Mechanical Problems
Before Bann lost control of Filik's body, he handed the piece of the hologram device back to Laes.
It was a little strange watching the Irken navigator walk around in a daze for the next hour before shaking his head and finally snapping out of it.
Filik looked down at himself then glanced around as though he was making sure everything else was the same. He felt his arms and and held out his hands, flexing them a few times to assure himself he was back in control of his body.
Then he noticed the Irken pilot who was hanging around and decided to complain to her for a while.
At least Filik seemed to be alright. The navigator wasn't the easiest person to get along with, but he didn't deserve to be turned into a mindless drone.
Since the planet's defence barrier was nearly complete, some Vortians had begun working on repairing a few broken Spittle Runners the Irkens left behind.
Most of the vessels had been crushed and sliced apart... almost as if the worms had targeted them on purpose.
Why would the worms attack the ships though? They weren't moving or making any noise... maybe the creatures had been attacking so many Spittle Runners lately they just did it naturally as an acquired instinctual response?
...That could be it.
Then there was the sound of engines in the sky, and Laes looked up through the broken ceiling to see two Shuvvers descending.
Hold on... had the Tallest sent more Irkens? Were they soldiers too? Why? Was he hoping to regain control of Vort?
Before Laes' panicked brain could think through all of the possibilities, the other Vortians looked up and began pointing at the vessels and muttering among themselves.
Shuvvers were from the Armada though they probably could be driven by civilians too. They had a very strong laser beam that could burn the surface of a planet from space. These lasers could also disintegrate whoever got in their way.
All of the Irkens rushed to where the vessels were landing.
Darden and Lyra stood by one of them while Pain and Filik approached the other.
There was a single Irken in each vessel.
Laes decided to attempt getting a bit closer using his floating chair, and this time his parents made sure he didn't fall off of it when he climbed on.
Once he was seated and the controls were ready he tried moving it forwards... it already needed to be recharged?
Then a fight broke out.
All of the Vortians nearby fled from the area as the Irkens fought each other.
Darden and Lyra managed to pin one of the new arrivals down.
"Filik! Ryter! Get the other one!" Darden yelled right before the Irken beneath them deployed its PAK legs and broke free.
What happened to change the Tallest's mind this time?
It was funny how he no longer seemed to cower from danger... even right now he was thinking of running towards it. If his legs would work properly, and if he could actually help.
Why? What happened to his sense of self-preservation? Did almost dying a few times kill it?
Lard Nar was the only Vortian who didn't flee from the fight. He was also the only one who had a gun...
Where on Vort did he get that from?
He probably made it himself.
It actually would be good to build a few energy canons or something just in case the worms came back and managed to break through the barrier now that he thought about it... seriously though, why would the Tallest send just two Irkens to attack... it didn't make sense.
"It's ok son," his father tried to encouraging him. "Your Irken friends look like they're taking care of the problem."
"Can you get me a little closer?" Laes asked.
Maybe involving his parents like this was a bit too much.
He looked at his mom who was standing on his left-side.
Felara didn't look worried at all. She never really did actually... she was generally the voice of reason who had no problem talking his father out of different problems.
His father was just smiling.
"I had a feeling you might ask that. Yeah ok. I'll push you over there," his father responded, and he began to push Laes' floating chair closer to where the fight was happening.
Maybe he should have installed some blasters on the chair... that would've been helpful.
"It's ok Freedo, I've got him," Veena interrupted, and of course his father easily relinquished the chair to her.
His parents were like that... always hopeful that every girl (and guy apparently) might be 'the one' for him.
At least they weren't being overly smothering about it.
They didn't have to wink and giggle like school-aged Vortlings though.
"Why are you reckless even though you're weak and crippled?" she asked him, sighing. "You know you'll just be getting in the way right?"
Her words were kind of harsh, but true.
She only took him a little closer so he could better watch the fight.
Darden had broken three of the other soldier's four PAK legs and was holding the Irken's arms down while Lyra used her own metal limbs to dislodge his PAK.
Filik was tossed aside pretty easily... maybe it was because of the confusion of having been taken over by Bann not long ago?
Pain was trying to hold the other Irken down on his own, but even though his leg had been replaced with a metal one he was still favouring that side.
A well placed kick to Pain's hip caused him to lose his balance and fall to the floor.
The attacking soldier brought out one of its PAK legs to stab him, but Lard Nar shot the enemy Irken a few times. This caused enough of a distraction for Pain to jump back to his feet and launch another attack.
At this time, Lyra had successfully separated their attacker's PAK.
Darden landed a solid blow to the soldier's head, making sure this hostile Irken fell and didn't get up before rushing to help Pain.
