“Ember, go! I’ve got thi...” I paused as I pulled Havok from behind my back. “We've got this.” I smiled confidently.
“I believe you, Shaun. I’ll give you the word to get back on the ship.”
“Cool. Now, get into cover while Havok and I enjoy this little soiree.” I made it to the bottom of our new ship’s loading ramp, and waited, almost relishing the opportunity to use Havok in battle again.
“Step away. We only want the bounty. Hand the criminal, Elyek, over and we will not harm anyone.”
“Fuck you. You, fucking fuck!” I shouted back intelligently, and I got the reaction I was looking for.
Laser fire started immediately, and I moved Havok up, mainly just to get him in position. He did most of the rest.
He spun and blurred like lightning: I could barely keep my hands on the crazy bastard. We – he, deflected every shot. They were frustrated at the result of their attacks but didn’t let up one bit, moving forward as one. I had to move slowly backwards up the ramp to the doors as they had begun to circle around. It worked effectively: Now they could only get to me by coming up the ramp in threes and the width was restricted to four abreast.
Once a few of them were on the ramp, I stopped my retreat and lunged forwards, with a huge sweep of Havok. Though I took a shot to the gut, by the time I finished the wild swing, four of my foes were slain, and Havok had already healed my wound.
In amongst them, I killed en-masse. They didn’t stand a chance, and I couldn’t believe as many tried to gain the ship this way. They soon realized the certain death that waited. When the engines buzzed to life, they changed their tactics and decided to start firing on my beautiful new ship. I actually felt tears begin to well up. I couldn’t let them damage my new baby. I jumped from the ramp like a madman. As I was mid-leap I heard Ember scream:
“We’re leaving, Shaun!”
“One minute!” I yelled back. Havok and I went into overdrive amongst the enemy. It didn't take a minute before the last few of the attackers gave up on the Havok-Shaun, meat grinder. They had bolted away from us when I heard Ember screaming for me to run. Turning in her direction I noticed I’d gone quite far from the ship and it was lifting up from the ground.
With no time to spare, I started sprinting towards it.
Ember screamed again, “Jump!” From her position on the edge of the ship's ramp.
I did as she asked without question, launching into the biggest jump I could manage. I was a far cry from being able to get anywhere near the leaving ship. I felt a bit ridiculous to be honest, until at the peak of my leap she caught hold of me with her telekinesis, bringing me all the way back into the opening of the ship. It was an unsettling feeling being levitated like that, but this wasn’t my first rodeo. I landed in a heap and was relieved to see Ember roll inside as the ramp began to close up.
“Thanks for not leaving me behind,” I gasped, flat on the floor. My chest was heaving from the exertion of the last minute-and-a-half. “That was intense.”
“Why did you fucking jump off, you idiot? We could’ve been away!” Ember said.
“They were shooting at our new ship, the pricks. Thought we might be fucked if they hit an engine.”
“Yeah. I was worried about that too. Good job! You killed forty-two of the bastards!”
“We’re getting too good at this,” I said.
I received a grim smile from Ember and a resounding, “Yes we are, partner!” from Havok.
Once we’d recovered our wits, we got up from the floor and headed to the bridge to see how Elyek and Calegg were doing. I strolled through the new ship with Ember, feeling like a total boss. Another planet down.
We found Calegg concentrating deeply, but looking quite calm. From the view out of the front-screen, it appeared we didn’t waste any time moving from the atmosphere like the missile we now were. I couldn’t feel any noticeable difference in speed. However, looking through the viewing screen, the difference was night and day.
“It looks like we’re going to be okay,” Ember said, leaning against my arm.
“Onto the next adventure. I’m glad we’re not being chased. It’ll give us more time to work out how to use the folding drive properly,
Calegg said, happily. Elyek was over the terminal that controlled the folding drive.
“Now that I’ve had the chance to look, it seems straightforward enough. There is a long recharge rate on it: Two whole days. Not to mention it takes fifteen minutes to warm up when you want to use it in the first place so it’s not going to be great if we're surprised and need a quick getaway. I suggest that we should just use the propulsion engines to get to Necrus and keep the folding drive in reserve. I’ve a feeling we’ll definitely need to use it to escape from there,” Elyek said. “Still, for now let’s enjoy our new ship. We’ve just over a day to prepare for the Juntos Bank.”
“Good idea. I’ve been wanting to check the food synthesizers on this baby.”
“Typical, Shaun. Just typical,” Ember laughed.
“You saying you don’t?”
Ember smirked back, “Well, maybe a little. Come on, Elyek, let’s go to the canteen. How about you, Calegg?”
“No way am I leaving the bridge yet,” he said, and hugged his flight terminal. “Would one of you mind bringing me something meaty back.”
“Sure thing, pal,” I said.
Our new food synthesizer was awesome. Much better even than the synthesizing unit on the Thoth, which only provided nutritious, tasteless, sensible food options. This gave you the opportunity to create, mix, and match. I had entered some information on a chocolate cake and was about to create it when Ember kindly reminded me.
“Remember the three C’s,
