Vivid Stars Online

Moments later, Linnea rushed over and began fussing over my wounds, allowing me to slump back against a tree while she took care of it. Elana wasn’t far behind, though she took longer to pick her way through the corpses.

“Do you ever have a fight where you don’t get covered in wounds,” she asked with a snort as she arrived, though her voice betrayed a hint of worry.

“Plenty,” I responded with a groan. “Just none that involve a dozen armed soldiers and a mech.”

“There's a mech?” She asked, her tone rising in excitement. “I’ll be right back.”

“Be careful, the pilot’s still trapped inside,” I shouted after her as she sprinted off.

If I’d felt up to it, I would have gone after her. As it was, I was so woozy I couldn’t see straight.

“I’ll make sure she’s ok,” Linnea said with a laugh as she finished smearing cream on the last plasma burn. It was nice to see her lighten up after the fight, so I nodded in response with a smile.

“Call me if anything happens,” she finished with a wary glance around the clearing, before moving off after her sister.

I doubted that there would be any trouble for a while at least, though Beasts would come to devour the corpses before too long. As long as we were up and moving within an hour, we should be fine.

I’d almost dozed off into a painkiller-fed haze when I noticed someone entering the clearing. I tensed up as I jerked awake, before relaxing as I realized it was Felisa.

She looked as bad as I felt with one arm hanging limply by her side and most of her armor covered in blood. She was also dragging a handcuffed figure across the ground in a way that looked very uncomfortable for the individual in question.

“Is that them?” I asked, with a nod at the figure. I could only imagine that it would have taken another Psion to do that much damage to her. That or another entire set of soldiers.

“Yes,” she responded while glancing around the clearing. “I see you took care of things here, too. Are the others OK?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to shrug before wincing as the movement pulled on my burns. “They're checking out the mech. I left the pilot alive inside, so we should have someone else to interrogate. I doubt that kind of tech is normal for around here?”

“It is very much not,” she responded with a deep sigh. “And neither is this,” she continued as she tossed a compact cube at me.

“I think it’s the jammer, though I don’t know how to work it.” She finished with a shrug.

I was still pretty low on Psi energy, however with the painkillers damping my headache I was willing to give it a look at least. Reaching out with my mind, I scanned the device and found a way to turn it off.

“I think it’s thought-based,” I said as I powered it down. “A bit like our watches, but without the built-in sensors to do it. You’d need some kind of implant to make it function. It’s off now.”

“It's off already?” She responded with a raised eyebrow. “And you say you took down the power armor as well?” It felt like she was reevaluating me as she spoke, and her respect had gone up several notches.

“Yeah, it’s pretty useful,” I responded with a nod. “Anyway, what does this all mean,” I continued, gesturing toward the jammer and the surrounding corpses. “I thought that whoever was behind this wouldn’t be able to get this many troops together? Not to mention all the tech.”

“They shouldn’t have been able to,” she responded with a tired shake of her head as she slumped down nearby. “If they were drawing from mercenaries or their own troops, that is. Not without being noticed.”

“If they were bringing people in from off-world, however, then all bets are off. The tech isn’t local and I would bet most of these soldiers aren’t, either.”

That doesn’t sound good, I thought with trepidation. I’d picked this planet to get away from that kind of nonsense, and I didn’t like the idea that there might be some kind of power struggle for the planet. Though surely it couldn’t be that easy to sneak people in, right?

When I asked that, however, Felisa shook her head. “With how scarcely populated we are, there are thousands of places you could land a stealth ship without being noticed. We don’t have defense satellites designed to detect that kind of thing as some of the inner worlds do.”

“The fleet has sensors that should be able to detect it, but they’ve been stretched thin with the pirate attacks.” She finished with another sigh.

That made sense, though it brought a horrible thought to my mind. “Do you think it’s all connected?” I asked with worry, “I heard that there are a couple of planets that might be behind the pirates?”

“Denatros and Ridell,” she responded with a nod. “It’s a common enough rumor, one that has some basis, in fact. The pirates have a far larger fleet than they have any right to, larger than ours by a considerable margin.”

“The fundamental problem with that theory is that neither planet is rich enough to back that kind of effort without us noticing. As far as we can tell, they each have a similar number of ships this year as they did in previous years.”

“While they could have been building ships in secret, that would require a lot of money that has to come from somewhere. While they could be involved, we suspect the real power is one of the inner polities.”

“That’s not a discussion for now though,” she said with a wince as if she'd shared more than she was supposed to. “For now, it’s time to get this all cleaned up.” With that said, she pulled the beacon from a pocket and activated it.

With the jamming removed, it let out a satisfied beep and began flashing green. Before long, I looked up at a whistling sound, before my eyes widened at the sight of four large objects hurtling toward us.

