"Calm down, Ridley, just breathe," Karolyn urged to Ridley over their comlink. She quickly leaped into the air to go and try to figure out the situation.
"No...I can't do that! My God!" Ridley shudered. His mind was spinning out of control. Karolyn could barely understand what he was sending to her. She could hardly even believe it.
"You have to calm down. Take a deep breath, please." She was trying to keep a leveled head, but she could tell that her voce was begining to take on a shaky tone. She started to flap her wings as fast as she could to get to his ship.
"They did it! God, they did it," he thought painfully. He didn't know what to do. He couldn't take it. His vision started to blur. He frantically paced back-and-forth along his red ship. His breathing started to quicken, his pulse increased, and he could feel the fire starting to build up in his chest.
She swooped down to his location. The Space-Dragon was close to going insane. She grabbed him by the shoulders and said: "Ridley listen, you need to calm down. I'm going to call a medic." Karolyn was starting to lose it as well. She was able to make out what was causing him to act like this. Her mind began to race with similar possibilities about herself.
"Oh please, don't let it be that." she thought to herself desperately.
Ridley broke away from her grasp, causing Karolyn to recoil with surprise from his action. He grabbed onto his head and shook it violently. His nails left deep scratch marks on his metal-plated face as he pulled them off.
"No, don't call any of those damned things! Don't let them touch me," Ridley unconciously yelled out. His voice had taken on a scaly characteristic and was laced with panic. His legs started to buckle. "God, they did it!" He fell on his knees and began to bash against the steel landing pad, forming deep imprints with each blow. The sound of his fury echoed throughout the compound.
"You need to stop it. You can't be doing this!" She was begging him at this point. Seeing him act this way after so many years of her knowing him made her feel...frightened. Ridley was the most substantial Space-Dragon she knew. All of the other precious few dragons in the Pirate's service just lacked the type of integrity that he had. If this horrid truth had caused him to break down like this, then what could it do to her? She felt the tears starting to build up behind her eyes. "Ridley...please."
He heard her. He stopped banging against the ground and took a deep, shuddering breath. Small bits of flame and smoke emerged as he slowly let it out.
"They killed her," he said coldly. "They killed my mother." That was it, he couldn't take it any more. He stood up and opened his mouth and made an ear piercing screech as a tower of fire erupted from his jas. Tear ran down his face.
Meanwhile, deep underneath the compound, Kraid shook his head at the venting frustrations of the Space-Dragon. He looked over at the communication screen that showed the quivering flesh of the Mother-Brain.
"Rather ungraceful, don't you think? One would think he would have a bit more sense than that," he observed.
"He was a bit more resourceful with his ship's computer than I anticipated. His emotional reaciton is to be expected of course. No doubt his view toward us will be hostile," said the Mother-Brain.
"What course of action do you suggest?" Kraid dared to hope.
"I would deem termination to be the proper course of action," she declared. "We can regrow him quickly and develop a proper excuse for his death."
Kraid smiled slighlty, and asked: "What about Karolyn?"
The Mother-Brain contemplated this for a moment. "She'll be destrustful of us as well. But we may be able to salvage her. If she shows any aggression however, kill her."
His head drooped slightly at this, folds of fat began to squeeze outwards. "Very well then, Mother-Brain. I'll give the orders to the Commandos at once." And with that the communicatrion screen went black.
A group of seven commandos rushed onto the landing-pad. Karolyn turned toward them and asked fiercely, "What do you want?"
His crooked neck quickly twisted over to the Pirate. His eyes glowed with a malice-filled red. There they were. His arm shot out and grabbed the Pirate's head. the creature struggled violently under Ridley's grip as he squeezed on its skull until it crushed under the pressure.
He quickly dropped the oozing body to the ground. His arm was covered in the Pirate's body fluids. Ridley stared at it with wild eyes and shook his head slowly.
The remaining Pirates were intesely focused on the corpse of their fallen comrade. They all pulled out their weapons and fired on Ridley.
The rounds scattered across Ridley's armored body harmlessly. His mind started to stabilize a bit. He knew what he had to do. Ridley took a deep breath and arched toward the Commandos and shot a blast of fire at them. They tried to run, but were quickly engulfed in the charring flame. Their screams reverberated throughout the compound, causing the secruity sirens to go off.
Karolyn was stunned by what she just witnessed. She couldn't believe what was happening. "What are you doing?" She yelled at him. "You just killed seven Pirates!"
"They killed my mother!" He thundered.
Ridley fell against the back of his ship. The images from the mission's video he saw just minutes ago began to run trhough his mind again. He saw the stolne GF-gunship fly over the paradise planet of his youth. He heard when the Pirates gave the order to open fire on his mother. He remembered the acknowledgment of orders from the pilot who had delivered them to this planet only so many hours ago.
He saw his mother die under the cruel and immoral hands of the Space-Pirates for the second time. Except now his eyes weren't blinded by Pirate deception.
He felt his heart absorb this fact with a sickening sens of dispair he hadn't felt in a excrutiatingly long time. He looked up and saw a mass of Pirates making their way toward him.
"Does the Mother-Brain know by now?" He thought to himself, suddenly not caring whether or not Karolyn Heard. He reasoned so, nothing escaped that thing's eye.
Karolyn stood aside from Ridley, not knowing what to think of the situation. Ridley looked up at her and said, "They're going to try and kill me. It's no devastating loss to them. They'll just make up some excuse to explain my deat." He examined his mechanically enhanced arm. "It could be faulty wiring in my augmentations. A fatal faw in my design killed me and caused a malfunciton in my memory-collection chip." He took a deep breath and continued. "They'll just tell you to be quiet and not to mention this ever again," he said over the increasing volume of the approaching Pirates.
She looked at him and shook her head and said, "I can't do that. I don't even know what tehy might've done with me." She suddenly felt a deep loathing toward the revolting insectioid creatures that were rushing toward their position. She recalled the tragic day she came into Pirate service. She turned away from him as a hot tear ran down her face.
"Then they'll try to kill you to," Ridley said with a sad finality. He turned toward the Pirates and flashed his wings out and brought the tips together. An orange charge of electricity raced up from his chest, along the skeletal structure of his wings, and finally into an orange ball that collected in the front of his wing tips.
He swung his wings outward and a batch of eight meson-bombs were launched out of the collection of energy and scattered toward the onslaught.
The field exploded in a mass of fire, dirt and body parts. There were no stragglers left, only the burnt and twitching remains fo the first wave. Ridley saw the field of destruction but felt no momentary flash of satisfaction. He wondered why. He knew now they truly were the ones who had killed his mother, if anything this should've been the most satisfying kill he ever made. But he only felt emptied by the action.
Karoly did not make a sound. She simply stared at the compound and the rumbling of the second wave of Pirates beginning to emerge from inside. She stared solemnly at Ridley closed her eyes.
He then hurled balls of fire at the sorrounding turrets. Huge chunks of fiery metal crashed onto the ground, making the area more difficult to traverse.
Ridley pressed a button on his wrist and the ramp to his ship slid down. He took another deep breath and walked inside. He turned back and saw Karolyn walking in behind him. He studied her expression, or the lack of it. She appeared...stolen. Ridley had never seen her like this, and it disturbed him.
"God, how can they do this?" Karolyn thought.
"We of all people should know," he answered. "We were 'they'."