Lard Nar did a rather impressive side-roll to avoid being struck by one of the assailant's PAK legs while Pain deployed his own metal limbs to contend with the other soldier's.
Without hesitating, Darden swung his elbow into the attacking soldier's face, knocking the threat's head back and using the momentum to tackle the Irken to the ground.
"Go for his PAK!" Darden insisted as he managed to roll the hostile soldier on top of him while keeping a firm grip on the assailant's arms.
Pain tried to use his metal limbs to stab at the enemy's PAK, but each blow was deflected by the other's metal limbs.
Lard Nar moved a bit closer with his gun drawn and fired two rounds at the Irken's PAK. This seemed to stall the soldier's metal limbs which then gave Pain time to cut into the other's PAK which caused a decent amount of damage.
The Irken instantly went limp.
Darden flung the unresponsive soldier off of him before sitting up and rubbing his cheek.
"Dlamn it... they were corrupt... both of them were corrupt..." he muttered.
Now that the two hostile Irken soldiers weren't moving, Veena pushed Laes closer to where the Irkens were gathering.
"What do you mean they were corrupt?" Lard Nar asked, lowering his weapon to his side.
Darden turned to him. "They were reprogrammed..." he sighed and shook his head.
"That one..." he pointed at the first Irken soldier he defeated.
"I saw the ship he was on get destroyed by the worms."
"We can fix them though, can't we?" Laes interrupted, and all of the Irkens turned to him.
Darden was glaring at him, but that wasn't anything abnormal.
Filik (who had just recovered), Lyra, and Pain were all giving him weird looks though.
"We've already tried that with defectives," Filik responded throwing his hands into the air. "I heard the Tallest talking to one of our engineers. He kept saying how impossible it was. The coding is way too strange, plus there are scrambled parts and parts that don't make any sense at all... I'm sure an Irken who's been reprogrammed will have it even worse!"
"Now I'm curious," Veena spoke as she walked over to Lyra who was still holding one of the PAKs. "Let me take a look. I'll let you know if fixing it is impossible or not."
"That goes against all of our programming!" Filik interrupted, and he stepped between Lyra and Veena. "You can't just look at our PAKs! Or touch them! All Irkens would rather blow up than to see our technology in the hands of..."
"I'm fine with it," Pain spoke, cutting off the navigator.
Then before Filik could start complaining again he continued, "if our own engineers couldn't figure it out, what harm can come from letting the Vortians try?"
"You are nothing but a spineless Vortian sympathizer!" Filix spat as he pointed an accusing finger at Pain. "Handing our PAKs over to the enemy is treason!"
"This is just..." Pain rubbed his head and heaved a sigh.
Then he squared his shoulders and glowered down at the smaller Irken.
"I may enjoy Negi's company, but you are nothing but a navigator and you dare talk to me like that?"
He pointed all of his PAK limbs at Filik.
The navigator's antennae flattened as he shrank away from the imposing guard.
"If you have any problems with how I'm conducting myself, feel free to take it up with the Tallest. He's the one who sent me here. But until then, if I hear another insult come from your mouth I will gladly tear out your tongue to silence you. Is that clear?"
"Y-yes..." Filik responded in a small nervous voice.
"If you do end up doing that, do it in another room," Darden told Pain calmly.
He gestured at Laes who was staring at Pain with wide eyes.
The Vortian's face had gone a few shades paler since he was in the middle of remembering the torture he'd experienced... at least fainting had saved him from being able to remember most of it.
Pain ran a hand down his face.
"Yeah. I will... don't worry about it."
He approached Laes and extended his other hand to him.
"While you were in prison I wasn't very kind to you. What I did went beyond maintaining peace and order... but I hope we can work together now despite my previous actions."
He glanced at Lard Nar.
"It's the same for you."
"That's in the past now," Lard Nar told him, placing his gun away.
It looked like he had made a holster too.
"Um yeah," Laes agreed without giving the Irken's words a lot of thought, and he reached to accept the the former guard's hand.
Somehow he was able to look Pain in the eye without feeling like he should run or faint or just stammer nervously.
"... are you joking with me right now?" Pain asked, raising an invisible brow.
Laes glanced at his hand and found he'd accidentally reached with his stump instead. He quickly withdrew it and held it to his chest.
"No, um, that was... an accident... sorry.."
"You're a weird one," Pain admitted patting him on the shoulder before turning to rejoin Negi who was being kept away by another Vortian.
"Why did he say that?" Veena questioned, and Laes sank a bit in his chair.
"Pain is the one who maimed us," Lard Nar answered.
His words were so uncaring sounding, it almost sounded untrue... but it was true.
