Songs: billie eilish - bury a friend; Mando Diao - Give Me Fire
It was about a week later that I was sitting upstairs waiting for Tannis to arrive. This was another Crimson Raider meeting, but it was different. Tannis had called in this meeting and that was a very rare occurrence. She barely ever talked to us, let alone call a complete meeting. To be fair, she had been more open since we had discovered the map, talking to all of us about the possibilities of space travel, how we could possibly find the Vaults on the map and all that.
It was still odd for her to call in an emergency meeting like that. Mordecai was sipping from his bigass can of soda that he had placed on top of the Vault Key. A while ago he had discovered that the Vault Key made the perfect cup holder and from then onwards he had been driving Tannis insane with it.
"Any idea why we're all here?" Lilith asked.
"No clue. Tannis wants to talk about something. Could be anything, from the air conditioning to some groundbreaking discovery, really." I answered.
"I dunno, she looked pretty frustrated to me." Ellie said.
"Where's Anouk and Jael?" Mordecai wanted to know. They would usually hang out at HQ, but they weren't here today.
"Jael's probably out doing her training as a Raider and Anouk is working away on an update for Deathtrap with Gaige in Moxxi's workshop."
"People aren't happy to see more Raiders in Sanctuary, Lil." Mordecai commented and put down his soda.
Lilith sighed and looked like she was about to go on a rant about how everything was her responsibility lately and how she didn't like it, when Tannis stormed into the room. She said nothing just activated the Vault Map and looked at us, as if she was silently accusing us of some great evil.
Lilith just turned back to another console. She seemed a little down lately, which wasn't too odd, considering it had been about a year now, since she had to bury Roland. We were a little worried about her, because it had been going on for more than a week now, but it wasn't too bad to make us intervene. Yet.
"So why'd you call all of us into an emergency meeting like that?" Ellie asked, breaking the silence, while staring at the map floating above the projection table. Tannis took a deep breath.
"I do not understand why we haven't left Pandora yet. We are nowhere closer to finding the Vaults! This map is the most important scientific discovery in all of human history, and Mordecai is using it as a coaster!" she replied, sounding frustrated. The poor woman had probably been holding back for a year or so.
"Does that matter?" Mordecai asked quickly. He was looking up at the map, walking over to the Vault Key that had his soda can on it.
"We don't even know which planets these are yet. I don't like flyin' blind." he added, taking his soda and drinking it without breaking eye contact with Tannis. He really liked annoying her about this.
Ellie was shaking her head and brought up a projection of Sanctuary and the engines. It really didn't look good. The engines were blinking red and it looked like they had been doing that for quite a while.
"Sanctuary's holdin' together using spit and wishful thinkin'. She's barely stayin' in the air, let alone leavin' the planet." she said and slammed her hand down on the projection table, which caused a lamp to fall down. I sighed. Lilith and I had been trying to fix that lamp for ages and now it was all for nothing.
"Well, we gotta do somethin'. People are talking about disbanding the Raiders, sayin' Pandora don't need us, now that Jack's gone." Mordecai replied. I sighed. This whole thing had been boiling under the surface for a while and now there it was. Out in the open. We didn't have a purpose anymore. People didn't need us around. Or at least they thought, they didn't.
"We need a leader." Mordecai added. We all looked over at Lilith. I saw how she straightened her posture, probably knowing we were all looking at her and expecting her to say something.
"She don't want the job, man. And can you blame her? Sometimes, when you're the one calling the shots, people get hurt." Ellie said. And she was right. Both of them were right. Since Athena Lilith had been reluctant to take command. As if she wasn't sure she could do the job anymore. But we needed someone to lead the Raiders and Lilith was the obvious choice. But we couldn't force her.
"Not makin' a choice is still a choice." Mordecai replied.
"So then: We have no plan, no working ship, no leader, and a SODA CAN ON THE VAULT KEY!" Tannis said, sounding as if she was about to cry from frustration and looking accusingly at Mordecai.
"Lil. We need to make a call. What do you think?" Ellie asked, before this could develop into a full-blown argument. Lilith sighed loudly and turned around to us, when suddenly the ground was shaking and Lilith almost lost her balance.
"What the..." I mumbled, holding onto the table. Ellie quickly brought up the holographic projection of Sanctuary again.
"Ellie?!" Lilith asked. Ellie shook her head.
