Noveli III was an otherwise nice planet. At an AU from its F-type star it bathed this planet in constant warmth. The planet itself was significantly smaller than Zemoria. Comparable more to Raum. Like those two planets, it had a G rating between 0.9 and 1.2. Otherwise nice, were it not for the NCR.
The NCR were the New Coalition Resurgence. They had taken a number of cities on Noveli III, and were intent on seizing planetary control. Four other planets in other systems had also been struck the same way, with Galactic Council units sent to quell the rebellions.
Corporal Watson was part of the first airborne marines. This was his first patrol that wasn’t a training simulation, and it was going well so far. He could see the silhouette of Akura off in the distance. Akura was their base of operations, a descendent gunship six hundred and fifty meters in length. Major Dawson was cautious, and wasn’t afraid to use the descendent to force out dug-in insurgents, even if it meant some collateral damage. The citizens of Noveli III knew this, and many had already moved to camps set up by the Galactic Military.
The first airborne were the only group stationed on this planet. The thirty of them were being sent in to clear the first city under insurgent control. Three Leopards escorted them, large treaded tanks with enough alpha strike to level a village and reactors powerful enough to defend the entire company against a sustained artillery strike.
Fly-by’s from the descendent fighters had told them the bulk of the insurgent forces were in the capital building, it was heavily defended with twenty-five soldiers. Another twenty-five were littered along the buildings. Orbital strikes from Akura would be ineffective until their company lased a few targets, as the atmosphere was disrupting most scans, and Major Dawson did not want to risk bringing the descendent to a lower altitude. Rumours of a koveran cannon had circulated. A well placed strike could bring Akura down.
Sergeant Douglas stopped their Leopard. Corporal Watson took up a position on the Leopard’s right flank with Jason and Naltar. They scanned their fire sectors with their rifles, their helmets relaying information from the optics. There was some thermal activity in one of the smaller buildings. A few larger buildings encircled it.
“First squad, check that building.” Lieutenant Leovan ordered.
Douglas beckoned for their squad to move up. Watson, Jason, and Naltar took the door on the south side of the building. They saw soldiers setting up by the two other doors as well. Naltar began placing charges.
“Go!” Sergeant Douglas yelled. The charges detonated and the soldiers rushed into the buildings. There were six civilians they quickly escorted past the southern line to a relief unit.
Watson could hear gunshots from one of the other buildings. No casualties were reported on the comms system. His right arm wouldn’t stop shaking. He tried to shake it out, rubbing his hand against his pant leg.
Douglas tapped him on the shoulder, “Well done squad. A few more buildings to go, we’ve almost got a perimeter up.”
More rifle fire was audible from one of the larger buildings. Second squad had been ambushed. A massive explosion blinded all of them. It was as if a streak of fire had been thrown down from the heavens. There was no heat, however, not from here. It meant a koveran strike, it meant Akura. The only sign of the large building that remained was a circular patch of black one hundred meters in diameter.
Only one of second squad’s men had been injured during the insurgent ambush, a shot in the leg. Akura’s response to the ambush had been swift.
Knowing they had a guardian angel calmed Watson a little. They continued securing the other buildings, meeting very little resistance after Acura’s strike. Sixteen insurgents had been captured as they finished securing the perimeter.
“How often can Akura do that?” Watson asked.
“As quickly as new shells can be loaded.” Naltar replied, “Probably one shot every few seconds.”
Beems were Naltar’s hobby. He spent hours a day researching them. “But they’re all different, you know, and some have trouble replacing the rounds they fire. Like that was a koveran-laced kinetic shell, right. So you need a kinetic bullet…”
Watson stopped listening, looking over at the capital building with his rifle’s optics. “Why don’t we just take that building out too?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” Naltar said, “Akura should be able to hit it.”
They held a perimeter for hours with absolutely no resistance. Dawson would look over at the capital building on occasion, not with his eyes, of course, afraid that a sniper would nick him, but with the rifle, the signal relaying into his helmet.
