Starborn: Origin of the Stars

Robin tried to use the scrubs and bushes which grew around the clearing as cover while he rushed forward. Together with the darkness of the night he was close to invisible to any observer. Except for those that had night-vision.

The man he charged probably was one of the later and when he entered his skill’s range, a quick Echo-Pulse immediately confirmed that hunch. Robin scowled but didn’t stop advancing. He needed to buy time for Ang’Tue to escape from the ship and vanish into the forest. This man was the last hurdle. He had confidence in ROMAS to keep the ones inside the ship in check, so it was his job to make sure everything else was handled properly.

When Robin closed in on the man, he could make out more details. He wasn’t wearing an armored suit but a type of casual outdoor clothes, packed with an exaggerated number of pouches attached to his belt. An energy pistol was secured in a holster at his right leg and only the helmet on his head set him apart from the other people you could meet in Dreamer’s Hope.

Just before Robin reached him, the man suddenly spun around and looked directly at him.

‘How…?’ Robin thought in surprise but finished what he had begun. The dude had no time to prepare anything and would be knocked out quickly. With a long jump, he reached the scout and threw a fist at his stomach. With one fluid motion, his opponent took a step back to evade the blow but Robin had anticipated as much - days of getting beaten up by Patience and Sevastian finally paid off.

However, what Robin didn’t expect was the shimmering energy shield that popped out of nowhere. It only flickered ever so slightly when his fist crashed into it and Robin quickly had to retreat.

The two men stood a few meters apart at the border of the clearing and evaluated each other. Robin made sure to have a tree between them, so the man didn’t get a chance to closely inspect his face.

“Who are you? Are you aware that you just attacked a member of the UAS on duty?” The scout said, the helmet projecting his voice.

“...” Robin didn’t answer as his mind was racing with different thoughts. That wasn’t how he had expected this to play out.

‘I have no idea where that shield came from or how he suddenly sensed me so quickly. What is his mutation?’ Robin pondered while rubbing his still sore hand.

“Not gonna talk?”

When the man pulled out his gun, Robin retreated further into the undergrowth and locked onto the man with his mutation to keep track of his position. Blue lines formed in his vision, creating a stark contrast to the dark forest. He saw the energy running through the helmet, the pouches at the man’s belt also began to glow and after a few seconds, more blue lines formed in the air above them.

‘What the hell is that?’

Concentrating harder on that spot, he finally could make out the schematics of what looked like a small drone, not bigger than a fist. Quickly switching his focus back to the pouches, Robin finally understood what he was dealing with.

‘Burn in plasma… that must be a drone specialist.’ These guys had only lower combat capabilities and often took support roles in their teams. They brought a multitude of little drones that they could use depending on the situation: visualizing the battlefield with surveillance-drones, attacking with little laser-shooting bastards or defending the team with shields - to name just a few. Robin was unsure of how many drones one could control at the same time, because you needed to split your attention evenly to keep them active.

‘Two? Three?’ He made an uneducated guess, ‘Let’s hope it’s only two or else this assault will backfire quite hard.’

Still sneaking from cover to cover, Robin went through his options. He brought his trusty pistol but killing the guy was off the table - they wanted to piss off Ramones and free the Eltaran, not commit bloody murder on a UAS official.

How could he disable the shields and how could engage without getting shot himself - the scout pretty sure wouldn’t hesitate to. He was being ambushed out of nowhere, so why would he hold back?

‘Visuals first…’ Robin decided after he realized that the man confidently followed his tracks. The bushes may prevent the scout from directly shooting him, but despite the darkness he also never once lost track of his position.

***

‘What a shitty day!’ Dougan Remoore cursed. First they had to hurry all the way here to this godforsaken no-man’s-land only to get shackled just after they had caught the alien. Then, they disabled their ship’s communication system and he had to go back to the town to report the tale of ‘a big tree that damaged their systems when it crashed down’. He was sure the UAS contact he spoke to didn’t believe this story any more than the hillbilly from local Security who had lent him the communication station.

‘And now this…’

Who in their right mind would try to ambush a scout from the UAS? And what did they plan on achieving with this poor attempt? Obviously killing wasn’t the idea since the attacker didn’t pull out the ballistic pistol he carried - one of the advantages of being under the UAS protection: even the scum in this backwater place was afraid of retaliation if they took it too far.

Slowly, Dougan followed the man through the undergrowth.

‘Where did he even wanna flee to?’ He wondered while he observed the assailant going in a wide circle on the video-feed from his surveillance drone. Were there more hostiles? Was this one just a distraction?

‘Fuck Trevil and him being overcautious all the time. He was worried about a ragtag group of explorers who haven’t even finished their first mission? It would have been better to check the local situation first, before deciding to blow-off our own communication system.’ Dougan continued to vent when he realized he couldn’t even contact his team for now.

Once again he tried to cut off the man he was trailing, but once again the man seemed to be able to see his movements and changed directions.

“Argh, fuck this shit! I don’t have time for this crap!” He cursed and took one of the attack-drones from his belt.

“Let’s see how you evade this one, asshole!” Dougan muttered while he ordered his mutation, a Class C - Multitasking Mind, to split his attention even further. Just as he was about to throw the new drone into the air, his vision suddenly flickered. Well, to be more precise, the night-vision overlay from his helmet began to flicker. Then, it suddenly went out and everything around him turned dark for a moment, only for the helmet to turn on again while sending brightly glaring images into his field of view.

