28 – A CAPTURE AND AN ESCAPE
The instant that Lime Squadron emerged from the portal, blood red sunlight bathed their armor, making their primary colors glow in an ominous way. From the beach where they stood, a huge mountain rose up before them, with metal walkways and machinery poking out of it in places that it made the monolith look both natural and mechanistic. And atop the mountain, floating above its sharp peak, was a giant metal hand, dwarfing even the mountain with its terrifying size, its index finger pointing threateningly and dangerously at nothing in particular.
"Well, looks like we made it," Guy Dudeperson observed audibly.
As he spoke, the portal behind Lime shrank into nothingness, and pieces of a colorful house, which had been swept up by the portal in the world its other end connected to, fell to the ground with bangs, thunks, and various shattering sounds all around the group.
The members of Lime Squadron readied their weapons as they stared at the all too familiar spectacle before them. "Vincent," Skope stated, his point not being lost on anyone else in the group.
"I don't see anyone rushing towards us," said Hester.
"Nor am I spotting any snipers either," informed Amber.
"Yup, it seems pretty clear," said Clair.
Wren swiveled her helmet as she gazed around. "This place is weird as shit."
"And not looking too different since the last time we were here," Hester informed her sister, as Wren hadn't been with the others the first time they had come here. "The mountain in the center of the island appears to have had more manmade fortress built into it. But I'm not picking up any personnel. It looks clear."
The group cautiously pressed forward. The mountain loomed over them ever more threateningly as they neared it. They journeyed into a wide trail that seemed to go alongside the mountain's edge, with sharp jagged rocks forming a wall on its other side. The trail curved, still keeping with the perimeter of the mountain, before Lime came to a bridge. Extending over a long gap of water, the bridge had a covering along its center section. On the left side of the bridge was a short, cylindrical object which was sticking out of the side of the gap and was emitting a stream of azure blue. Lime recognized these as Man Cannons, devices which could propel objects, including people, across vast distances. The Blue Army was known to use Man Cannons in their base designs, to hilarious effect. It was odd to find one here, in the very depths of Red territory.
"Everyone must stay on the bridge," stated Nome. "It is best to ignore the Man Cannons, they do not serve our purposes."
"Aw, but I've always wanted to step into one of these!" exclaimed Kenny.
Nome looked as though he was almost about to cover his visor with his palm, but then got hold of his annoyance and decided not to. "Ynnek, I advise against it. The cannons propel objects at very high speeds—"
"It's perfectly safe," said Guy. "Don't listen to Nome. These cannons aren't like the ones the Blues use. They have safety features built into them."
"Such as what, specifically?" Nome asked.
"Safety stuff," was all Guy answered.
"That is not a sufficient answer," Nome protested.
But it was too late. Kenny was already at the Man Cannon, and before anyone could stop him, he was flying across the gap on a course parallel with the bridge. "Waaaaaaaaaa—ooff!" he shouted as he sailed through the air and came to land on the other side, sprawling and rolling upon contact with the ground.
"Are you okay?" Jess shouted over.
"I'm fine!" Kenny shouted back as he got up and dusted himself off.
The rest of Lime walked over to where Kenny was standing, but this time using the bridge itself. Kenny strode over to Guy as soon as the group neared him. "There were no safety features in that!" he protested at the Red.
"I know," Guy said smugly. "I just wanted to see if you would actually use the Man Cannon. And you did!" He seemed not the least bit concerned that Kenny could have been hurt, and actually appeared to have become much more confident than he had been before coming to this dimension. He strode with exuberance and spoke with witty sarcasm.
"You just can't tread too fine a line with us, can you, Red?" Hester asked Guy as she stepped in front of him.
"Shall we continue, or just stand here and stare angrily at each other?" the Red shot back. "I do understand that you all have a very important mission to complete, or am I mistaken?"
Hester decided to discipline the Red later. "Which way is it, Red? And no more goading people into unnecessary safety hazards this time!"
Guy pointed off to the right, where Lime could see a brightly-lit durasteel tunnel leading into the mountain. "Main entrance to the fortress is right there."
"It looks unguarded," Amber observed. "In fact, I haven't seen a single Red yet on this entire island." She turned to Patton. "Boss, I don't like this."
"Aw, c'mon!" Guy exclaimed while motioning to the fortress entrance. "It's not a Man Cannon. No one's going to be flying off to their doom or anything. Look guys, I really didn't mean to put anyone off with what I pulled at the bridge."
Hester looked at the fortress entrance for a moment, judging the dangers of entering the passage. She eventually decided that this was probably the best way they were going to get into the fortress, having not seen any more subtle ways that the group could infiltrate the interior of the mountain. She then walked behind Guy and planted the barrel of her magnum underneath his heart. "Lead the way, Red."