They were ordered to fire only if the targets were confirmed hostile, and the thermal sights couldn’t discern friend from foe. He wondered if that was why Akura hadn’t fired yet. There might be someone important in the capital building.
“Alright first squad. We’re up. Comms silence.” Douglas said, peeking into the room the three of them had set up in.
The nine members of their squad met on the ground floor of this building. Douglas explained the plan to them. There were hostages, and they were high profile people. Senators and such, the mayor may have been in there too, Dawson wasn’t completely sure, he never really paid close attention to these details. The numbers, however, he memorized. There were four snipers, and a dozen or so riflemen, then another half a dozen grenadiers equipped with pulse grenades. Even if the pulse grenade didn’t kill you, it would completely disable your electronics, and Dawson’s aim wasn’t that great, even with aim assist. There were also several emplacements, but their snipers would keep those clear.
The run across the field towards the capital building was nerve-wracking, with Dawson expecting a shot to ring out at them any second. The snipers were watching the windows, however, and told them the approach was clear. Luckily the snipers were right, and the seven of them were by the door, with the two snipers watching their side.
There was a shot from the north side of the building. The thermals from inside the building began shifting over to the north in response to the attack.
They had positioned from the south side.
A gun emplacement on the east side began firing, only to be silenced a few seconds later by another sniper.
Their squad broke down the door, the first two soldiers in were immediately hit by weapons fire, the rest of them fired their rounds into the building, hitting the four insurgents guarding the door. They held the entrance as the two injured men were pulled out of the building towards the south wall. Dawson wished they could use explosives to clear these rooms. Another one of his squad was hit after the third room.
They had suffered seven casualties while taking the building. None of the hostages had been killed.
Now began the long trek to the other cities. Leovan didn’t want to risk transporting them in case of an anti-air ambush. There was a lot of green on this planet.
They got to the second city in two hours, and only lost three men on the attack. Akura hadn’t even fired a single shell. Their encirclement tactic was working well, and they were saving most of the hostages.
The next two cities were taken just as well, with barely any close calls for Watson and his friends. In total, however, they had lost fifteen of the thirty in their company securing this planet’s capital cities. A relief force arrived the same day to assist in holding the cities. Akura carried first airborne back to their forward base for reinforcements.
The ship was comfortable. The barracks was set up in the massive port cargo hold, where they wouldn’t get in the way of the crew. They had warm water, and the food was good. He was lucky to be serving on a descendent.
Private Hisham, one of Naltar’s friends, was being sent home. He had served his term and said he was going to open a car shop. They had a going away party for him in the lounge with the ship crew. Naltar immediately took this as an opportunity to ask around, talk with some of the crew.
“Why didn’t you join the navy if you like em so much?” Watson asked.
“I did. I was denied. Told me I should join the military and attempt a transfer, so now I try and get references from navy fellas everywhere I go.”
“You got denied from the navy? Why?”
“Bad history. Grandfather was an NCR.”
“That sucks.”
“It does indeed, been screwing me over ever since.”
NCR were known for suicide bombing Zemorian ships. An engineer could access areas of the ship that could destroy it, like one of the koveran reactors.
The koveran reactors were impressive. Biology prevailed, and the living descendents had the most efficient reactor drives in the navy. Extremely efficient, nearly one hundred percent of the koveran energy absorbed was used as proper energy, very little was expelled as heat. And even if they would have given off hundreds of times more heat, the beemveins descendent ships had were such good conductors that it was nearly impossible to overheat a descendent ship. They were even able to vent CKRO – concentrated koveran run-off – to cool themselves off if they did happen to overheat. Gas clouds were also great places to cool off. In fact, Naltar told Watson they were in one now, which was why they could see a rainbow off in the distance. It was the water vapours from the cloud that had caused it.
They were a reserve unit now, with the other planets not having called for any reinforcements. It seemed this would be the shortest resistance to date.
“You should talk to some of the girls.” Jason suggested, drink in hand. He shot smiles and winks at the women as they passed by.
“I don’t know.” Watson sighed. He wasn’t much of a partier, preferring to look out the wide lounge window and drink the free drinks. The music wasn’t that bad either. It played through the ship comms. He wondered if Akura found the sound annoying, or if the ship could just ignore the party. He’d ask Naltar when he found him again. He was on the other side of the lounge, talking to Hisham.
