“No good. Try the backup,” yelled Jolen, not that he needed to with their headsets, but it just seemed like the time to scream at something.
Rennin reached in front of him and pulled the orange handle. The screen responded with the same malfunction messages as before. “No go.”
“Incoming!” cried Jolen.
Now what?
A shadow appeared overhead for an instant before a massive metal object landed on top of them, sending them into a slow forward spin. Metal could be heard tearing as the thing latched onto them.
A familiar, solid voice entered their headsets. “Urildur, extend drag fins, reverse thrust!” ordered CryoZaiyon Lieutenant Saifer Veidan.
The thing latched to their craft was his personal Wolf-droid dropship. The gargantuan war machine gripped the sides of the shuttle with paws that could cleave Rennin into bacon rashes.
Huge metal drag fins flipped out of its sides. Thrusters on its forearms and thighs started firing. The crew are jolted as their erratic descent began slowing down.
“What’s the problem here?” asked Veidan.
“The eject system is malfunctioning, sir,” called Jolen.
Veidan was in full orbital drop armour, still glowing orange from re-entry. His near-featureless helmet, with only two vertical lines etched up the forehead from between the eyes as detail, faced the nose of the pod where most of the electrical junctions were housed. He took out his sidearm, gripping the cockpit roll bar over Rennin’s head with his free hand. “Urildur on my mark, detach,” he took aim and a green laser dot appeared on the nose. “Mark!”
Urildur let go as Veidan fired his gun. An electrical blast hit the nose and all the pod circuits scrambled. ‘Purge’ then ‘Eject’ flashed across the screen, a split second before the cockpit shot out of their ruined escape pod with Veidan hanging from the outside.
Due to their reduced speed, the debris from the Possession’s wreck had caught up with them. The flaming fragments of the warship rained down with them like a meteor shower, and Rennin briefly wondered what would happen if one of the fiery chunks hit the parachutes. Though if one does hit the parachute the crew is what it will hit next, so it won’t make much difference.
The chutes were deployed successfully and the cockpit was at last descending at a safe speed. Not that it felt safe with burning wreckage flying past, chunks of a ship that they were walking around in not ten minutes before.
A few close shaves of flaming debris later they touched down on the night side of Earth. It was a forest area in South America but they don’t know, or care, exactly where.
Rennin was first out, followed by Jolen and the others. Veidan removed his orbital drop armour plating and stored it in Urildur’s abdominal compartment. He was only in light torso armour now. His hair was so pale it looked platinum and eyes shined the customary neon-green of a CryoZaiyon android. He regarded the six Possession survivors in their full body suits that were loudly arguing with their pilot about being jettisoned.
Veidan knew all his troops by name, rank, number and blood type and was familiar enough with full-orga troops to recognise when a fight was about to start. He stepped over to Ryan, the angriest looking one, and placed himself in front of him. “Keep your voice down,” he said gently.
“That fuck,” pointing at Rennin, “tried to dump us like garbage!”
Veidan wasn’t moved. “Every time you shout, you give away our position. Do so again and it will be the last time,” he said as if ordering a coffee.
“But—”
Veidan’s sidearm was pointed at Ryan’s face in an instant. Veidan quietly shushed him, then after a moment he lowered the gun. “We are in a hostile zone but we have forces not far from here. We’d best get some distance behind us before we set a distress beacon. If the Gorai Aurelia monitored this landing, they will be coming in quickly.”
They wasted no time to begin their trek through the woods towards their base. Rennin was impressed with Veidan’s pragmatic way of doing things. Normally he was just in awe of their strength. He’d seen Veidan base jump onto an enemy frigate in low orbit once, and another time saw him deliver a punch to Commander Lauros himself that would have crippled a tank. Those two fought all the time but it never usually became physical. No one knew what their fistfight was about but the whisper was it had something to do with missing supplies.
Several GA fighters were flying over from time to time but they were going too fast to be search drones. Veidan made them stop during every flyover nonetheless.
“What are they doing?” asked Rennin.
“Air survey,” said Jolen.
“Incorrect,” said Veidan, “They are flying in parallel sweeps, not the standard spiral search pattern. Always up and back, adjust across, up and back, repeating.”
Like the Space Invaders attack pattern? “Why?” asked Rennin.
“Farmers use that method when dusting crops.”
“Why does he get to speak?” asked Ryan.
Veidan’s response was his hand tapping his sidearm. Rennin wasn’t sure why Veidan wasn’t being hostile with him too. He’d served with the legendary android several times so he wondered if it’s something to do with familiarity.
Of the androids he’d met, Veidan wasn’t soft hearted like Valhara. Though he wasn’t hard like Lauros. He was a lot like another android that hangs around Valhara. Nex-something. Rennin rolled his eyes at himself, he didn’t usually forget things this easily. “How much farther before we can signal for help?”
“Two point eight kilometres.”
They kept walking, keeping the pace slow. Veidan took the lead due to his superior vision, Urildur clanking softly at the rear. About half an hour later another GA ship flew over, this time directly above. The crew halted. Veidan’s eyes shone fiercely in the dark but Rennin thought he was over dramatising the situation. After the ship was gone they made a move again travelling in single file with the lieutenant remaining on point.
After a few moments a light rain started to fall but when Rennin looked up there were no clouds. He shook his head and concentrated on his footing in the dark. He heard one of the others behind him comment on the rain being strange.
“Smells like garlic or something,” said Ryan.
Rennin didn’t like this at all. He flashed his torch on and saw Veidan’s form spattered with purple coloured water.
Veidan spun around. “Light off, now.”
“Sir, you’re covered in something.”
Veidan checked over himself, taking stock of the strange liquid that’s was still falling from the sky. A disturbed expression crosses the android’s face as he watches droplets land in his hand.
Another fighter engine could be heard. Veidan focused in on the craft and can just make out a plume of what looked like mist. “They’re dumping something.”
“You’re a supercomputer, what is it?” asked one of the survivors.
‘Foreign toxic hazard’ was on Veidan’s HUD. “Unknown element. I’m registering some interference with my central nervous system.”
“This isn’t good, they’re not watering the plants that’s for sure,” said Jolen.
‘Mass system failure! Internal Haemorrhaging. Cohesion breach.’ Veidan’s face betrayed his shock. “We aren’t going anywhere.”
“What?” asked Rennin.
“It’s artificial, contagious,” Veidan said, his eyes flickering violently. “It’s some kind of manufactured virus. Evidence suggests the Indigo Reign bioweapon.”