I expected them to deploy parachutes or something, however, instead, they slammed into the ground with a deep shudder.

“We may not have the most up-to-date conventional tech,” Felisa responded with a smirk as I turned to stare at her in surprise. “But we have a few bits and pieces we’ve salvaged from the Arkathians.”

With that, she left me hanging as she rose to her feet and jogged over to one of the embedded objects. Moments later Linnea and Elana burst into the clearing ready for a fight before I waved them down and explained that our backup was finally here.

Things moved quickly after that as forty well-armed drop troopers secured the area, including the Psion and the mech pilot. A trained medic looked me over as well, adding a few extra treatments to what Linnea had already done.

Whoever Felisa really was, she clearly had a lot of authority in the military. The leader of the soldiers followed every order she gave without as much as a question as if speaking to a much higher commanding officer.

After they organized everything, she sat back down with our group. “I have VTOLs en route to pick up the prisoners and to carry all the gear out. I also need to thank you all for your service, this mission was far more dangerous than we had anticipated and yet you all went above and beyond to see it through.”

“Just doing the job,” I said awkwardly, while Linnea and Elana nodded along with me. “What’s going to happen now, though?” I asked. We had completed the mission to capture an enemy operative, so I wasn’t sure what that would mean for the last facility.

“We are going to move on and secure the final facility in force.” She responded with a small smile. “I called mother, and she said you can either give us the location and return or continue on if you are able.”

Why would she call? I started thinking before it all clicked together. “You mean the Duchess?” I asked as I realized what she was implying. It was hard to believe that the Duchess would risk her direct family like that, though I supposed it was one way to ensure trustworthiness.

“Yes,” Felisa responded with a laugh at my incredulous look. “I understand you're an offworlder, so you might not understand. The royal family is built on power and its use in defending our world. All of us are trained to fight and are expected to use our power for the betterment of the planet.”

She left it at that without explaining any further and continued on. “Mother also said that she will reward you well beyond what was agreed upon, though you will have to discuss that with her on your return.”

“I want the mech thingy,” Elana jumped in immediately.

“I just said,” Felisa started before she was cut off.

“Ah ah,” Elana said with a shake of her head. “By the time we're back, that thing will have disappeared into a military lab somewhere, never to come out. I want it agreed now.”

“How about a compromise?” I said before a fight could start. “I know your scientists will want to take it apart and try to learn from it, but we killed it after all. How about Elana works with them to investigate it and, once you’ve learned all you can, she gets the parts?”

It seemed like the best of both worlds, and it also gave me a clearer idea of the political situation when Felisa eventually agreed without calling back to the Duchess. It was clear that she had significant leeway in making decisions.

“I also wanted to ask about the contents of the facility,” I continued once everyone was satisfied, if not happy. “What happens to them if your soldiers clear it all?”

“As long as you come with us, I guess you can still have everything normally covered. If it's designed to leave the facility, then it's yours,” Felisa responded with a shrug. “Even if we clear out the facility, it was still your mission, so it’s your stuff.”

That was what I’d been hoping for, and it was also enough of a reason to push forward with them now. I had considered going back on a VTOL to rest up as long as I could get an agreement for using the ritual chamber later, however with more loot on the line, I was willing to push through.

I’d found useful gear in both of the first two facilities, and I had high hopes for the contents of the third after the Dutchess had agreed I could re-purchase anything they found out of my reward for it.

Besides which, I had promised Elana more robots for her help, so leaving now, just after she helped with the battle, seemed like a dick move. “In that case,” I responded with a smile. “We’ll come along.”

Felisa nodded in response, before getting up to organize everything. Less than two hours later, a half-dozen VTOLs arrived and shortly after that we were winging our way further north, while the two prisoners and the gear were sent back to the city.

While civilian planes like Brian’s refused to land without someone on the ground securing a site, the military aircraft we were using now was more than capable of handling a blind landing, even if there were dangerous Beasts around.

That wasn’t to mention the thirty soldiers that had come with us from the drop troopers. Even with the military planes, however, we didn’t fly into the mountains themselves, instead landing hovercraft at the edge.

From there, it was just over a day’s journey before we were setting down in front of the final facility.

When I had seen the previous three facilities, I had thought them to be huge, with massive hangar doors fronting them. Seeing this one, I found myself re-evaluating those thoughts.

Looking up at the door to the last facility, it was as if the entire mountainside was part of it. While I knew that wasn’t actually true, it was still hard to see past the edge of the door in any direction.

At a thought I set the door to open, only to pause in surprise as it revealed another steel wall just a few feet in. “What the?” I muttered. “Why are there two doors?”

We all stared for a moment before Felisa let out a shocked laugh next to me. “That’s not another door, it’s a ship. A huge one, cruiser-sized at least.”