1.14 Endgame Part 8

The bolts of pink plasma blast the creature I’m holding. Fortunately I am shielded from the attacks myself. I really do not want to find out good the Sentinel armour is versus multiple bolts of plasma the hard way.

I let go of the creature I’m holding out of surprise as it begins to disintegrate. The creature is disappearing to flecks and shards of red light that soon disappear.

That’s one down at least, but there is still another eight to go. I better try out lasers on them since punching them doesn’t work.

I fly up and aim my lasers at them, I fire a couple of short beams and I get pounded by return fire. I grunt in pain as agony strikes me. My head is pounding and my right elbow feels like it is on fire.

I fall to the floor as the Sentinel armour suffers multiple system failures. The helmet is cracked and severely damaged from a couple of headshots with the left eyepiece broken while the right elbow joint is barely moving. At least the chest armour held up.

As the HUD flickers, I look at my opponents from my prone position. The one I hit with the lasers has some burn lines in their armour, but nothing serious or actually hinders it. I wish my own armour is that good.

Is this it?

“Strike the power core!” yells Darrac as he and Sky begin their assault.

Darrac slashes the core of one of the creatures with his spikes while Sky stabs another with one of her knives. As two creatures disintegrate like the first did, the other remaining six open fire on the duo.

Sky goes down as she takes another pair of while Darrac staggers backwards as he takes a shot to the gut. The already battered Neriarr pants as the creatures focus their aim on him.

“No!” I shout as I activate the rocket pack, aiming at one of the creature’s glowing red orbs

Four of the creatures turn and fire on me, but they don’t get a chance to aim and only one shot hits, glancing off my lower leg. I crash into creature and using my left arm, I grab a hold of the red ball of energy in its abdomen and rip it away.

The creature flickers and starts to disintegrate, but only to begin to reform around the orb against. I snarl as I clench my hand into a fist around the orb, bursting the field keeping the energy contained.

This time the creature disintegrates for real as the energy from the orb fades. I look up at the others just in time to see them open fire on me. I don’t have time to dodge, but I do my best anyway as I stumble to the side.

I let out a gasp of pain as I take a pair of direct hits to the chest. The chest plating has finally taken too much damage. I really have no idea how long I can keep this up.

I drop to one knee with my left hand pressed against the floor. I look at defiantly at the creatures. In a story, this would be about the time one of the other teams would show up to save us.

As the creatures prepare to finish me off with one final volley, a flash of white light slams into them, scattering the creatures.

I let out a short pained laugh as I watch Sam tear the remaining five creatures apart. Nothing like a Class 5 superhero to take out some Sektain forces. Sam is even ripping limb from limb with his bare hands, not even needing to go the power orbs.

I really ought to hook up my AI box with the computers before the Machinist destroys them or something.

I grunt as I get to my feet and stagger over to the closest computer station, getting out the grey box as I do so.

“Need some help?” asks Lucy as she stops next to me as I reach the computer panel.

“Can you make sure Commando, Vision and Darrac are okay?” I reply.

“Bolt, Night Beast, Multiform, Storm Knight and Gateway are already on it,” says Lucy, “Vision is already better. His costume took most of the blast and he decided to lay low as he called us telepathically so we knew what was going on through the jamming.”

“Good to hear,” I say as I being to connect the AI box to the computer and grunt in pain as I turn my right arm the wrong way.

“Are you okay?” inquires Lucy as looks me over, “You look in a pretty bad way.”

“I’m a bit banged up,” I admit, “But the Sentinel armour took the brunt of it. I just want to get the AI box connected to the computers.”

“AI box?” repeats Lucy in a questioning tone.

“A non-sentient AI I have created to hack the computer systems for us since Janelle won’t be able to do due the access point of the hacking needing to be internal,” I explain, “Ahh, I got it connected.”

1.14 Endgame Part 7

The next room is even worse than the previous one. It appears we stumbled into the factory in which the Machines are created and several of them are already complete and ready for battle.

Narszara leaps into battle as I grab Sky and James and fly for the door on the other side of the room. I don’t even dare waste time looking at what Mia and Darrac are doing.