"That ain't the engines, Lil!" she told her. Mordecai quickly grabbed his sniper rifle that was resting against the table and made his way to the balcony. I grabbed my rifle from one of the consoles and followed him.
When we got to the balcony we could see massive spaceships coming down right on top of Pandora. What the hell was going on? Who were they? And what the fuck were they doing here? Lilith had come outside to see what was going on as well and she just squinted and slightly shook her head, before she reached for her ECHO earpiece.
"This is Lilith. Sanctuary is under attack. All civilians, evacuate the city immediately! Crimson Raiders, to me!" she announced. I saw a whole lot of guys in professional armor jumping out of the space ships. Who the hell were these people?
"No me chingas, cabrones!" Mordecai mumbled angrily. I was loading up my rifle and aimed at them, but there were so many of them and they moved really fast. I took out one or two with a clean head shot, before I realized that this wasn't a great vantage point. I looked around.
"Hey, Mordy, left or right?" I asked.
"Left. You take the right." he replied. I nodded and climbed over the railing on the balcony, jumping onto rooftops until I was in a better position to shoot people. Mordecai was just opposite me. There were people running and screaming, trying to get to the Fast Travel Station and get out.
This was terrible. How had none of us ever thought about how much of a trap Sanctuary was in case of an attack like this? If the Fast Travel still worked it was a wonder. I saw a rocket flying at one of the attacker ships, taking it down immediately. Whoever thought of using a rocket launcher and having one at hand was a genius, to be honest. It took a little (and about five or six head shots) until I realized that Anouk was in Sanctuary. Right now. Fuck. I hoped she was alright and could get out.
"Anouk, if you can, get out of the city, immediately!" I echoed her, just in case. All that was left to do was hope and pray things would go right and kill those bastards. I saw one of them throw a grenade into a bunch of civilians. I got him in the head, but the thing exploded anyways, releasing some weird gas.
"Get back to HQ, there is way too many." Mordecai echoed me from the other side of the square.
"I agree." I said, jumping from rooftop to rooftop until I was back at the balcony, and could pull myself up on the railing. Lilith was there with her SMG, trying to get them from a distance.
"Damn, they're after the Vault Key!" Lilith mumbled, as I landed on my feet and on the balcony again. Mordecai had already made his way back as well, still trying to shoot some of them.
"Lilith! There's too many of these pendejos." he told her in an accusing voice. We had to do something. And we couldn't just walk out through the door and get to the Fast Travel station. That's not how things worked anymore. Lilith gave him an annoyed look and then sighed. She reached for her earpiece again.
"This is Lilith! All Crimson Raiders, fall back to HQ!" she ordered and made her way back inside, Mordecai and I following her.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, you?"
"I'm fine."
"Just tell me where to point this sumbitch!" Ellie shouted as we walked back towards the Vault Key. The weird gas was around there already. They had to be close, if they weren't already in the building.
There was another impact with something and some parts of the ceiling started raining down on us. Tannis was on the floor, holding her leg. Some debris had probably fallen on her or she hurt herself from the fall. Lilith quickly helped her get up and we went back towards the balcony. We were cornered here.
"Come on!" Lilith said, as she grabbed Tannis' arm. We had just made it out of the room, when some of the soldiers that were attacking came in, still firing at us. Mordecai peeked around the corner and almost got hit by a bullet. Tannis was on the ground, breathing heavily and obviously in pain.
Lilith put away her SMG and sighed. She looked straight ahead, focussing on something. It was one of the old posters with Roland's face still on it. She was trying to phase us out of the city, all while under rapid fire and without extra Eridium. I prayed we would end up somewhere reasonable.
I took Mordecai's hand, because right now, I was really afraid we'd end up somewhere terrible, no matter how much confidence I had in Lilith's siren skills. She wasn't in a good mood today, she was under immense stress and she had no Eridium. Just as I was thinking this, I saw the purple flash and then I was gone.
When I opened my eyes again I found myself lying flat on the ground in some cave. I was still holding my sniper rifle in one hand and Mordecai's hand in the other. I looked over at him and he seemed to still be knocked out. That was, until I heard him coughing and swearing. He turned his head and looked over at me.
"Where the hell are we?" he asked. I just shrugged.
"No idea. I just woke up. Let's hope our ECHOs aren't broken."