“Fuck!” He loudly cursed after getting blinded and quickly ripped off his helmet. His eyes would need a moment to adjust to the darkness, so he quickly closed them and switched to the video-feed from his drone.

Just in time as it seemed, since he saw the sneaky bastard rushing him. He once more activated the shielding drones directly from his belt but still winced when he observed himself from the drones perspective in the sky. He saw the blue shield power up half a breath before the dude hit him full force with a mace-like tree branch. The blue sphere flared but didn’t break.

With his eyes still closed, he used the momentum to take a few steps back and finally threw the drone in the air which he still had in his hand. His head began to complain when he pushed his mutation further and took out a second attack-drone. His opponent managed to land one more swing with his club, before he had to retreat into the undergrowth, the drones now being able to pressure him.

Getting a moment to breathe, Dougan switched his surveillance-drone from night-vision to thermal vision and linked it with the two attack-drones. It was time to hit back… and as soon as he was done here, he will officially file a complaint about Trevil. If this asshole right now had used his gun, he would have been long dead!

***

“Damnit!” Robin whimpered while rubbing his aching shoulder. The scout managed to land two hits with the little drones before he could fully retreat into the forest and although his armored suit took the brunt of it, he wasn’t in his best shape anymore.

‘Is that fucking shield made for spaceships or what? Blunt damage should have put it under much more strain than energy projectiles but that bastard didn’t even flinch. Fuck!’ He cursed, ignoring the obvious fact that even if personal shields were weaker against blunt damage, it would still be pretty pathetic if they broke after a simple punch and two hits with a club.

For the next minute and a half they returned to circling each other again. Robin was still positively surprised that his mutation’s new upgrade actually had quite the impact on the man’s helmet. He couldn’t break it or anything, but apparently messing up the energy balance still was enough to make it not only useless but a burden even. He hadn’t specifically tried to ‘speed up’ or ‘slow down’ the flow of energy as he hasn’t reached this level of confidence with his new skill yet, but throwing everything he had at the device, like an electronic shitstorm, still worked wonders.

Soon, Robin felt more and more pressured while he ran through the forest erratically. Energy projectiles flew to his left and right every few seconds. Whatever he tried, the laser-shooting drone-thingies found him time and time again.

‘His helmet is gone, he must be using the drone above now…’ Robin thought as his mind raced. He glanced at the pinned timers. Alena was still out of order for at least 1:20min and even if she was back, he couldn’t see her ripping that shield apart with bare hands. He thought about shooting the shield until it breaks, but the risk was too high. Looking at the second timer, he instead decided on taking out the surveillance-drone.

The little bugger was completely invisible in the dark night and without his mutation highlighting it in blue, he wouldn’t even know it was there. Carefully he tried to feel for it with his senses and concentrated on disrupting the energy within. He failed again and again, never getting to grasp it with his mutation. Moving through the dark forest, evading trees and bushes while keeping his mutation active at the same time felt like juggling with many different potteries at the same time.

His attempt completely failed when one of the attack-drones hit him in the back. He deactivated his skill and rushed forward, shaking off his pursuers. Taking another look at the timers he winced - he needed that drone gone, now!

Without further ado, he pulled out his gun, activated his sensing-skill and shot at the blue cluster of lines in the sky, ten meters above him. He needed five shots to finally get a hit and sent it tumbling to the ground. Even after the drone had crashed, the echo of the ballistic shots rolled like thunder through the silent night.

A quick Echo-Pulse told him that the laser-shooting drones were off his trail - the scout had finally lost any means of tracking him. Gasping for breath, he squatted down behind a big tree and switched to his own video-feed.

***

Dougan was fuming in rage by now. This whole fucking situation was just wrong. First his helmet decided to malfunction at the worst possible time, then he had a hard time chasing one fucking dude through the forest and at the end that asshole actually managed to shoot down his drone, depriving him of his last chance of having a proper sight in this damn forest.

He quickly sent out his shield drones to protect him and called the attackers back.

Whoever that was would have to come to him sooner or later.

‘Whoever’ - he had mused about that and while he first suspected the team of the Hubble, this whole farce was planned too badly even for people like them. Also, neither of them should have this kind of sensory ability. The technocrafter with his Minor Energy Senses could maybe track him in this forest with all the electronics he was carrying, but finding his small and fast drones? Fat chance! The Vlasov-woman was exactly the opposite, while she should be able to see the drones, she had no means of tracking him in the undergrowth without a clear line of sight - also she was a seasoned fighter, which his attacker definitely wasn't.

‘So it’s probably someone from the town, trying to buy time for his partners. But for what? Our arrival wasn’t announced, no one should have been waiting here for us. Hopefully the rest of the team is doing better…’

While he was pondering about who his attacker was, he suddenly realized that it had become really quiet around him. Without running through the bushes, his drones wildly shooting or sounds of ballistic fire, everything calmed down.

Then he heard it. A faint, nearly muted swooshing behind his back. When he spun around, his heart skipped a beat. He was staring directly at a drone that hovered not even 3 meters away from him, it was black, close to invisible in this darkness and, despite its enormous size, quiet like a predator. His drones were shit compared to this monster that had more wingspan than he was tall. Two menacing weapons were mounted on its hull and when he saw them beginning to fizzle with electric arcs, he knew it was game over for him.

Four shots were fired in such rapid succession that Dougan didn’t even notice which one shattered his shield before the rest sent his consciousness into a black void.