A Machine drops down in front of us and I fire off all eleven of my remaining missiles at it, exploding the darn thing. I don’t slow down as I fly through the wreckage. My armour can handle it and the cos-mat costume should protect Sky and James.

I smash head first through the door. I let go of Sky and James as I into the floor. From the sounds in the previous room, I think as I get to my feet, it sounds like Narszara is keeping our enemies in there busy. I hope Mia or Darrac don’t get hurt.

“Are you okay Sentinel?” asks James.

                                                                 

“I’m fine, just used up all my missiles, but fine,” I reply with a dismissive wave of my hand, “At least this room is empty.”

“The next room should be the command room where the Machinist is operating out of if memory serves,” says Darrac as he lands behind us, “My captain is providing support for your Norgardian.”

“Okay,” I say, “Let’s take down the Machinist.”

I really wonder how Darrac knows what a Norgardian is, but now is most definitely not the time to bring that up.

I let Darrac open the door again as out of our group, he is the best at operating Sektain technology even if I do feel I’m pretty good at it myself.

“Done,” declares Darrac as the door goes wide open.

We walk into the also empty room. This one is clearly the command room or bridge as we would call it on Earth. There are a multitude of computers and other such devices including a large holo-table in the middle of the room.

“So where is the Machinist?” asks James.

“I don’t know,” admits Darrac as he stops and looks around, “I assumed he would be operating out of the command centre. It is the only logical choice to set up his headquarters, but it would appear otherwise.”

“That’s for sure,” says Sky, “Any ideas on where else he come be?”

“No,” replies Darrac, “We’ll have to scour the entire ship.”

“Let’s call the other teams and see if they found the Machinist?” I suggest and do so, “Sentinel here. Has anyone found the Machinist? My team is currently in the command centre or bridge and nobody has been here.”

But all I get is static. It would seem that our communications are being jammed. Better call in with Janelle and Alex.

And again all I get is static. We are definitely being jammed.

“Hey guys-” I start when several beings flash into existence around us.

Each of these beings is made of a pinkish grey material and consists of sleek armour plates with red energy in the gaps that form a humanoid shape. Where the abdomen would be, these creatures have a glowing orb of red energy.

What are these things? I think as they open fire.

Bolts of pink plasma fly from their sleek guns. James and Sky both go down while Darrac staggers and drops to his knee, panting. I take a couple of hits, one to the back of my right shoulder and the other to my chest.

I grunt in pain as I actually feel the shots through the armour and collapse on the ground. I check my armour status and see that the enemy has actually done some serious damage to the Sentinel armour. In fact, the armour integrity around the shoulder has been damaged.

Without moving my head, I look towards Darrac. The Neriarr topples over as he takes several more bolts of plasma. If a couple of those did major damage to the Sentinel armour, I can only imagine how much pain Darrac is in. Darn it, I’m not even sure if he survived.

How will I explain to Mia if he doesn’t? How will I live with myself if a member of my team dies on my watch?

But first I have to make sure these things do down.

There are nine of these creatures and they head to the rest of us, three for each of us Leaguers now Darrac is down. James is still down while Sky is stirring. One of the creatures takes aim at her with its gun.

Time for action, I decide as I activate my rocket pack, aiming for the enemy taking aim at Sky.

I fly through the air and tackle the creature, sending both of us tumbling with myself being the one landing on top. I punch it in the face twice, but whatever it is made of holds up against even the enhanced strength that Sentinel armour grants me.

Not looking good at all, I think as I spot the other eight creatures aiming at me. Things are made even worse when the one below me punches me in the face. It doesn’t do much against the Sentinel armour however and I grab the creature as I get to my feet.

As the other creatures open fire, I use their compatriot as ‘human’ shield.

1.14 Endgame Part 6

Our four aerial vehicles come to a halt over site of the sunken Sektain warship.

“Okay,” I say to my team as we wait in the cargo bay of the Dusty Corsair, “Let’s drop.”

Of course we have to wait for the ramp to lower, but once that is done, we all leap out of the spaceship.

I take the opportunity to look around. The other teams are doing the same though some of us are falling faster than others such as Britannia and Sam, who have both used their flight to reach the ocean even faster than the others.

Me? I’m willing to just use gravity.

