Chapter 26
Slert picked up one of the guards by his antenna, ploughing his face into the eye scanner. She certainly didn't have time to manually extract his eyeball, so this would have to do. Promptly a blue light crept over his face, the scan commencing.
"Eye scan complete, primary access granted," a soft robotic voice announced as the scanning light turned green in acceptance, "Please now place hand on fingerprint scanner."
Slert did just that, taking his hand and pressing it onto the scanner. A blue light appeared just as before, turning blue when the scan was complete. Slert allowed the body to drop back to the floor when the voice spoke again.
"Finger scan accepted, secondary access granted," it said. Slert fully expected it to open the door for them at that point, but apparently there was one last thing to do. A small section of the grey wall rolled back into itself, revealing a number pad. The voice instructed, "Please enter security code."
Slert looked to Katz, a look of worry on her face. She should have expected there to be a bit more security, but hope had gotten the best of her. For a few moments the two of them thought. Neither came up with anything.
Finally Slert decided to wing it, knowing that they couldn't just stop here without at least trying. She muttered to herself as she pushed the buttons hopefully, "One, one, one... uhm... one."
It was a long shot, but it was better than nothing. In her mind it was a somewhat logical choice; the empire underestimated those imprisoned in Seven in nearly every aspect, and didn't put it past them to input a password as easy as this.
She was very much surprised when she heard the gears within the door grind, unlocking, the voice saying to her, "Correct number sequence inputted, full access granted. Door opening."
"Well, this is it," Katz said, as she made sure that the gun she'd stolen was in working order one last time, "Good luck."
Slert nodded. She had an urge to up and hug Katz before the door opened, but decided against it. She didn't know of their relationship, and hugging her now would just lead to an awkward moment and cause a major distraction.
"Katz, there's something you should know before we do this. You see, I..." he started, though she was never able to finish. Before the last words left her mouth the doors opened, revealing a platoon of what looked to be very well-trained soldiers.
"Stop where you are and surrender!" the leader of this group of troops commanded, glaring at them menacingly from behind his blue half-face mask. He meant business, no doubt about it.
But so did Slert and Katz. They weren't going down without a fight. Not now, not ever.
With one last glance at each other they cocked their guns, spraying a few rounds at the group trying to prevent their escape. Between the two of them with that initial attack they took out three of the soldiers, leaving another ten to defend against them.
It seemed that taking one of the side exits had been a good thing after all. They had to take care of only ten more troops, and it didn't look like there were any other reinforcements on the way. All their efforts were likely being diverted to the main exit, which Sideos's group had to have reached by now. Since nobody else was coming they had to assume that his lot was at least holding their ground, if not making some headway.
Still, it would be a hard fight to win, and once they did they'd still be in danger. Minions of the empire would be crawling all around the planet and other, probably more dangerous escapees would be trying desperately to get off the planet. To say the least it would be chaotic.
"Fire at will!" the commander commanded, steadying his own gun. He shot at them without any hesitation whatsoever, a precise shot that Slert just barely dodged. She grunted softly in pain as she looked down at her arm to see her asylum uniform slightly torn, the skin beneath burnt slightly.
She growled, taking her own laser pistol and firing blindly at the soldiers in rage. As she did she silently cursed herself for reacting like this, knowing it could jeopardize their survival. She'd thought that her darker side had settled down to some degree, but all at once it had fired up again. She knew it would help them get out of there, but only if she could act tacitly as well.
Worry crossed her face – and Katz's too, for that matter – when they realized the enemy was well-prepared than they'd thought. The soldiers in front seemed to hold only laser pistols, where the line behind that held what looked to be machine guns of some sort. Behind them was a solitary soldier who held in his hands an RPG launcher.
'Fire at will' was starting to seem a lot more deadly now that they noticed that.
Slert fired a few more aimed shots alongside Katz, taking out one more of the irkens in front, before turning to her robot slave. Fiercely she cried out, "Streerch, get your metallic ass over here!"
Streerch obeyed, rushing forward with a jolt. The smeet fell from its arm, landing on the hard ground with a soft thunk. Without as much as a cry of surprise the baby irken laid there.
"Master, what do you need me to do?" the robot asked, as it ran and stood protectively in front of Slert.
"I don't care... just hold them off!" she screeched, as she jumped from the doorway to the cover of the wall. The irkens with machine guns had started firing, sending a deadly shower of lasers in their direction. There was no way for Slert and Katz to attack if they didn't want to be filled with holes first.
Streerch took it upon itself to decide how to take care of their dilemma. Most of its weapon systems were down, but it still had a few tricks up its sleeve. The people who looked after things here at Seven had extracted the obvious internal weapons, but there were a few in particular they'd missed.
While its master hid in the safety of the asylum, well out of the line of fire, Streerch stood right out in the open. It was pelted with shots, its body becoming more and more beaten with every passing second, but it didn't care.
Momentarily it informed anyone who could hear above the roar of the working guns, "Activating offensive pattern 629... Missiles prepared. Launch in three... two... one."
A few of the soldiers ceased firing, unsure of what they'd heard the robot say. At the end of its countdown its shoulder protectors rotated back, a small set of missiles emerging from each side. The robot let out a mechanical laugh when it saw the soldiers' looks of disbelief. Not wanting to waste any more time the robot went ahead and fired at their enemies.
