Disclaimer: I don't own starocean
Life isn't fair, are they?
Karin:... maybe.
The transports were built to be heavy armoured and sturdy, being able to hold nearly ten times its own weight and speed not being a problem. The only problem it had, was the amount of maneouverbility it had. That was why the fighters were there to provide, not as an escort, but as a form of distraction for the excutioners. The transport moved along in groups of four, each accompanied by two fighters.
In total, there were twenty transports from the 'Eternal'. Other transports from other ships had to brave the dangers and moved without any fighters.
"This is red flight leader to all fighters, at this moment, we need you buy us time to land the transport."
Fayt called into his speaker.
"This is blue flight leader, orders acknowledged."
"This is green flight leader, understood."
"White flight ledaer, orders excuted."
"Brown flight leader, orders received."
"Black flight leader, carrying out instructions."
"Yellow vice flight leader, carrying out duties off late flight leader and orders received."
A stream of acknowledgement came in and Fayt was just relieved to be able to do something besides sitting in his seat waiting. So far, no excutioner has noticed their descent onto the moon. But that too was not able to last for long.
"Admiral! Excutioner on your six!"
Fayt turned around and saw that the behemoth was already ready to strike.
"Damn, they're onto us. Red flight, split up."
Fayt pulled his fighter up in the nick of time, avoiding a near death attack.
"Prevent them from attacking the transports at all cost."
Fayt ordered.
"Understood."
The fighters split up from their formations, circling the giants and unloading their firepower onto the creatures. Fayt released his missiles and pulled out just before its claw came into contact. Going for another round, Fayt aimed for its head.
"Come on..."
Fayt forced the homing device to lock on, but with the amount of times he had to tumble roll out of the way, Fayt was forced to make another round.
"Dammit!"
Fayt fired his lasers, and though they did not make a scratch, they did allow the creature to drop its guard. The homing device beeped as it locked onto the behemoth's head.
"See you in hell."
Fayt released his remaining missile load into the target, pulling out to a safe distance. The missiles slammed into the excutioner's head, exploding upon impact. Some even pierced through the excutioner and slammed into another. The behemoth stopped moving, with its head no longer in existence.
"I'm out of missiles."
Fayt cursed, noticing that more enemies had taken note of his small group.
"How far are the transports?"
"They're docking now, sir."
Kanai replied.
"Good. Red flight, pull out! We're going in!"
"Yes sir!"
The fighters pulled out of the combat zone, blasting through the rubbles and debris of the battle that waged out above them.
"Where's the hanger?"
"It's at gate F, sending coordinates now."
Fayt's screen beeped and Fayt tapped the side of his helmet, allowing the information to stream in.
"Right, punching in coordinates, setting in auto-pilot now. Prepare for landing."
Fayt lowered the landing gear and prepared for a bumpy landing. From the reports he read from the scouts, there were plenty of rubble around, especially in the hanger. It was as if someone didn't want anyone going in, or out of the base. The fighter's autopilot steered the ship steady, lowering the output of the engines, firing the forward thrusters at the same time.
Fayt's fighter slowed down over a small heap of debris and hovered for awhile, slowly landing down, the legs crushing the metal. Fayt looked around and saw Pyikon already in the control room. Pressing some buttons, the doors to the hanger began to close. The large doors closed shut with a large thud and a wissing sound issued throughout the hanger as the pressure was being adjusted and air being pumped into the hanger. Pyikon raised a thumbs up and Fayt opened the cockpit, jumping out while leaving his helmet in the fighter.
"Where's everyone?"
Fayt asked. Pyikon stepped out of the control room and joined Fayt and his crew.
"We tried to create a secure area, but..."
"Excutioners?"
"There were just too many."
Pyikon sighed.
"Nevermind about that. Direction of survivors?"
Fayt turned to Kanai.
"North. That should take us past a supply room."
"A supply room?"
"Yes, that's where the center keeps emergency food sources. Some equipments are found there as well."
Pyikon said.
"Then why didn't Maria go there?"
Fayt wondered.
"Well, the hallway is rigged with traps. Looks to be non-human technology. And plus, excutioners are crawling all over this hallway."
Pyikon replied, taking out a small device and activated it and pointing at the holographic projection that the device created. The hallway was straight from the hanger, bending left to the supply room. Through that, a straight hallway north and that was where the last position Maria was noted to be.