“Come with me.” Jason said, pulling Dawson towards a group of women, all in their twenties. They wore navy uniforms and smiled slightly as the two men approached.
“My friend here needs to learn how to dance. He comes to every one of these parties and has never danced.” Jason explained.
“No no. I really don’t want to.” Watson said politely, shaking his free hand.
“Finish your drink and come. Let – what’s your name? Let Maria show you how it’s done.”
The girls giggled as Maria took Watson out to the dance floor. Watson, having lost quite a bit of motor co-ordination, was trying his best to mimic Maria.
Watson looked over at Jason for a rescue, “You’re doing good corporal!” Jason called.
“So you’re Maria?” Watson asked.
“Yes. Crewman First Class Maria Madre.” she replied.
“Does that mean I salute to you?” he asked.
“I think they’re the same.” she said. “How long have you been in the military?”
“This’ll be my second year.”
“How do you like it?”
“It’s good. Nice to be serving on a ship.”
“Definitely. Akura’s a good descendent, usually.”
“Usually, eh?”
“I think he’s a little rough on his girlfriends. There’s always a lot of outer hull damage we gotta fix after his breaks.”
“Maybe they’re rough on him?” he suggested.
“Women are gentle. I’m sure descendent women are too.”
“So you’re saying you’re gentle?” Watson asked.
“Am I a woman?”
“I hope so.”
She laughed.
“How about you, how long have you been in the navy?” Watson asked.
“Five years.”
“I see, you a lifer?”
“I dunno yet. Like it so far. Have nothing else to go back to. Akura and his problems keep me sane.”
“Ha. So is that all you do around here to stay sane, fix problems?”
“Well what do you do?”
“Hmm, I don’t know. There’s some graviball at the barracks, we even got a tennis field.”
“Yeah I saw that. A roomy bay that is. We had to move a lot of shells over to accommodate you guys. Do you know how long you’ll be staying with us?”
“No clue, how long does military usually stick around?”
“Don’t know, this is the first time we’ve had military aboard. It’s usually not this interesting here.”
“I see.”
She smiled, “Come on, I want to show you something.”
Watson wasn’t sure where she was going to lead him, he was ready for anything. She was pretty attractive. Around his height, with long black hair and a thin body. Her breasts could have used an extra size or so, but he wasn’t complaining. Big breasts were probably a hindrance in the navy, especially with all the high gees these ships could pull when they needed to. He wondered what twenty pound breasts felt like as they finally arrived at their destination. It was a small room. The entire wall was a window. He could see the two skids and their terminals. There was a red cloud off in the distance that looked distorted.
“Isn’t that beautiful?” Maria asked.
“Why does it look like that? All blurred?” Watson asked.
“Refraction from the gravimetric lens, it’s bending the light, distorting the image. You should see it when it’s not idling, the colors are beautiful.”
“Impressive. So that’s how they travel?”
“Yep, they ride their distortion field like a surfer riding a wave, but they have control over their wave.”
The ship had a pearl-blue hull, with red beemveins.
“Hmm, something’s bothering him again.” Maria said.
“Really?”
“Yeah, the beemveins are flaring up.”
“You can notice these things?”
“After five years you end up getting an instinct for these things.”
“You’ve served on Akura your entire career?”
“Yep.”
Watson noticed the veins become brighter. “I see that now.”
“Yeah that’s very bright, he’s venting CKRO, something’s wr—“
They were knocked off their feet as the entire hull shook. They saw the red cloud disappear in a haze as the ship accelerated and turned. They were pressed up against the window. Watson saw red auras off in the distance.
“Akura’s engaging something.” Maria said.
There was a bright flash followed by a red afterglow that surrounded the ship. “Something hit him, his shields are holding.
An alarm activated, “Battle stations, battle stations, this is not a drill.”
“Time for me to go.” Maria said.
“Can I come?” Watson asked.