The group slowly walked into the passageway. Only about ten meters in, the tunnel began to slope downwards. Another twenty meters or so was the first pillar of the tunnel. Suddenly, that pillar began to glow with a blue fury. Clair, at the front of the group, didn't have time to shout a warning before the electromagnetic pulse discharged. Everyone's HUDs flickered with static as their energy shields were stripped completely. At the same instant, their weapons fizzled, the electronics within them becoming fried as the pulse skyrocketed their circuit's voltages beyond overload capacity.
Shaking her head from the unexpected shock of the static, Hester centered her vision back on Guy just in time to see a red colored fist land straight into her visor. She stumbled back as Patton lunged for the Red. He aimed Lucy at him, the shotgun still operable because it was an "oldschool" shotgun that did not have any electronics in its mechanisms. He managed to fire off one shot at the Red, but Guy danced out of the way with a grace that he had not revealed to Lime at any point before.
"Red!" Patton yelled at Guy. "What did you lead us into?"
Guy Dudeperson laughed with a chilling amusement. "Only your last mistake. I was telling the truth about this entrance not being a Man Cannon. But a safety hazard? I think Vincent will decide that."
Patton fired another shot, but Guy instinctively waltzed out of the way before the shell left the barrel. "Vincent will see us only right before we explode him like the barrel of neurotic fire that he really is!" Patton exclaimed.
Guy laughed. "Everyone, I think you can reveal yourselves now."
All around Lime, the air shimmered, and Red soldiers were revealed. At least two dozen strong, the Reds were surrounding Lime. They had their assault rifles trained on the squadron, which were coated in some kind of reflective film, which must have somehow protected them from the EMP. The group was surrounded by enemy weapons, and with only a shotgun as a working weapon, Lime was now practically defenseless.
"My friends!" Guy greeted the other Reds. "It has been too long." Then he turned back to Lime. "All I needed was just to get you to the electromagnetic pulse emitter." He pointed to the pillar in the center of the corridor. "To get you all defenseless. I wanted to try to escape when we came to that Red encampment in the forest of the Abyss of Absentmindedness, but someone had a shotgun to my back at the time, so I had to play along as though I actually wanted to help you."
"I was never really convinced," Patton growled.
Guy laughed. "Of course you say that now!" The other Reds surrounding Lime began to laugh as well. "The security system of this fortress is common knowledge to all Red soldiers," Guy continued. "Cloaked guards make up an army on this island. They wait until the enemy has entered this passage, then detonate the EMP emitter, and WHAM! You're defenseless and captured. You know, I was actually quite happy when you mentioned that this place was your intended destination. That made my job quite a bit easier."
"Um, Dudeperson, you do know that we have to take you in too, right?" said one of the Red soldiers.
"What?" Dudeperson asked.
"Yup," the other soldier replied. "See, in leading Lime Squadron here, you were technically aiding the enemy, according to Red Army Regulation Statute 16807. Which just happens to be classified as an act of treason. So we have to take you in."
"You're shitting me!" Guy exclaimed.
The other Red shook his head.
"But I brought you Lime Squadron!" Guy protested.
"Regulations man," said the other Red soldier. "Fucking regulations."
At the same time, a Red standing right behind Guy thunked him over the helmet with his assault rifle, and Guy fell to the ground unconscious. "Good God, I thought he'd never stop talking!" exclaimed the second Red. "What should we do with him?"
"Put Dudeperson in the same cell as Lime," ordered the first Red, who apparently was the commanding officer of the group. "That should make for a rather interesting conversation when he wakes up." He laughed.
Yes it will be, thought Hester as she watched Lime begin to hand over their weapons to the Reds. You will be sorrier about this then you have been about anything in a very long time, Guy Dudeperson.
Hathrow Vorennius studied the display of the ship determinedly. Lemon Squadron had managed to escape the Artifact Containment Sector, even despite their weakened state, which was caused by the activated Quantum Manipulator which they were foolishly taking with them. They would not get far. And yet, Vorennius was having a more difficult than expected time of finding them. Running his fingers across the holographic screens emitted by the central console, he searched all the surrounding decks for the elusive team. Eventually deciding it was futile, the Admiral then ordered the computer: "Display their known escape path."
The computer made an outline of Lemon's path, up to the point where it had failed to track them any further. "Display projected route," said the Admiral. The computer outlined a path, continuing the previous one, which indicated a destination somewhere in the shuttle bay hangers. Vorennius froze, suddenly realizing what Lemon was trying to do.
"Shut down all computer systems on the ship and reboot!"
The computer ran through its algorithms for a moment. "Admiral, that course of action does not seem wise. Many important operations on the ship will be interrupted—"
"I ordered you to do it!" Vorennius snapped. He could not allow for questioning, not when every instant mattered.
