"Forget it, Kiril. Get out of here, I'll get him," I yelled.
I'd need both hands free for this craziness, so I stuck the GN-75 and dove toward Regar. My drone had recharged slightly, so I ordered it to do its best to distract the enemy soldiers.
The beam drone soared free, weaving chaotically. It fired ultra-short bursts into the soldier's personal protection fields. They sparked and held, but some of them began to fire at the drone.
I landed heavily behind Regar who had just gotten back to his feet. Every bit of his armor was deeply pitted and scarred now, marked by the hundreds or possibly thousands of bullets it had soaked up in the last few minutes. I slapped the palm of my right hand down in the center of his back armor plate and engaged the gecko pad there.
An especially heavy bullet impacted in the dead center of my armored helm, right where my nose was. The armor soaked up the impact but my helmet indicator was now a worrying shade of orange from repeated hits. At least two of the squads were pouring fire into Regar and me. Regar had a closer target, though. Me.
He spun to face me, his left hand arcing in a killing blow for my throat. His strength was unreal. My right hand was stuck firmly to his back and he dragged me off my feet effortlessly with that simple twist of his hips. I stumbled and tried to regain my footing as he tried to face me. I could only imagine what it looked like to soldiers watching.
Even though I'd expected this to go a little differently, I wasn't unprepared. I triggered the grav plates and flew off, holding Regar out in front of me. Without the solid ground beneath him and leverage to use his strength, he wasn't able to throw me around any longer. He went into a frenzy, trying to strike the arm attached to his back but failing. He screamed in primal rage, a wordless sound that the Interface conveyed to me over our comms link.
"Regar, snap out of it! Fight's over; we're leaving!" I yelled at him. It had no effect.
I couldn't just dump him in the hangar like this and hope for the best. Maybe he'd trash the Redemption and kill Marty. I'd have to throw him through the gate to Hephaseta 2 and hope he calmed down on his own with nothing to kill. He was like one of those old-school berserkers. I had one last card to play to snap him out of it.
"Life debt, Regar! Does your honor mean nothing? You owe me your life, so snap the fuck out of it! Life debt!"
A rocket flew overhead and I ducked into the open hangar, momentarily out of line of sight of the soldiers. My scout drone showed me the troops moving in rapidly. Time was short. I hovered above the floor of the hangar watching Regar's thrashing slow and then stop.
"I'm... I'm fine, Jake. Please let me down," Regar said after a few long seconds. I deactivated the gecko pad and he fell to the floor, landing gracefully.
"Redemption is ready," Brick reported.
"Marty, go! I'll meet you up there. I've got one last thing to do. Regar, hang on a second."
Marty didn't need any further prompting. Redemption faded out of sight as the front hatch closed. Even though she was invisible, the ship was still tagged in my Interface. Marty took her up fast and stopped eighteen miles up a few seconds later.
I wasn't wasting the time and flew back out of the hangar, doing my best to dodge incoming bullets and failing a lot. These guys could shoot. I saw what I wanted not far off and swooped low to snag it off the ground with both hands. A mostly intact dead Grey, his rifle still hanging from his rig by a strap.
Without slowing down much, I curved back and slung the corpse into the open hangar where Regar was waiting. The limp Grey bounced to a halt in the middle of the empty floor.
"Take that through to Pax. Go! Everybody, abandon base! Brick, after everyone's through cover our tracks as best as you can and close the gate!"
"Yes, Jake."
Not waiting, I faced the sky and pushed my virtual throttles to their stops. The ground disappeared, our northern outpost becoming a dot and then completely invisible.
Marty opened the front hatch and I flew inside. Once the hatch was closed, Marty turned the ship toward space and we left Earth far behind.
Chapter Thirty-Three: Flying to Mercury
MARTY AND I MAINTAINED a geostationary orbit far above the base we had just abandoned, looking down through the clouds with our stealth systems fully engaged.
The incredible emotions I was feeling looking down at Earth from orbit while riding in my own spaceship were a little bittersweet. The sight was awe-inspiring, but a very important part of my future plans had just been seized by refugees from a 50s sci-fi movie.
Down on Earth, the modified Ospreys arrived shortly after we left. Platoons of soldiers spilled out of each one, moving to secure the perimeter while a pair of squads entered the hangar and disappeared from sight.
"Brick, status report," I ordered.
"I was successful at purging the outpost's local data stores as well as transferring all materials stored in the outpost's array through the gate to Pax. I also took the liberty of loading the Redemption with supplies you might need."
"What?" I said, and turned around to look into the cargo bay.
Stuck to the wall was a familiar-looking Nanite Cluster container, and above that a line of four drones, two Scouts, and two beamers. They'd come in handy since I had lost one of my drones in the fighting and spares were nice.
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Nanite Storage Container
Energy: 100%
500/5000 Nanite Clusters stored
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In a corner was a one-meter cube of grey packing foam, the Union's answer to both cardboard boxes and bubble wrap. If you had to