I plunge into the ocean, but Narszara’s magic charm is working perfectly. While I know I’m surrounded by water, I’m more than capable of acting if I wasn’t to the point I can even use my rocket pack and lasers down here.

Excellent. Just another advantage we have over the Machine and the other creations of the Machinist.

“There,” I tell the others over the comms, pointing at the wrecked ship below.

As the other teams go their own routes, I take my own team down to the hole I spotted in the side. As expected the ship is flooded with several remains of the crew floating about as I do my best to try and ignore them.

“There is an intact airlock ahead,” says Darrac as he takes the lead.

“Can you open it up?” I ask him.

“Easily,” replies Darrac, “I grew up around technology like this. I believe the correct expression is that this is a slice of cake.”

Within a couple of seconds, we enter the air lock and the water drains around us.

“Do want to break the airlock so the ship is flooded?” inquires Sky as the water finishes draining around us.

“No,” I reply, “If we flood the whole thing, we could easily kill the Machinist and wreck salvageable technology within. And Sektain technology, even if it is a few decades out of data, is very valuable on Earth. Plus we can communicate verbally if we need to such as if our communicators get jammed.”

I step into the next room and freeze at what awaits us. The Machine. And not just one, but three of the big guy.

We all leap into action. Mia draws her pistols and begins to unleash rapid fire on the one on the right as Darrac flies at it. Sky and I both move around the sides to attack the one on the left while Narszara charges the one in the middle.

I’ll use my telekinesis to pop any missiles they unleash, says James.

I send a mental agreement at him as I activate the rocket pack as the Machine I targeted fire off its missiles at me. It also its lasers, both those are aimed at Sky, not me. I fly through the explosion results from the exploding missiles as they are telekinetically taken out and grab the disc ball head.

I grunt as I yank it out and the Machine drops to its knee. Aiming at the gap in which the head was connected to, I fire a missile of my own at it. I’m caught in the explosion, but the Sentinel armour weathers it with ease. The Machine on the other hand has taken a beating as most of its upper chest is destroyed and the left arm is blown off.

Unfortunately its right arm is still working fine, a fact I find out as the Machine grabs me and slams me into floor. I roll out of the way of a energy blade and fire my lasers at the now exposed shoulder joint of the remaining arm.

I hit and the arm twitches before falling limp at the side. But the Machine is still active and I have to finish it even if it is incapable of fighting anymore. Never turn your back on an enemy after all.

Sky is already on that one so I turn to see how the other members of our team are doing, ready to provide assistance if necessary. But it doesn’t look like the others need it as Narszara has crushed her own foe and is helping Darrac and Mia finish off the Machine on the right.

I hear metal tearing behind me and I look over my shoulder to see the remains of the Machine being ripped apart. It has to be the work of James.

“Three Machines?” inquires Sky.

“I didn’t expect it either,” I reply, “Did it feel a little too easy? The others ones were much tougher and harder to defeat.”

“I believe that experience and use of teamwork allowed us to overcome them Verigar,” says Narszara, “The previous times we were not prepared and were caught off guard. This time the battle was fought on our terms, not theirs.”

“Makes senses,” I agree, “Let’s press onto the next room.”

1.14 Endgame Part 5

“Hello everyone,” I say to the assembled groups in the main room of the base a couple hours later, “As you know, I have finally found the location of the person responsible for almost every major incident that has plagued our country since Vistorix showed up in early July.”

We got all of the new Leaguers in costume in addition to the combat ready Albion Defenders. Britannia, Warden, Dreadnought, Green Knight, Robyn Hood, Multitude, Spectre, Eternal, Controller and Werebeast. Only Merlin, Powerbeam and Restorer aren’t here.

In the corner we got Darrac and Mia, who Darrac brought along. The two space pirates, excuses me, space privateers both look ready for the up coming fight.

A total of twenty one superheroes and two space pirates against whatever the Machine’s creator has to bring against us.

If they weren’t responsible for the deaths of several people, directly or otherwise, I might feel sorry for them.

I let my announcement settle in before I continue. I’m sure they already know that as I doubt they would be here otherwise, but it still has an impact amongst the gathered people.

I’m able to continue when another couple of people join our group. A man in a black cloak obscures his body from sight and only his glowing white eyes can be seen while other is man in bulky gold and red power armour.