"I can't get leave her. I'll have to go."
"But-"
"Fuin, you can't stop me. It's just like Karin said, i have to protect what is true to me."
Fayt smiled towards Karin. Karin smiled back, releasing the safety trigger on her rifle.
"Karin too? Kanai? Pyikon? You guys? What? This is nuts!"
Fuin shook his head.
"You don't have to come."
Fayt said.
"Ha, and let you have the glory? As if, and besides, i go where the action is."
Fuin smiled, pulling away his large cloak that Fayt thought was just for show. Apprently not. Lined on his cloak and on his own body, were guns, knives, grenades, bigger guns and larger swords, and even more guns. Fayt did not even bother counting. He would have lost count by the time he reached the knees from the legs up.
"Let's rock and roll!"
"I think that's overdoing it."
Fayt scratched his head.
"Overkill."
Karin sighed.
"Nutcase."
Pyikon shrugged.
"..."
Kanai just stared at the amount of weapons.
"Kanai?"
"..."
"Hello?"
Fayt waved a hand across her face. Kanai did not respond.
"Kanai?"
"What's happened?"
"Don't know, she's frozen solid!"
Fayt wanted to shake Kanai but,
"Cool..."
"Huh?"
"Cool... weapons..."
"What the..."
"See? At least someone appreciates my style."
Fuin snorted.
"Style? What kind of style is that?"
Karin sighed.
"One of a kind."
Pyikon added in.
"The style of an idiot."
Fayt said, as the three of them huddled aside, not allowing Fuin to hear.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fayt pressed his back against the wall. Peering over, he checked the over the corner. So far so good. The traps were nothing more than laser traps. By hacking into the system, he managed to shut all of the traps down.
It was strange that out of this universe traps can be deactivated so easily. Maybe it was because Fayt had seen the technology in 4D space, therefore able to use the theory from 4D space and applying it to his work. It did take him a while though, to get use to the settings and all, but in the end, it was like turning a light off. Fayt signaled the rest to follow up.
His team was to lead and find Maria and other survivors. Two other squads followed closely behind while the rest of the ground team were to guard their route. Fayt turned at the corner and ran ahead. So far, they only ran into a couple of excutioners, but nothing Fayt can't handle. A few proclaimers and one enforcer, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Fayt lost two men but as Karin said before, he had his obligations to fulfill before others. Fayt stopped outside the supply room which was to lead them to where Maria was. He walked over to the control pannel and looked at the rest. Karin, Fuin and Kanai had taken the front, primming their weapons at the door. If anything was to pop out of that door, they would in the line of fire.
Pyikon stood at the other side of the door, his weapon ready as well. Fayt pressed the access code which he managed to get from hacking, and the door gave a slight hissing sound, opening slowly. Fayt kept both of his hands on his gun. The door slid open and nothing came out. Fayt nodded his head towards Yuin and Karl, the two heading into the room.
After awhile, Karl signaled for the rest to enter. Fayt walked into the room and flipped on the switch. There was nothing interesting in the room at all, in fact, there wasn't anything in it in the first place.
"Pyikon, didn't you say that this was a supply room?"
Fayt asked.
"I don't understand! I'm sure this was a supply room. Maybe they cleared it out?"
Pyikon scratched his head, taking out the holographic map once again. A pointer showed their current position and it was true. They were standing in the same supply room which showed on the map.
"I don't think they cleared the room."
Sole said, kneeling down at the corner.
"What?"
"This."
Sole got up, holding what looked like a small piece of metal.
"What is that?"
Karin asked.
"Obviously none of you realize what this is."
"Looks like a piece of the wall to me."
Fuin took the piece of metal and inspected it.
"That is what is may look like to you, but look at this."
Sole took the metal and placed it onto the ground. He took out his gun and fired a shot at the piece. What everyone expected, except for Sole, was the piece of metal would melt. But instead, the laser was absorbed by the metal. The tiny piece of metal glowed slightly and went back to its original colour.
"What the hell?"
Fuin stepped away from the metal, as if it would eat him.
"I believe that there was a fight in here, particularly with humans."
Sole quietly explained, picking up the metal.
"What is that?"
Fayt asked.
"This? This is a brand new type of metal. It was an experiment on Syi IV but soon, the federation found out of its terrible side effects and wanted to close down the facility but the product was stolen, replicated and sold on the black market. Upon contact with high temperature, like a laser, it would absorb practically everything around it that is non metallic."
