‘Can I take them?’ I asked, pointing at Pr’atu.
The Iyr shook their head. ‘No. Only you. This one stays.’
‘I can’t leave without them,’ I told the Iyr.
‘Then I am forced to take you in.’
The Iyr raised their phase rifle to point at me.
‘OK!’ I answered, realising that at this point, there was no reason for both of us to be caught. ‘I’m sorry, Pr’atu,’ I told the young Arellian - and then turned to leave the outpost.
Outside, Te’rnu was waiting.
‘What happened back then? Where was the Iyr? Why did you not stick to the plan?’
Te’rnu’s eyes were narrowed, angry.
He was perfectly right to be annoyed; this was - at least in part - my fault. If I hadn’t been distracted by the terminal, if I had just called for the guard’s attention from the doorway, maybe I could have lured him into a better position for the ambush.
But why did Pr’atu have to run at the Iyr like that? Couldn’t they have seen that this mission had been a bust?
‘We’ll get Pr’atu back, Te’rnu,’ I told him. ‘We’re not leaving until we do.’
9
An Investigation On Trial
We couldn’t wait long. At any moment, Iyr reinforcements could turn up to take poor Pr’atu away. In fact, if their response time was anything like it had been for the screaming Arellian earlier, then we only had a maximum of around three minutes.
‘What are we going to do?’ Te’rnu repeated for what must have been the fifth or sixth time.
‘I’ve got… some idea,’ I replied.
I fumbled at the device on my right sleeve; this was my only real advantage against an armed guardsman - and I intended to use it.
Te’rnu spotted me touching at my sleeve.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘An EMP. Electro-Magnetic Pulse. Disables all electronics in the area. Comes in handy every now and then.’
‘Would carrying a phaser not be easier?’
‘I don’t like phasers,’ I snapped at him, and then, when I realised I had sounded vicious, added, ‘Sorry.’
Te’rnu ignored the nasty tone - or perhaps was simply oblivious to it. ‘How is this EMP going to help us? It will shut down the lights?’
‘Yes. And the phaser too, hopefully.’
‘Hopefully?’
‘There’s a chance the phaser is fitted with a backup battery. If that’s the case…’
I trailed off. Judging by the look on his face, Te’rnu seemed to have no trouble filling in the blanks.
‘What are the chances of that?’
‘I don’t know… maybe… ten percent?’
‘So one in every ten times that you run into a room like this, you get shot?’
I grimaced in response. ‘It usually works out OK.’
Te’rnu and I looked back at the outpost.
‘Well… no time like the present, I guess,’ I sighed, resigning myself to what I was about to do. I looked over my shoulder at Te’rnu as I began to hurry back to the outpost.
‘Stay here.’
I hoped that the lone guardsman was still otherwise preoccupied with their prisoner. If not, then in all likelihood I was about to get shot at.
Hooray.
I prepared myself to jump out of the way.
Luck seemed to be working in my favour; I reached the outside wall without any trouble. Perhaps the Iyr thought they had sufficiently scared us off, and that we wouldn’t be coming back any time soon. Perhaps if I had been entirely sane, then the guardsman would have been completely right.
I placed my hand on my wrist right in readiness to activate the EMP - and stepped through the door.
Inside, Pr’atu was pressed up against the transmat room’s wall, too afraid to make a break for it and risk being killed. We made eye contact. As soon as the Arellian saw me, they relaxed slightly.
The Iyr guardsman was still in the room, tapping at a computer terminal, their phase rifle rested on the top.
I edged forwards, hoping to only use the EMP at the last possible moment, so I could make the most of the confusion that would inevitably follow.
Suddenly the Iyr stopped typing.
I froze.
They looked up - straight at me.
‘Hi again!’ I greeted them.
Within the next two seconds, three significant things happened.
First, Pr’atu began to make a sprint for the opposite door, which meant that the Iyr’s targets were split - one to their left, one to their right.
Second, the Iyr reached for their rifle, picked it up, and swung it around to point in the direction of Pr’atu. They fired their first beam prematurely, missing the Arellian but instead hitting the controls to the door panel, completely frying them - and making the door itself unusable.
Lastly, I activated the EMP.
With a quiet, deep whoomph, the power of the outpost went offline, leaving the room in almost total darkness.
The Iyr, surprised, made some sort of “acckk!” noise in exasperation, and instead tried to turn to train their rifle on me. They struggled to move, their mechsuit having jammed up due to the EMP.
Instinctively, I jumped out of the way - but no shot came. All I heard was the familiar clicking sound of an offline phaser failing to discharge.
Now knowing that I was safe, I charged at the Iyr, tacking them to the ground. I flicked my left wrist, releasing my blade, and pressed it on their throat.
‘How long do we have? Until more of you get here?’
The Iyr, seemingly unphased, replied, ‘At most, two minutes.’
I looked up at Pr’atu. The youth’s eyes were wide with terror.
‘We should go.’
I nodded - and the Arellian began to run. I gave Pr’atu a few seconds headstart before I, too, began to sprint away from the outpost, releasing the Iyr in the process.
We exited the outpost, still sprinting, and Te’rnu’s face dropped when he saw the speed we were travelling at. Without stopping to ask questions, he began to sprint too - back in the direction of Te’r’ok.
Soon an alarm began to blare behind us; the mechsuit hadn’t frozen for long, it seemed.
We ran as fast as we could - over the steep dunes, fighting against the loose