Shade and Spartan. Two acquaintances I made a while back.

Huh, never thought I would ever think that way. Sure Granddad spoke about old acquaintances he made over years as a superhero, but it is another thing for me to be doing it myself.

“I hope you don’t mind us helping out,” says Spartan, “We both have some unfinished business with the guy you’re going after.”

“Every hand helps,” I reply.

Strange how we’re talking about this when the first time we met was when Spartan was trying to collect the bounty on my head for the person we’re now working together to go after.

But that was before the Machine attacked his flying aircraft carrier and we fought together against it. And it isn’t healthy to hold grudges. Best to let bygones be bygones.

“The Machine’s creator, now codenamed Machinist, is operating out of a sunken Sektain warship about twenty miles off the coast of the Isle of Wight,” I continue from where I left off earlier before the new arrivals showed up, “Now if you’re wondering how we’re going to get down here since only a few of us can breathe underwater, we got a couple of things for that. First is a small breather that you put to your mouth and it also acts a communicator. The second is a magical charm that Narszara has come up with allows us to breath underwater. They’ll also keep you dry and unaffected by the water. We got thirty of them so there is enough for everybody here to have one each. If you do lose the charm, it has a residue effect so if you do lose it during battle, the effect won’t wear off until a few hours later.”

I, Mary and Narszara hand out the charms and breathers. While everybody takes a charm, those of us in power armour don’t take a breather. All of us already have an equivalent built into our armour.

“So here is the plan,” I say, “We’ll split into four groups, roughly six in each. The first group will be Shade, Spartan, Spectre, Controller and Werebeast with Britannia in charge. Warden will lead the second group, consisting of herself, Dreadnought, Green Knight, Eternal, Multitude and Robyn Hood. The next group will contain Lantern, Bolt, Night Beast, Multiform, Storm Knight, Gateway and Accelerate. The last group will be lead by myself and will consist of Narszara, Darrac, Mia, Commando and Vision. Is that clear?”

I get a series of agreements and we begin to split up into our groups.

I think I did pretty well in choosing the groups. Each one is led by an experienced leader and has good variation of abilities in each of them. In addition, they are split up between the two superhero teams we have on hand.

“Okay for transportation,” I say once we’re in our groups, “Teams One and Two will go in the two pairs of Albion Defender jets we got on hand. Team Three will take the Star Guardian while Team Four will be going in the Dusty Corsair.”

I wonder who will pilot the Star Guardian without me there. I suspect Janelle might fly herself, but Sam or Vance might end up in the cockpit.

“Hey Janelle,” I whisper into my communicator, “Were you the one to let Shade and Spartan in?”

“Yes, I assumed you wouldn’t mind the extra backup,” replies the AI.

“I don’t,” I tell her, “But I would like a heads up next time.”

“Understood,” says Janelle, “By the way, I don’t think I’ll be able to hack the ship’s computers. You’ll need internal access for that.”

“Good to know,” I reply, “I’ll need the prototype then for quick hacking then.”

“I believe so,” says Janelle and I end the call.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell the others in my group, “Just need to grab something from my lab for this mission.”

I dart off to my lab and quickly find the gray box containing what progress I have made so far in creating an AI. The box is about the size of a computer mouse, but barely a centimetre thick.

While the AI isn’t sentient like Janelle yet, it will be far better at hacking the ship’s systems then I would be.

“Ready,” I say as I return to the others as they wait around the bottom of the Dusty Corsair.

1.7 Bounty Hunters Part 4

Sam twists the Machine’s arm and I can hear the metal tearing and twisting. He grabs the Machine’s arm with his other hand and uses them both to yank off the Machine’s arm.

As Sam tosses it aside, the Machine punches Sam into the air with his other fist. I would have tried to help, but at this point, I have pretty much had it.

Not that the Machine gets a break either.

Darrac flies over the Machine again, this time with a trail of over twenty micro-missiles following him. Most of them slam into the Machine before it can react with only three going over the Machine’s head.

The Machine staggers backwards following the explosion, the armour and lasers on its chest a useless mess.

Then Sam zooms back down and grabs the Machine’s remaining arm with both hands. He gives it a good pull, yanking out and tossing it aside like he did with the other. Sam reaches down and rips away the remaining chest armour from the Machine.

