to get a lucky hit.
The pistol in his lower right arm found its mark, and the small metallic disk shot back to the end of the hallway, next to the group of Chehnasho.
As it went off, screaming began, and Drixian gave a savage howl of enjoyment.
“FORWARD!” he roared.
Again pressing the advance, the Captain and his men reached the end of the hallway uncontested.
Looking down the hallway, past a pile of at least fifteen dead slavers, they found it deserted.
“Our enemies flee from us!” shouted a Locayl.
Determined not to lose his momentum, Drixian ordered, “Take the nerve-jam grenades from the bodies! Use them to clear out the Allebenellin!”
And, without waiting for his men to obey, he ran back to the second barrier, rejoining the men still fighting.
A few moments later, the group he had left behind caught up to him and began sending grenades at the exo-suit wearing guards.
“Again! Move the barrier forward!”
The enemy began dying in earnest now, thrashing in their suits, unprotected by their armor.
They used all of their grenades in one attack, but it was enough to begin their forward momentum.
The armor the enemies wore was armored against pulse fire, but fusion blades went through them just fine.
As the barrier advanced, and an Allebenellin came closer and was unable to retreat any farther, all of the Locayl began to lay cover fire on the rest of the enemy, while another lone pirate reached over the barrier and grabbed the worm, slicing it and its suit in half with a fusion sword.
The assault rumbled forward, unstoppable.
Allebenellin lay, cut to ribbons, along the whole length of the hallway.
The Dying Light had finally taken the rest of the hall that led to Kingruta’s hiding place.
Wasting no time, Drixian roared, “Open the door!”
Several of his men moved forward with their fusion blades, working the blades against the frames of the door and slicing chunks of the metal away.
Slowly, they began to cut through the locks on the door, and on the last one, one of the men looked back at his Captain and asked, “Ready?”
Giving his man a savage look of pleasure from behind the barrier, Drixian said, quite calmly, “Do it.”
Hacking through the last bolt holding the door in place, the man brought the door crashing down and unleashed a great storm of pulse fire that passed through the door in both directions.
Here the Locayl’s advantage won the day.
With a pistol in each hand, or two pulse rifles for each pair of arms, their lesser numbers counted for far more than other species in a fight.
Perhaps only half of the men he’d started with were still alive but, moving closer to the door to expand their field of fire, they easily killed the remaining Allebenellin and handful of Chehnasho mercenaries.
Suddenly, it became obscenely quiet.
After so many explosions, pulses soaring in every direction and screaming and shouting, silence rang louder than the largest explosion.
Not trusting the silence, Drixian pointed at one of his remaining men and said, “You, there. Go inside and check it out.”
Looking sour at his orders, and nervous to follow them, the Locayl moved forward slowly into the room, a pistol in each hand, ready to kill any survivors.
The corner made a fool of him, and failing to check it ensured his death.
A pulse pistol fired into the back of his head as he moved forward into the room, and he slumped to the floor; dead.
“Kingruta, is that you, old friend?” chuckled Drixian.
“Drixian? I thought you were dead. I certainly hit your ship hard enough to think that I’d killed you.” growled Kingruta, still hidden behind the corner.
No longer laughing, the Captain replied, “You gave me a nasty scar that day. You also took my brother in the same battle. Where is he?”
A short silence passed between the two slavers.
The reply came as, “Answer my question, and I shall tell you the answer to your question willingly.”
Thinking shortly, Drixian accepted the terms. They could still be civilized, after all.
“Ask your question.”
A sharp stab of anger tinged Kingruta’s voice as he asked, “How did you sneak up on my base, without me seeing you coming? And how did you time the slave revolt to coincide?”
Laughing suddenly at the question, the Locayl replied, “We didn’t have any plans about a slave revolt. I only just heard about it a few minutes ago over my communicator. As for how I snuck up on you, I had some help from the friends of the human you took.”
Tone dripping with mirth, Drixian continued, “You always were greedy. I’m glad I was here to see you make a fatal mistake.”
However, it was now Kingruta’s turn to laugh.
“You came here with humans? Looking for your brother?” he chuckled.
“That amuses you, Chehnasho?”
“I’ll make you a deal. I’m a dead man, so the only thing I can hope for is a quick death. I’ll tell you what happened to Ryxus, if you promise me a clean death.” Kingruta bargained.
“I’ve already made a deal with you. Tell me where my brother is.” the Locayl growled.
Kingruta began to laugh again, infuriating the Captain.
“He’s in the incinerator room, at the bottom of the mine. His body should be rather decomposed by now.”
Drixian stood, not even bothering with cover anymore, shouting, “You killed him?!”
“Clean death, or no info, Locayl.” the Chehnasho chuckled.
Clenching his jaw in frustration, the Locayl answered, “Fine. A quick death. Speak.”
They heard the sound of slow footsteps moving towards the doorway.
Captain Kingruta of the Rising Plague stood in the doorway, still holding his engraved pulse pistol, though it faced the ground.
Chuckling, the Chehnasho said, “Those humans who helped you get here? The one they came for killed Ryxus, by slamming an axe through his skull.”
Silence rang in the hallway.
Kingruta was beaten and bloody, overpowered and finished, but, in his last seconds, he again felt victory.
“NO!” roared Drixian.
And he shot Kingruta in the head.
Slowly, moving past the barrier, he bent and claimed the engraved pistol for his own.
“What should we do, sir?” asked one of the men behind him.
A moment of silence passed before the Captain turned around.
Roaring like a Vulza, he screamed, “KILL EVERY HUMAN ON THIS MOON! TAKE THEIR SHIP AND CAPTURE EVERY SLAVE STILL ON THIS ROCK!”