He fired at the last visible guard while the other one sought cover just beside the lift doors and caught him in the left shoulder. His framework body went to work, regenerating the bone and tissue of his shin. A little late with the nerve blocking! Jake thought to himself as pain coursed up his leg. There was no numbing of the pain that time, and he barely heard the clink of a grenade through the agony.
His vision went black, the other sensors built into his vacsuit flared then began to reset and his hearing was completely blocked. It took him a moment to realize what had happened. They used a flashbang grenade! They're afraid of damaging the elevator! He couldn't help but chuckle to himself as the pain from his shin began to subside, and his visor's light reactive shielding cleared just in time for him to see one soldier break cover.
His mind's eye watched through his gun sight camera as his arm came up and lined up a shot that hit the young woman full on in the face. The guards on the forward hangar deck weren't wearing helmets, just the protective gel that seemed to be a favourite with the crew of the Diplomat. She was dead the instant the round hit her.
“Surrender now!” Jake cried out as he got to his feet and rolled out of the elevator car. He came up on his knees with a perfect shot lined up at a wounded soldier who had taken refuge beside the lift doors. He dropped his rifle, nodding with clenched teeth. Jake could hear the thermite still burning in the man's shoulder. He was lucky, a few centimetres to the right or down and it would have burned straight through his lung. The wounded soldier tried to flinch away as Jake leaned forward and injected him in the neck with a cocktail of emergency pain killers using his command and control unit. The look of surprise on the soldier's face faded as he passed out and Jake couldn't help but look at the others who weren't as lucky. The thermite in some of their wounds was still flaring, sending out shocks of smoke and colour. I'm starting to think I should have taken my chances in an escape shuttle. These people would still be marching around guarding a quiet storage hangar if I didn't take the long way.
The sub-hangar deck had been cleared of all non-critical personnel and as he scanned the large area he could see the thermal outlines of two squads making their way to the main hold through a maze of ladders, loading platforms, and elevation pads. Funny, two months ago I wouldn't even wonder if there was something I could say to stop this firefight from breaking out and now that I've got the conscience I'm at a loss for words. A better man would give up and let himself be put in a cell, but I've been there and I'm not going back. At long last he spotted his ship. It was just behind a small, streamlined high priority courier ship that hid all but the nose of the Uriel fighter. “Good to see the directions that security officer gave me were spot on, I was starting to wonder,” he said to himself as he dove into an access trench, the closest squad of soldiers were taking up positions just on the other side of one of the main hangar doors. He checked his command unit to see if there was any link to his fighter.
With a smile he powered the vessel up and checked to see if both fusion reactors were ready for operation. They were. The deck crew had locked down the thruster pods with restraint rods and disconnected its faster than light systems but they hadn't done anything to disable main power.
He tried to access the ship entertainment network but found himself locked out entirely. Jake opted for the volume enhancement system built into his visor instead and jacked it all the way up so the oncoming soldiers and whoever else was in range could hear him. “On board my fighter are two nuclear fusion power plants! Allow me to take a ship down to the planet or I will detonate the reactors! I will not allow myself to be captured!”
“It is so good to see you Mister Valentine. I wasn't sure we'd get a chance to speak after you escaped holding,” said the familiar, self assured voice of Lister Hampon.
“I can't say the same.”
“Cordial as usual. Below you is are a series of quick access drop pods. One of them will take you directly to the planet if you like. I have no need to capture you, in fact I don't truly have a desire to see you killed. There are greater things underway, things you could not change, not even while using the First Light, or the Samson, or even the Triton. I don't have time to toy with old familiar pets.”
“Even after all these years you still love the sound of your own voice.”
“And you still have a habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the end you don't matter. That refined framework technology, one of a kind I'll grant you, doesn't matter when you compare it to the power we have over the Order of Eden and the Eden Fleet. We have what we need from you already, I procured it as soon as we pried you from your fighter. It is a new war Jonas. You should take a moment to decide which side you're on before you leave the ship.”
There were questions he wanted to ask, grudges he wanted to settle, and a fleeting thought that there might be just a chance, if ever so slim that he could put an end to the war if he could find his way to the command deck and kill Hampon himself. Then he regained his senses.
“I'll leave,” Jake said as he closed the channel. A red indicator came up on his visor and he focused his attention there for a moment. He was using a voice disguiser? So it wasn't the real Hampon? Why would anyone go to the trouble to gloat for him? He shook his head. Why bother figuring it out, I just need to get the hell out of here before those soldiers are given the order to rush in with guns blazing. Someone's holding them back, like they want me to leave. “Who am I to argue?” he muttered to himself with a shrug.
He increased the reaction rate of his fighter's fusion power plants to near critical and he could see the thermal outlines of the squads falling back. A lot of good that'll do you. Jake thought to himself with a snicker.
The rear hangar was clearing out and through a transparent bay door he could see the frenzy of activity as larger drop ships were being prepared for takeoff. A medical team emerged from a lift to his right and he waved them through as he got to his feet, watching them warily regardless.
“We're just here to help,” said one of the emergency workers with an upraised hand.
“Don't give me a reason to think otherwise and we'll all be happy,” Jake said as he strode towards his fighter. It was set down beside another vessel that didn't match the surroundings, a beat up interplanetary passenger transport.
“Vacsuit re-sealed.” said a voice in his ear. It was his command and control unit announcing that the hole that was made when he was shot in the shin was once again secure, the vacsuit material had come together to form a seal safe for space. “Good timing.” Jake said to himself as he looked the Uriel fighter over.
He climbed into the cockpit and armed the guns. The bars holding the ship in place had been extended across the four lower engine pods and he hoped the fighter would stay together as he increased power to the engines. The canopy was just starting to close and his vacsuit headpiece partially muted the screeching of the metal restraint rods as his fighter strained against them and won free.
One of the engine pods was pulled slightly out of alignment and the fighter's status screen blinked yellow several times as it recalibrated its new position with the control systems.
Without a second thought Jake guided the fighter down into the launch bay, scraping the bottom of the fighter against the deck before descending into an open elevation pit. He tried to guide the ship between two larger, more heavily armed troop carriers and managed to barely avoid a collision with the main rear hatch of one of them.
The fighter shot through the atmosphere retention field, leaving the command carrier behind. He flipped the fighter upside down and to his relief he could see Pandem. The view from where he sat was serene, and if he didn't know it was an actively contested world he would have thought that it was paradise. They were on the night side, but his visor corrected for the darkness and after a few seconds it was as though he was looking at the planet under the full light of the sun. the blue ocean was dotted with green and gold islands, white clouds drifted lazily through the atmosphere and on the larger land masses he could see the glint and gleam of great cities surrounded by green woods, like diamonds surrounded by emeralds set in gold.
He set the self destruct system on the fighter and brought up the shields just in time. Several of the anti- starfighter batteries aboard the Diplomat began firing on him, one striking the ship several times. So much for Hampon not going out of his way to kill me.
The pulse weapons were effective, too effective. His shields were down to forty three percent before he found what he was looking for.
“I promise to never question who I am, what my name should be or which personality I should put on in the morning ever again if this works,” he said to the Gods as much as to himself as he activated the ejection system.
He was launched with incredible force straight for the planet's atmosphere. He felt naked, bare as he watched the blue ocean and brown-green land beneath grow nearer. He tried to see through the bottom of his small thermally shielded pod, and couldn't. Using his new found connection to his command and control unit he checked his distance from the fighter and it's status.