Sensing it isn’t going to beat to Sam, the Machine uses its flight abilities to zoom along the deck and off the carrier.

Sam appears to be about to pursue, but takes one look at me and lands next to me. He puts a hand out for me and I grasp it with my left as my right arm is disabled.

“You’re in bad shape,” notes Sam.

“He had me on the ropes several times,” I say, “Without Spartan or Darrac, I would have been killed before you got here.”

“What were you doing here before the Machine came?” asks Sam with a glance at Spartan, who has landed not too far away.

I give Spartan a look and we lock eyes before I reply, “Nothing important.”

Darrac lands on the ground next to us. He’ is also pretty banged up.

“We should leave,” says Darrac matter of factly.

“I agree,” I reply, “Lantern, you need to carry me. The Machine took out my rocket pack early on.”

“Okay,” says Sam as he hooks his arms underneath my armpits.

***

I let Vance fly while I make some repairs to the armour in the Star Guardian. The ship doesn’t have the full resources of the lab back at base, but I can get the right arm of the Sentinel armour working again.

Mia got off at Sydney in Australia, her home city. We left her in the hands of the local heroes and authorities. Darrac took the Dust Corsair back to space while we headed home.

“What do you think will be waiting for us back home?” Sam asks me as we near the British Isles.

“Mary wanted to borrow Narszara for a mission and it’s pretty late so our parents might be worried.”

“Not mine,” says Sam, “Mum never married.”

“My mum knows, but my dad and sis don’t,” I say, “I’m going to be spending tomorrow getting the 

Sentinel armour back in working order.”

“I’m sure somebody will have an explanation for us to fall back on,” says Sam confidently, “Did you use your money to buy the stuff from Mia?”

I shake my head, “No. I used the Sentinel’s account. Using Daniel Griffin’s account would have been too traceable and just plain stupid.”

By the time we land, I have gotten both of the armour’s lasers working again in addition to the left arm’s sonics. The sonics of the right arm have been almost utterly destroyed and need to be rebuilt from scratch.

This means it’s going to be a while before Narszara’s suit is built.

I wonder what Narszara is doing now?

“Narszara,” I call her my comm.

“Yes milord?” comes the swift reply.

“How did your day go?” I ask her, “Because the Sentinel armour needs some serious repairs. We’re going to have to delay starting on your new armour.”

“I have aided the Defenders in repulsing an attempt by the Baglio Syndicate to gain a foothold in this nation,” replies Narszara, “What is the damage to the Sentinel armour?”

“Right sonic and rocket pack completely destroyed,” I answer, “The lasers and left sonic will need more serious repairs to be bought back to fully functioning. The helmet and HUD need fixing and entire outer armour needs replacing. The right arm also needs more extensive repairs as well.”

“Sounds like our upcoming days will be busy,” replies Narszara, “What happened?”

“The trip went well,” I reply, trying to make it sound like nothing major happened, “Then we got involved in fight between two groups of Sektain separatists. Next we made friends with some space pirates and I bought a good haul of Sektain equipment. I’m quite please with that. We went home with our new space pirate friends and investigated a couple of signals. An oil platform and Spartan’s aero-carrier.Spartan and his bounty hunters tried to capture me and my space pirate ally. It went poorly for them. Then the Machine showed up and beat up a few times. Darrac saved me a few times. Than Lantern showed up and save me and totally defeated the Machine again. We headed back home for proper after that.”

I pause for a moment.

“How was your mission?”

1.7 Bounty Hunters Part 3

“Another foe?” inquires Darrac.

“One of the worst,” I reply, “We fought once before. It took down the entire New League except for myself, Lantern and Narszara. I barely held my own and Lantern was the one who took it down. Do your best to destroy it.”

“Excellent,” says Darrac in a satisfied voice.

He flaps his wings and zooms at the Machine, flying close to deck. I grab one of the bounty hunters’ guns of the deck. Hopefully this will do some damage against the Machine.

Darrac turns at the last moment, dodging the Machine’s laser beams. He swipes one of the legs of the machine, leaving a light tears in the armour plating. The machine tries to swing a fist at Darrac, but he’s already out of range of any melee attacks.