“No. head back to the –“ Another powerful hit. The lights went out this time, different alarms were blaring.
“We need damage control teams to section four ni—“ The transmission cut off as there was another impact.
As Watson recovered, he saw a cut on Maria’s head. He helped her up.
“That’s a leak warning. Come with me.” She tapped some commands into the pressure door and it opened, they ran down the corridors with other crewmen that had met them from other branches. They all took a ladder up several tiers.
Another impact, knocking Watson off the ladder. Maria grabbed his arm and helped him up. “We’ll take the ascending corridors instead. Longer but safer.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Watson replied automatically, following her down the corridor.
Maria suddenly stopped. “We’re safe, Akura jumped out.”
“You can feel that?”
“Sure.” she beckoned for the small window slit. It was a bright blue, the color of beemspace. It became black after a few seconds, and they felt a slight jolt as the ship stabilized.
“I’m going to get to my station, in case whatever attacked us follows us through. You should get back to your commanding officer.”
“Okay. Be careful.” Watson said.
“I will be.” Maria replied, disappearing down a corridor.
Watson suddenly realized he didn’t know where he was. He tried to trace Maria’s patch, but she was gone. He decided to walk around until he encounters another crewman. He instead encountered someone else, a raumen out of uniform, he was holding a rifle. The raumen raised the rifle and Watson immediately ran down a corridor to his right. He was unarmed. He sprinted as fast as he could, taking random turns left and right. This ship was massive, it would take him forever to find the barracks. He didn’t even know what direction he was traveling in, forward or aftward. He encountered a crewman.
“We have intruders, we have to get to the barracks.” said the crewman.
“Lead the way.” Watson replied.
They ran down a corridor, only to run into a few more intruders, they opened fire on the pair. The crewman disappeared off a different corridor and Watson was lost again, running down random corridors, one of the intruders was pursuing him. He heard shots flying by whenever he wasn’t going into another corridor, suddenly he ran into the same crewman again, with an intruder pointing a gun at him. Watson must have run in a full circle.
The intruder heard Watson’s approach and turned his rifle to bear on Watson. The crewman lunged at the intruder and Watson, having to decide whether to be a hero or run, chose the latter, disappearing down another corridor as he heard weapons fire behind him. Exhausted, he stopped to catch his breath at a junction, not hearing any footsteps behind him.
“Where the fuck is the damn barracks.” he exclaimed.
“Right on this junction.” said a series of chirps. Right. Watson forgot that one of the modifications done to the translator chip for shipside soldiers was that they could understand the basic beem dialect.
“Thank you.” Watson said, running down the corridor.
“Are there any intruders I should worry about?”
The response was delayed, thirty seconds passed when Akura finally said, “No.”
“How many conversations are you dealing with?”
Akura must have ignored the question since he arrived at the barracks before he got an answer. Watson, Jason, and Naltar were there, as well as a lot of the crew and his company. He couldn’t find Maria. He looked around for her.
“Maria? Where’s Maria?” he asked. There was no response from the clamour of people. He walked up to the wall.”
“Akura. Akura! Tell me where Maria is.”
No response.
“Akura! Where’s Crewman First Class Maria Madre.”
No response.
Watson was about to resume his search when his datapal beeped. He took it out of his pocket. Akura must have uploaded a schematic for him, as well as Maria’s location. “Thank you.” Watson said. He ran to his bunk and grabbed his equipment. He checked his rifle and readied it, making his way out the barracks.
“Where are you going?” Jason asked.
“To find Maria.”
“How?”
Watson flashed him the datapal.
“Whoa, that’s classified shit right there, how’d you get that?”
“Akura gave it to me.”
“The ship gave it to you?” Naltar asked, loading his rifle.
“Yep.” he left the barracks, Jason and Naltar followed.
“We can’t just leave you know.”
“We’ll be fine.” Watson said, putting on his helmet.
“Akura, Akura, give me enemy positions, upload it onto this datapal.”
He looked at his datapal, nothing had happened yet. He kept moving towards the blip. Finally positions were uploaded.
“The information is delayed. Do not rely on it.” Akura chirped.
