The 5th Sun
Ch 1. Extraction
Rain. Pouring Rain. Droplets the size of marbles were falling due to the low gravity here on Tyler. We were walking. Fast. As if the Abyss itself had opened up behind us. Past the refitting station, past the spaceport bar, past those horrible slums a kilometer outside the city citadel, into the warehouse district. So dark. Only the dim lights a hundred meters gave us any illumination at all.
"Such as it is... " Areli's muttering was almost lost in the roar of the downpour. His nostrils flared, exhaling, letting his warm breath turn to steam in the cold night air.
Areli muttered to himself a lot. He was like that you know. Of course I knew this because I was his companion, but that wasn't saying much.
"Where are they, Barnabas?" Areli fumed. "Those Guild la'a-sha will be here any moment, and I don't feel up to a dozen-on-one fight...... ugh..... what an accursed planet. If they aren't here in five minutes I'm going to have Leth's head on a pike! I gave him the exact coordinates for my extraction from this wretched world."
"Ah, but if he isn't here in five minutes, it will be you with your head on a pike now won't it," I said, muffled though I was under his soping-wet cloak, trying to sound as sardonic as humanly possible. Damn shame I wasn't human. "Mother of Pearl, even I'm wet, hell I've been drier under a waterfall!"
"Oh shut up, whining won't help anything.... oh damn," he paused. He had that horrible look on his face I had seen on him too many times for the eternity we had known each other. "They're here."
"Leth and the others?" I inquired. I hadn't the faintest idea what was going on since I was veiled behind Areli's thick leather clothing.
"No... them !"
"Let me out! I can't fight when I'm in your smelly robes!"
A trio of hovercars into the alley. Ten dark figures stepped out. Nine brutes and one skinny, tall one by the looks of it.
"Quiet! They're here dammit!"
"We know you're here, Novem Viaje Areli! If you give up now, perhaps Uncle will spare you and only beat you within an inch of your life!" said the thin one.
"Perhaps, perhaps not, Sakarno," Areli replied to the thin figure. He then let me out from under his arm and onto his shoulder. Areli reached for his belt and handed me a pistol which I grasped tightly with my talons. "Ok, give the signal, fly up like you usually do and pick them off. You're as black as night so there's no chance in hell they're going to see you, you can be a distraction so I can take them out."
"But what's the signal, and why do I always have to play second fiddle?" I asked, turning my head in the typical corvine way.
"Uh.... I dunno... because I'm the one who always gets us in messes like these?" He smiled sheepishly.
"What about the signal Areli, the signal?!"
"Oh, right... I'll just give a signal like... sqa'n-na'afinur or something."
"But that's gibberish!"
"No it's not, it's Mnarsalian! Nevermind, here they come. NOW!" I leapt off his shoulder, with the pistol dangling from my claws.
"The idiot," I thought, "he gave me a magnum! I can't aim those things worth two millicredit chips!" Areli turning the corner was unleashing hell on the on the men below. Out of the corner of my eye he had already downed three of the hitmen before fleeing behind a hoverdumpster. Sakarno was doing likewise, shielded firing behind his hovercar door.
With one claw gripping the barrel and the other the trigger I let loose; the recoil literally sent me backwards in flight. "Heaven help those poor Guild bastards."
In a split second, one of the cars burst into flames and then blew up, leaving a meter-deep crater in the wet pavement and scattering the men like toy soldiers before a tanrumy child.
"Areli, that wasn't me! Was that you?" I squawked.
"No! Look up!" Above the clouds began to glow, and I could begin to feel warm from the exhaust of down-canted maneuvering jets. A corvette with the stenciled letters Eleventh Hour emerged from the heavens. It's cannons wrought their wrath on the Guildmen, with thunder and lightning the likes of which even Zeus had never seen. Another car exploded.
The loading port on the front of the ship opened as the ship was hovering not more than a meter above the ground.
"Need a lift?" asked a figure stepping out of the hatch, whose garments looked identical to that of Areli's. He stepped ran out from behind the dumpster, towards the ship as Shin provided cover fire.
As my eyes adjusted I could see it was the face of Shin. A few bullets ricocheted of the hull plating not a decimeter from Shin's torso, another grazed him on the shoulder. "Die you guild Ca'anish lamor s'm'nahat..... LA'KAEDA!" Shin cursed. "No one touches the Great Shin!" Even from this far away, I could see the rage in his eyes as he pulled out his no-dachi sword and preceded to fillet the one who shot him, but cowered back from a hail of gunfire. Ha! The old temperamental Shin, I didn't realize how much I missed his antics these past six months. Two other figures stepped out, Raewyn and Roche, the sisters of death, wielding the forces of psi in their hands. Raewyn shot a fireball and into one of the men's face, while Roche created a barrier that the Guild blasters couldn't penetrate.
"We don't have much time" yelled Shin, "Leth says he can only keep his engines stalling like this for so long." More cars pulled up.
"What are you waiting around for Barnabas?" I landed on Areli's shoulder as the others entered the hatch. Areli took one last look at Tyler, which he never saw again and slammed the door shut. The Eleventh Hour began to lurch and then ascended into the night.
(This message has been edited by moderator (edited 04-28-2003).)
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