I take that as my cue and pull the trigger on my borrowed gun. It turns out to be a semi-automatic that fires explosive rounds.

The shots dent the armour of the Machine, but do little beyond that. I’m not sure how to beat it with Sam or Narszara to help.

Perhaps if I-

Boom.

The world spins as I fly forward. A red warning message flashes up on my HUD.

Warning: Rocket Pack Disabled                                        

Warning: Severe Damage to Back Armour Plating

What the heck hit me?

I stagger upright. The loss of the rocket pack as removed a lot of my options as well as most of my ability to dodge.

Damn Machine.

I look towards the Machine as its lasers begin to hit me. It’ll take a couple of minutes, but if the Machine keeps this up, it’ll burn through the Sentinel armour and start hitting fleshy stuff beneath.

I try to shield by face and chest with my armours, but it won’t bring my anymore time

That’s when Darrac swoops back in and stabs both of his forearm spikes into the disco ball head of the machine. Bolts of electricity leap out of the machine, electrocuting Darrac. He barely gets his spikes out when the Machine grabs his injured leg.

He grunts in pain and the Machine tosses him off of the edge of the carrier.

“No!” I shout as I aim my lasers at the Machine.

I get off a few ineffective hits before the Machine fires four of its missiles at me. I get a couple of goes off, hitting one, two and three of the missiles before the fourth explodes into a dozen micro-missiles.

Without my rocket pack, I don’t have much chance of dodging the missiles, but I try anyway.

I fail miserably.

I maybe dodged two, maybe three, but the rest slam into me. The explosion sends me flying backwards. I can’t take much more of this, no matter how great the Sentinel armour is.

My HUD flickers and several flashing warnings pop up as I smash face up into the deck. Sonics are both offline, lasers are both offline, right arm is disabled and serious damage to pretty much every piece of outer armour plating.

Oh and the thermal vision is offline as well.

It occurs to me that this might be it. My final fight only a week and a half after becoming the Sentinel.

“Lantern!” I shout over my comm, “The Machine. I’m going to die if you don’t get over here.”

“Hold on buddy,” comes a firm and steady reply in a gratefully fast time, “I’m coming pal.”

I lean up expecting the Machine to finish me off. It fires another four missiles at me.

Help comes from an unexpected source.

A grenade flies into the path of the missile and explodes, prematurely detonating the missiles and the micro-missiles contained within.

“Come on you stinking piece of junk!” yells Spartan at the Machine with his gun in one hand, “Not on my aero-carrier!”

Oddly enough, my first thought is where did Spartan get his gun from. Probably picked it back up after I dropped it when my rocket pack was destroyed.

Spartan grips his gun with both hands and opens fire on the Machine. He quickly blasts its optic ball off since it was damaged by Darrac already. The Machine quickly responds by firing its lasers at Spartan.

I try to tell him to roll, but I’m still struggling after my beating. Several lasers destroy his gun while one hits his neck armour, barely missing his head. Another couple hit his cape.

Spartan stumbles backwards, coughing. As the Machine prepares to fire again, I spot a dark shape behind him.

With an unruly battle cry, Darrac swoops down and over the top of the Machine, slicing its shoulder lasers off as he goes.

“A Neriarr is harder than that to defeat,” calmly says Darrac as he throws a small, shiny device with glowing green lines at the Machine’s chest.

The device explodes in a green explosion, sending the Machine tumbling backwards into the deck. But with what appear to be anti-gravity packs built into its back, it quickly returns to standing up right.

Firing another set of four missiles, two at Darrac and two at Spartan, the Machine charges towards me. As the other two fly off to avoid the missiles, I sit upright. I look up to see the Machine pound me back into the deck. The Machine pulls back its fist for another strike, this time to finish me off.

As its fist comes down, a flash of light appears in front of me.

There is the Lantern in all his glory, the Machine’s fist caught in his hand.

“Pick on someone your own size,” snarls Sam.

1.7 Bounty Hunters Part 2

Spartan’s second mistake is leaving himself exposed to an attack when he was trying to lord over me.

I rush him before he can prepare for an attack. With one hand I rip his gun out of his grip and with the other, I punch him in the gut.