“Wow, you’re speaking with a descendent gunship. Akura, what’s going on? Are there a lot of intruders?” Naltar asked.
There was no response, but a hostile count was added to Watson’s datapal.
“Forty-three? Holy shit.” Jason said.
“Naltar, watch our six. I’ll watch the left.” Watson said.
“Guess I’ve got the right fire sector. What way are we going?”
“Forwards. We’re going to reach the ascending corridors soon. We have to take those to the fifteenth tier. It’s where Maria is.”
“Tier fifteen? That’s a few tiers below the bridge, by the neural plexus.” Naltar said.
“The neural what?”
“The brain.”
The datapal beeped, and red hostile indicators appeared on Watson’s helmet displayed, there were three hostiles running down the corridor perpendicular to theirs. The three of them crouched, readying their weapons. The intruders ran right down the corridor ahead of the three of them without even glancing to the right. They continued onwards. Watson was glad the ship was at least making an effort to look out for them, but he wasn’t sure how many other people it was supporting.
“How many conversations can this ship have at once?” Watson asked.
“I’m not sure.”
The hostile indicators updated, there were several ahead of them by the ascending corridor. They stopped again. The indicators came down the corridor, they were now right ahead of them. Watson opened fire on the intruders. Jason did too. Naltar squeezed between them and began firing as well. The intruders scattered, several went prone, returning fire.
Watson and his group went prone as well, firing a steady stream of kinetic shells at the intruders. More red blips, this time behind them.
“Keep watching your sectors, I’ll secure our six.” Watson said. He opened fire on the intruders that were appearing behind them, keeping them suppressed behind the corridors they came from. He was running out of shells. He only had a few more seconds of sustained fire. He changed the burst program and loaded an extra magazine. The gun pulled the kinetic particles out of the magazine and dropped the used magazine out the other end. More red blips began to conglomerate by the corridor. Another red blip appeared. It was labelled: GRENADE.
Watson’s eyes widened as he tapped a command into his rifle that made it feed directly from the energy cell. He aimed the energy pulse at the corridor, and was adding an extra fifty centimetres to his lase so the energy round would burst in the corridor.
The grenade was already out and coming towards him, so he fired before he could get the second digit in. The pulse exploded five centimetres past the edge of the corridor. It shorted the grenade and seemed to injure the men behind the corridor. He fumbled with his belt for another energy cell, which he immediately attached to the rifle as the old one was dropped. He wasn’t even aiming as he fired at the corridor junction, keeping the intruders behind cover.
“I’m running low.” Jason said.
Energy pulses rang past them towards the corridor. Watson turned to face the origin and realized it was the descendent drones. The small insect-like creatures were moving down the corridor with their small blasters up, firing away at the enemies. It gave the three of them enough time to reload their rifles. The intruders pulled back from the line of drones. Watson and his group followed them up the ascending stairs. They weren’t going in Maria’s direction, so they had to part ways after the first junction. Maria was close. There were a bunch of dead drones ahead of them, the trail of dead drones leading all the way to the junction.
To their surprise, they ran into other soldiers at this junction, watching the corridor Maria was in. A group of them were setting up an emplacement. They shared a relieved expression as Watson and his men greeted the two guards watching their end of the corridor.
“Nice to see you guys. We should be regrouping down at the barracks. Comms are out for some reason.” said one of the soldiers.
“What’s down that corridor?” Watson asked.
“A bunch of hostiles. We’re setting up a machine gun here to trap em.”
“Maria’s down that corridor. In the third room to the left.” Watson said.
“Who’s Maria?”
“A crewman.”
“I see. Well probably a hostage now, or worse.” said the soldier.
“We have to save her.”
“You can’t go in there. Crawling with hostiles.”
“Akura, give me a hostile count in those rooms up ahead.” Watson said.
“That’s not how these ships work, they function through neural links.” said the soldier.
Watson’s datapal updated, there were no hostiles in any of the rooms. Maria’s blip was still there.
“Akura says there’s nobody there.” Watson said.