"Are you saying that there was a whole stock pile of them in here? Cause i don't think a small piece would cut it."
Pyikon wondered.
"That would be the answer with the highest possibility. And there was a fight in here, shots were fired and everything was abosrbed."
"Is there a way to reverse this?"
"So far... none."
"Wait, Sole, where did you get this information from?"
Fuin asked.
"Where? Remember that i said that the federation found its side effects? I was an undercover agent from the federation's secret service, working as a sort of supervisor for the company that was creating this. I was the one who reported the incident."
Sole stared at the metal.
"So this brings back unwanted memories?"
Fayt asked.
"You could say that. But sooner or later, i had to tell someone. Keeping secrets to yourselves can never do any good to anyone. I lost someone dear to me during that accident."
"Accident?"
"Yes. The one where i found out the side effects of this metal. We were suppose to do the final testing on it. Laser testing. At first, nothing happened. So we naturally thought that it was able to withstand laser attacks. But at the same time, we didn't realize that the metal itself was alive."
"Alive?"
Karin raised an eyebrow.
"Sounds like a classic horror film."
Kanai added.
"Well, it was something like that. The metal evolved. It wasn't alive in a naturalistic sense, but-"
"The evolution thoery."
Fayt cut in.
"Yes. If things were able to evolve, that would deem that it would be able to better itself, adapt itself to its surroundings, therefore it would seem like it was alive. But no matter how much i looked at it, it was still a simple piece of metal. During the final phase of the project, we fired another laser into it. That was when we realize, we actually can open up a worm hole from this metal."
"Worm hole? What size?"
"Depending on the size of the metal. The piece that we were testing on was about five meters in diameter. It practically sucked the entire facility. At that time, i was off duty. When i heard the news, i knew that it was too late to do anything but to report back."
The room fell into silence. Sole smiled sadly at the metal. Sighing, he placed it into his pocket.
"Is that such a wise idea?"
Fuin asked.
"I have a plan for it."
"Wait, didn't you say you lost someone during the accident?"
Fayt asked. Sole looked at Fayt for awhile, expressionless, before looking down.
"Yes, i did. I lost my fiancee in that accident."
"Fiancee?"
Fayt looked bewildered.
"Yes, fiancee. I met her on the facility. We were going to get married the next day after the accident. Today's actually the anniversary of when we met."
Sole said, still looking down at the floor. The entire room fell into another deadly silence. Fayt never knew that his own men had such pain.
"Fayt, listen to me, whatever you do, you must find the one that you love, one that you want to protect, and hold onto her."
Sole said, placing a hand on Fayt's shoulder.
"Don't let her go, no matter what happens, you hear me? Be it explosions, peronsal fights, wars or family issues, you musn't let her go."
"Yeah."
"Good. Whatever happened to me, is my past and no one is to be blamed. But you do not want to end up like me. My path is walked by only pain and suffering, within the hands of the ghosts of past."
Sole smiled.
"So admiral, what do you say, shall we go on?"
Fayt looked at Sole's change of attitude. If he was to be in the same situation as him, would it really hurt that badly? He had lost his father already and that was a crushing blow to him. But Maria? Would he be able to change like Sole? Or would he end up feeling miserable for the rest of his life. Karin placed her hand on Fayt's other shoulder.
"Fayt, it's just like i said before, everyone has their own guilt. You musn't focus on what has happened, that is past and gone and you shouldn't anticipate the future, for every step we take may deter us from what we think. We may never know what the future holds in store for us, but what we must do now, is what we can do."
Fayt turned to Karin, then to everyone in the room. All smiled back at him. They were right, but was it really that easy to forget all that? To do what they say?
"It is never easy, admiral, and it will never be. But if you believe in yourself, then it may be so. You will find a way for yourself, in your own way."
Kanai said, as though reading his mind.
"Thanks, guys."
Fayt smiled. Yes, it was true, that he had to walk his path at his own pace, at his own will and by himself in his own way.
"Let's go."
AN: Okay, a few things i need to clear up, Sole did not use that metal afterwards. He lost it but i never mentioned it. Sole retelling of his account of lost love is sort of a way to reflect Fayt's relationship. Hints on 'Family issues'. If you guessed it, Fuin is an idiot. He gets worse later on. And so does Jino. I just love toying with my own characters.