Let me tell you something, hitting someone in the gut is a lot more effective when they aren’t wearing power armour.

Spartan recovers quickly as he tries to kick the side of my knee. It is even less effective than my gut punch. I had the element of surprise and the superior suit of armour.

I react, leaning back to avoid a swipe from Spartan. I fly into the air to avoid further attacks.

Bad move.

I’ve gotten use to fighting weaker foes that lack the firepower to shot me out of the air. Spartan’s people have that sort of firepower.

I glance at Spartan’s people, wondering why they haven’t opened fire yet. They’re fight with Darrac is going poorly from them. The space pirate has already taken two of them down and disarmed most of the rest.

I finch as Spartan punches me in the head and sends me flying. I got distracted in a fight again. At least this time, armour has protected me from any harm beyond the shock of getting hit.

I stabilise myself near the edge of the carrier. Where’s Spartan?

I spot trying to flying into me and I dodge to the side. Spartan crashes into his own carrier deck.

That’s when I get hit when I’m not looking a second time.

I stagger away, spinning somewhat. In my daze, I raise my arms and get a lock on with my lasers. I fire them and attempt to regain my balance.

I don’t get a chance to see if I hit anything or anyone before Spartan grabs me.  He pins me to the ground and starts pounding my helmet.

What do? It’s hard to think when you got someone trying to pound your head in.

I hear a scream and something smashes into Spartan. I roll over as his grip breaks and fire my lasers. 

There’s no target for me to hit when I look a second later.

I need a better view and I can risk getting shot at.

I fire up my rocket pack and zoom into the air. A single look gives me all the information I need. Half of Spartan’s bounty hunters are down, a few severely injured while Darrac is easily taking out the rest. He even had time to throw one at Spartan, which was what broke his grip on me.

I focus on Spartan and aim and fire my lasers in rapid succession. They leave melted holes that don’t go all the way through in his armour. Spartan snarls and leaps at me. I ready a punch and smash faceplate in as soon as he comes in range.

Spartan falls and crashes into the deck again.

I fly higher as fast as I can when I hear a thundering boom. The carrier’s guns have decided to open fire.

I cut the fuel to my rocket pack and drop to the deck. I doubt the carrier’s gunners will risk damaging or destroyed the carrier itself.

I look at Darrac. He’s finishing off the last two of Spartan’s people. He slashes one across the chest with his spikes, tearing through the armour and into the flesh below with ease.

Even though I can tell the wound isn’t deep enough to do fatal damage, it still has to really hurt. Darrac kicks the man’s leg and the armour crunches. The man screams before fainting with pain.

I focus back on Spartan. He is still recovering from my last attack and has discarded his helmet. I’m surprised by this appearance. A firm, rugged face with a mane of long black hair.

And there is a minigun in his hands. I can’t believe I almost missed that.

“Surrender!” snarls Spartan, “Or die!”

When most people meet a crazy man in a suit of power armour holding a minigun tells you to surrender or die, you do as he says.

I am not most people.

I roll forward and fire off two electro-spyders at Spartan’s exposed flesh. He pulls the trigger, but barely gets few shots off. The spyders electrocute Spartan as the bullets pass over my head.

“Should have let us go,” I mutter at him, “How you are Darrac?”

“All down with no fatal injuries,” says Darrac, “I took a bad hit to my right leg.”

I turn around to face him and get a better look at his injury. The armour around his lower right leg is cracked and Darrac clearly has limp.

“You really ought to get that looked at,” I tell him.

“I’m a Neriarr,” says Darrac, “Injuries are fact of everyday life for us. Those that cannot cope do not make it.”

“What’s a Neriarr?” I ask him.

“That’s what my people call ourselves,” answers Darrac, “The human sub-breeds created by the Sektain that is. I’m unsure of what the Earth word is.”

“We don’t have one,” I tell him, “Like with Black Storm’s invasion, not many people seem to care about it afterward or place any value in the threat that was posed by the Sektain Invasion. Only those that were involved or had friends or family that were involved took them seriously.”

“A pity,” sighs Darrac, “Civilians never believe in danger until it is at their gates.”

I hear a thump on the other end of the carrier and spot an unwelcome sight.

The Machine.