“That’s not what our intel says. You can’t go down there.” said the soldier. The two that were setting up the machine gun had stopped setting it up now, and were listening to Watson’s discussion. The soldiers watching the other corridors had also turned their heads to listen.
Something wasn’t right.
“The intel’s wrong, then.” Watson said, eyeing the six soldiers.
The helmet suddenly updated, with big red blips superimposed over the six soldiers.
Watson wasn’t sure what to do. The ship might have been giving him false information.
“Turn around, corporal.” said the soldier. “Get to the barracks, regroup with your company.”
Watson wasn’t sure if his friends’ helmets were getting the standings updates as well. He backed away slightly. The soldiers relaxed. Watson didn’t know what to do. Maria was only meters away.
“Let’s go.” Jason said, a hand on Watson’s shoulder. He slowly began to turn around.
His helmet began to give an imminent engagement warning. His senses heightened by the warning, he could hear the lase from one of the rifles. Watson immediately spun around and pulled the trigger, a storm of kinetic shells shredding the six soldiers. The laser warning was blaring at him, telling him a target two meters ahead of him lased him a second ago.
Jason and Naltar looked at Watson. “So you had them show up as hostile too?”
Watson ran down the corridor to the door where Maria was. It was locked.
Naltar pulled out a charge, but the door suddenly unlocked. Watson impatiently hit the door button with his rifle and it slid open. Maria was lying on the ground, her face covered in blood. There were bruises on her legs and chest. Her shirt was ripped.
A drone slid between his legs, it was a treaded drone, it pulled itself onto Maria and injected her with something.
“Bemicytes.” Naltar said. “It’s a medical drone.”
“Why couldn’t they…” then Watson understood. The soldiers must have been keeping the drones from getting to this area.
“Was that why you were helping me? Akura? So that this area would be safe for your drones?”
The ship didn’t respond.
“He’s not that talkative.” Naltar observed.
“We should get her back to the barracks.” Jason suggested.
“I suggest we stay here. Only one way in, and we can keep this door locked. At least until we regain comms.” Naltar said.
“That’s pretty cowardly.” Jason said.
“We don’t know if Maria’s safe to move. It’s better we wait here until she’s better. How long does it take bemicytes to repair tissue damage?”
“Depends on the damage. She doesn’t look too bad.” Naltar said.
“We’ll cover more ground with her conscious.” Watson said to Jason.
“Fine.” Jason sighed. “But only because that kinetic sweep on those soldiers was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.”
“Ha yeah. I thought we were goners when the laser warning hit.” Naltar added with a nervous laugh.
“We might still be goners, no clue how the rest of the soldiers are doing. I hope they know they’re wearing our uniforms now.”
“Which is weird. How the hell did they get our uniforms?”
“Maybe a projector of some sort?”
Maria stirred, groaning.
“Maria!” Watson exclaimed, jumping to her side. He helped her lean against the bulkhead. “Are you alright.”
She kept her eyes closed, wiping her face. “Monsters, they were wearing GC uniforms.”
“What did they do to you?”
“What do you think?” Maria asked, adjusting her uniform.
Watson was furious. “Those bastards, I’ll kill them.”
“You did.” Jason said.
“I’ll kill the rest of them.” Watson said.
“Why is the comms system down?” Naltar asked.
“Jammer. It’s keeping him from jumping, and disrupting any other transmissions.”
The datapal beeped, a new marker had appeared.
“What’s this?” Watson asked.
“They are attempting to take neural control.” Akura chirped.
“How?” Naltar asked.
“They are forcing my captain to relinquish his neural interface. Please stop them. You are the only ones left.”
That sent a chill down Watson’s spine.
“The only ones? What happened to the others?” Jason asked.
“One of the infiltrators detonated a bomb in the barracks.” replied Akura.
“No… are there any survivors at all?” Jason asked.
“A few, littered throughout my hull. None organized, very few armed. You are the only capable element. Please go. Please hurry.” the chirps sounded anxious.
“We will.” Maria said, grabbing Watson’s sidearm and activating it.
“You know how to use one of those?” Watson asked.
“Ha!” Maria laughed, opening the door.