The four missiles shot directly at the crowd and small as they were raised a giant cloud of dirt and show that engulfed the soldiers when they were hit. Nobody could see anything through the cloud, but soon after it was raised the two escapees got an idea.
"Slert, Streerch, head outside and take cover behind that rock! There's no way we can fight them in here, but we may have a better chance out there," Katz suggested hastily, knowing they'd have time to act further after the cloud settled.
Slert nodded, jolting from her hiding place alongside Katz. They ran as fast as they could from the door, taking cover behind some fair-sized rocks to the left of the soldiers. Their new cover was the perfect size: crouching protected them from incoming ire while standing would allow them a shot at their attackers.
As they waited there to use the element of surprise, for nobody realized they were there, Slert shivered. This planet was cold, too cold, and neither she nor Katz had any kind of protection. If they wanted to avoid damage from the inferno they'd have to finish this and find a way off the planet fast.
For a fleeing moment she thought of just forgetting about the soldiers to make a run for it, but she quickly dashed the thought from her mind. The soldiers before them were well-trained and would almost certainly catch onto them.
Soon enough the cloud for dirt and snow subsided, settling back to its place on the ground. It was clear to see that the attack had done some damage, though not as much as they had hoped. Two more of the lightly armed soldiers had been taken down, destroying that rank, but nobody else seemed to have been harmed. They still had to deal with five more of them if they wanted to advance.
The group of soldiers looked around, trying to determine where the escapees had gotten too. They weren't stupid; they knew that the three of them had changed positions while they'd been at a disability.
"This is your last chance," the leader started, his voice, bubbling with anger, "Come out. Surrender now and you may at least get to live."
Slert smiled to herself. There was no way she'd give herself up, not when they were this close. All at once Slert remembered something that could finish this once and for all and whispered to her robot companion, "Activate the hidden power."
Streerch nodded, beginning the preparations for the devastating attack. Slowly it diverted all its power to the device Slert had planted in its head all those years ago. As it diverted the power various parts of its body shut down; Slert was left to aim the attack and move the robot.
As more and more power was diverted the three arrows on its forehead began to glow. They knew the attack was ready when the circle in the middle of these arrows began to glow a deep red. Slert poked her head over the boulder for just a second, making sure she aimed Streerch's head correctly. Once she was sure everything was lined up perfectly she whispered to the robot, "OK, Streerch... let 'er rip!"
Had the robot been able to move on its own it would have, but instead it just triggered the device. All at once the boulder in front of them exploded, the continuous super-charged laser ploughing through it mercilessly. Slert and Katz shielded themselves from the debris, but Slert took the blunt of it, for she was determined to keep it trained at their enemies.
The laser continued through the rock, heading straight for the troops. They didn't have time to react. Everyone one of them was hit by the steady beam of red light, some losing limbs and others plain dropping dead. Only one of them was able to escape the attack entirely thanks to his ability to think on his toes.
Amidst the destruction caused by the laser came a well-timed explosion, and the soldier operating the rocket launcher rose into the air. Before gravity could take hold of him again he loaded another RPG into his weapon, aiming it at the escapees.
For a moment it looked like they weren't going to make it through this lone soldier's attack; Streerch's system had to reboot so it could regain power and the two irkens' guns had been thrown from their hands by the powerful blast.
Before he could pull the trigger, however, his body convulsed, very quickly after that becoming limp. As he fell to the ground the rocket launcher slipped from his hand. When Slert realized nothing had happened she opened her eyes to see quite an unexpected scene.
The soldier lay on the snowy ground, his weapon lying beside him. He didn't move an inch. Upon looking closer Slert saw that there was a pool of blood surrounding his head, with a gaping and gory hole in the back of his head. Slightly confused Slert looked around for what had done this, and out of the corner of her eye found the cause.
Up in the high ground, far away atop some snowy cliffs to the side of the asylum, lay an irken. Slert wouldn't have noticed him up there if it hadn't been for the reflection of the suns on the scope lens, creating a glare. For a moment she stared at where the sniper was, unsure if he was friend or foe; he could have easily been aiming at her but accidentally misfired, hitting the soldier instead.
Soon enough she saw movement, a head poking above the powerful sniper rifle. The figure raised a hand to wave at her briefly, and she knew that he was an ally; his sleeve was stripped black and white, an asylum uniform. Quickly after he shifted his position, wishing to help others get to their freedom as well.
Slert nodded, a thankful look on her face, and waved back. Momentarily after the ordeal she heard the distinctive beeping sound that signalled Streerch's systems coming back online.
This was it. Their roadblock had been overcome, Streerch was back in operating order, and freedom was finally within their reach. It was time to make the final escape. But when she looked around, she found that something was amiss.
::End Chapter 26::
Well, this is it folks! The end of The Art of Revenge! Sequel will start to be uploaded soon, I have a good amount of chapters done for it... will probably put that on a weekly basis again. Although, I do want to have a good chunk of it uploaded before/early into Blood Sport so my opponents can do some research if they want... meh. I'll figure it out.