However, the computer was not the only entity wondering what he was doing. "Admiral," enquired a smooth watery voice from the shadows behind him. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Lemon Squadron has somehow managed to escape my forces with the Quantum Manipulator," Vorennius explained tersely. "They cannot be allowed to leave this ship, at any cost." As he spoke, the holographic console went dark, its windows disappearing from existence. In the distance and through the walls, Vorennius could hear the sounds of doors slamming shut, the entire ship entering automatic lockdown.
Lemon Squadron, plus Brian, Kevin, and Travis, sprinted into the hanger, all of them panting heavily with the exertion of moving in their low-powered armor. Tom pointed at the nearest fighter, and the group altered their course to get to it. Two repairmen looked up in surprise as they approached, but Deryn popped both of their heads with her designated marksman rifle before they could do anything else to react. With that, they filed their way into the fighter.
After the battle in the hanger, Lemon had immediately raced to the nearest stairway and slowly made their descent until they reached the decks containing the shuttle bays. Inez had had to abandon the mech in favor of the ability to walk down stairs in any practical manner, so that firepower was no longer in Lemon's possession. And with Lemon's armor being in the state it was, the journey had taken a particular tool: The trek down to the lower decks had been a long one that had exhausted all but Inez, who was already known for being indefatigable. Though the Avant Garde was small for a capitol ship, it was still a massive place to walk through, and this experience had given Lemon newfound appreciation for the invention of lifts.
Tom had been severely affected by the power drain of the Quantum Manipulator, having been standing closer to it than the others (except Brian) and Inez was having to carry him because he could barely stand. Inez plopped Tom down in one of the passenger seats as the group came aboard the shuttle. Coming to sit on either side of him were Travis and Brian, with Travis looking equally as exhausted as he was.
Though Brian had been the one holding the Quantum Manipulator when it had started the power drain, and was still holding it even now, he was miraculously unaffected by it, having experienced only the loss of his energy shields, instead of the decreased motor function that everyone else was facing. This compounded his already unusual qualities, both in ability and personality, of which Lemon had taken particular note.
Deryn took the pilot's seat, with Kevin managing to find a seat beside her. Deryn flipped several switches, prepping the shuttle for launch. The thrusters activated, and the craft rose from the deck floor. But at the same moment, the doors leading out to space suddenly began to close, huge titanium panels sliding out to cover the gaping windows. "The ship is going into automated lockdown!" Deryn shouted into the passenger's compartment. "This situation just got a lot more complicated!"
Hearts stumbled into the cockpit to see what Deryn was talking about. The last of the doors finished closing just as he looked through the forward window. "Complicated but not impossible," he thought to himself aloud. "Let's see, the outer hull barriers probably haven't locked into place yet. If you divert all power for the energy shields to the nose of this ship, and then ram the door at full speed, we should be able to punch through."
There were a couple of blatantly glaring things in that last sentence that Kevin really didn't like. "Um, excuse me," he said as politely as possible to Hearts. "But are you totally fucking insane?"
"What's your problem?" Hearts shot back.
"What's my problem?" Kevin asked. "My problem is that is that you're planning to ram us into a titanium wall at full speed! That's my fucking problem!"
Suddenly, metallic pinging sounded from the back of the ship. "Tangos," Tom informed everyone from the passenger's compartment, while looking at the feed for the back facing camera of the ship. "Lots of them. They're all firing at us. I think we need to leave right about now."
Deryn turned to Kevin and gave him a glaring look with her visor. "Do you have a better idea, Green?"
Kevin quickly tried to search his muddled thoughts, but before he could say anything, Deryn shook her helmet at him and turned back to the control console. There was a subtle electric humming from outside as the shields redirected to the front. Then the shuttle began to accelerate, moving faster and faster towards the hanger door.
Kevin tensed as he watched. "Deryn Deryn Deryn I really do not likethisplan—"
The shuttle impacted the door with a terrible crash that rattled everything as though it were a figurine inside a bottle rocket. Kevin was convinced that he was dead…until he opened his eyes, looked through his visor, and realized that he was still alive. He was still inside the shuttle, which still had everyone else in it as well, and best of all he could see stars through the cockpit window.
Hearts nudged Kevin as if he wasn't sure that the Green was awake. "Hey, it worked," he said softly.
"Yeah, I guess…" Kevin managed.
"Looks like you had a bit of a redoubt," said Deryn.
"I'm fine," Kevin half-lied. After just going through an experience like that, his mental state was not all that it had been, though he was very relieved that he wasn't a smear on the hanger door.
"Is everyone alright back there?" Hearts called into the passenger's compartment. A chorus of replies confirmed that everyone else was fine.
Deryn relaxed in her seat as the shuttle accelerated away from the Avant Garde. "And now, we head back to Yellow Command," she stated. "And show off our little prize to the Lord High Commander General."