“I will give you immediate updates on threats.” Akura reported. “As well as navigation ovals for you to follow.”
Large dim ovals appeared in the helmet’s visor display. They followed the ovals, watching the red blips and their respective range indicators. There were a lot of blips. Several drones rendezvoused with them as they traveled towards the bridge. From the distant gunshots, the rest of the drones were putting up a decent fight. A few of the blips were disappearing.
“What’s your drone count?” Naltar asked.
“Irrelevant. Focus on rescuing my captain. He is your only priority.” snapped the ship.
They were able to use their omniscient view of the ship’s intruders to reach the bridge. They were hugging the wall, half a dozen soldiers were watching the entrance to the bridge, with another half a dozen inside by the captain.
The chirp was now routed through their helmets, “I have slaved your weapon’s tracking computers to my own systems. You must engage the hostiles and immediately move towards the bridge. You will only have a few seconds before they realize what is happening.”
“Ok, how –“
“Go now!” the ship chirped.
Startled, Watson jumped out from behind cover and began running towards the bridge. He fired off a burst from the hip, every single round seemed to hit one of the soldiers, knocking them all down. The bridge door opened and they barged in. Two of the soldiers were pointing their rifles directly at the entrance. His stomach felt tense as he tried to raise the rifle before the soldier fired. Suddenly the soldiers head turned into a vapour of red as a burst of kinetic rounds hit him. A line of kinetic rounds hit a few of the other soldiers, and Watson raised his rifle and finished the remaining soldiers off with his now super-accurate rifle.
“Thank you for the help.” chirped Akura.
“We have to take down the jammer.” captain Hond said. “It’s disrupting comms, inhibiting Akura, keeping the Zemorians from helping us.”
“Where are we?” Naltar asked.
“Akura jumped straight to Zemorian space when the boarding pods penetrated the hull. One transmission explaining our situation and we’re safe.” Hond said.
“Great.”
“Uh oh.”
“What?”
The vidscreen showed another ship on the screen. It was approaching them.
“Who’s that?” Watson asked.
“She’s excited.” Naltar observed.
He really knew way too much about beems.
“Yes, she is. That’s his mate. Akura wasn’t supposed to return for several months.”
“That’s great. She can save us?” Watson said and asked hopefully.
The hull shook as the other descendent grabbed Akura.
“Told you women could be rough.” Watson said to Maria.
“Well… if he’s been gone for a long time… I mean… it’s…”
“Great, now her comms are disrupted too. Brilliant.”
“Can’t she break free and warn the others?”
“She won’t.
“Why?”
“She’s persistent…”
“Can’t Akura tell her to call for help?”
“Jammer has him fully inhibited now. It’s going to start inhibiting Accord next.”
The blips were gone now with the inhibitor having completely dampened the neural plexus, which meant nobody noticed the squad of hostiles storm the bridge. None of them even had time to raise their weapons, or bothered to.
“Hi.” said Watson.
“On the ground.” said one of the rebels.
The three of them were on the ground instantly.
“Nicely done guys. Thanks again.” said Hond as they started attaching a device around his neck.
A gas began seeping into the hull.
“Well he was quick. I don’t know how he gets all those mates.” Hond commented.
Watson awoke with Hond looking over him.
“What was that?” Watson asked.
“Pheralax. Descendents get it when they—“
“Ha, you tied them all up, that’s brilliant. What about the others.” Jason asked.
“All neutralized.”
“That’s awesome.” Jason was laughing maniacally.
“He still hasn’t fully recovered from the effects.” Hond explained.
“Effects?”
“Yeah it’s like a drug, haven’t you heard of Angel Dust?” Naltar asked.
“No. Is that another one of your fetishes, Naltar?” Watson asked.
“Once the ships wake up I’m going to get Akura back to drydock. Thanks for the help.” Hond said.
“Anytime – being one of the only survivors in a deadly NCR raid is my passion.” Watson replied, hitting the barrel of his rifle against a bulkhead. It snapped off, having been overloaded beyond its limit multiple times. He dropped the rifle where he stood and walked away.