Maybe the first thing he should do is to start thinking of "Pain" as Ryter. Then maybe he wouldn't get so anxious around the former guard.
"If you really want to fix these corrupt soldiers, I will need to return his PAK," Lyra said, looking down at the PAK in her hands.
"I'll tie him up," Darden offered, and they walked over to the fallen PAKless soldier together.
"Well... I guess you'll be busy for a while, right Veena...?" Laes remarked, managing a smile.
Veena approached him and her face was suddenly inches away from his.
"Don't you mean we will be busy?" she asked with a smirk, and she chuckled when Laes recoiled away from her.
"Heh heh..." Laes managed a chuckle before turning to Lard Nar who met his gaze and shrugged.
The former leader of the Resisty wasn't going to help him at all... and was he smiling? He was smiling... great.
At least Lard Nar seemed to be ok with Irkens right now.
Actually, this whole situation reminded him of old times when Miyuki used to be around and Irkens and Vortians were working together. It was kind of nice after all of the unnecessary death and imprisonment that a terrible misunderstanding caused...
Filik's communicator suddenly started going off, so he pulled it out of his PAK and answered it.
At first he looked stunned.
"Yes sir? What can I do for you my Tallest?"
Then his expression fell and he walked the device over to Laes.
"It's for you," he said, holding out the communicator without making eye-contact.
It kind of looked and sounded like he was pouting?
Laes accepted it and was surprised to see that the Tallest was in fact on the other end.
"I don't know if they're after just Irkens or if they'll be going after your people too, but they're using the worms to herd us like animals... so build as many ships as you can. Send the Irkens away if you have to."
Wait.. what? What was the Tallest talking about?
"Also, if anymore Irkens land there I haven't sent them. You need to kill them quickly," Irk's leader paused. "...Well, not you specifically. Get someone else to kill them."
"Uhh..." Laes' brain spun in circles for a few moments.
"Yes?" he finally responded. "But what's going on? Where are you right now?"
"They planned everything... even our hostility to each other. They wanted to weaken both Irken and Vortian societies. Irk is no longer... it's no longer Irken property. It belongs to them now. I've lost about half of my soldiers, but most of them exploded before they could be taken. At least there's that."
"Are you talking about the Invaders?" Laes questioned, managing to speak before the Tallest could start rambling again.
The Tallest stared at him for a brief awkward moment.
"What else would I be talking about?" His eyes narrowed. "You did watch the disk right? You didn't just faint right away did you?"
"Well um..." Laes rubbed the back of his head ruefully. "I saw some of it...?"
Either the Tallest ended the call or the transmission cut-out on its own.
Laes continued to stare at the black screen for a little while before handing the communicator back to Filik.
Lard Nar, Veena, and Filik had overheard this conversation. Everyone was was quiet for a while.
"So the Irkens took off to save themselves... that's just great," Veena commented crossing her arms before letting out a long sigh. "It's not surprising though."
"Irkens don't usually run away..." Laes commented.
He was worried. The Irkens were too proud to back away from a fight... but for some reason they were retreating.
Was their current enemy really that strong?
"If we're forced to flee, there are already a few working ships," Lard Nar looked towards the two Shuvvers the corrupted Irkens had been driving. "Including the shuvvers, the Spittle Runner, and the Voot Cruiser there's 4 of them."
"Those will hold maybe 30 of us..."
"There are thousands of Vortians in this section of the prison alone, so four ships won't really help us much..." Lard Nar admitted. "But it's all we have."
"The barrier is nearly ready so we can focus more on building them," Veena remarked. "Realistically it will take us at least a few months before we have enough space vehicles to hold even half of our numbers."
Everyone grew quite.
A few months was being optimistic. It would probably take a year or more in reality... the barrier they were making would have taken longer too if they weren't recycling the power and machinery the Irkens used to run the prison.
The electric barrier that had made up the cells would be amplified and spread across the entire planet.
Building ships took a lot more time and resources. Unfortunately they didn't have much of both right now.
"They've only been attacking Irkens so far anyway," Filik said, breaking the uneasy silence. "They might not even be after you."
"But if they are..." Laes shuddered as he tried to block out all of the horrible images that were burned into his brain.
He didn't want to think about it.
"If we can get these other Irkens working we might be able to find out," Veena spoke as she placed a hand on her hip.
She was watching Darden and Lyra tie up one of the corrupted Irkens with some thick cables.
Those probably wouldn't hold him for very long if he started struggling...
"The Tallest said to kill them," Filik stated. His antennae lowered and he scowled. "That means they're beyond salvaging, or at least the effort it would take to correct their programming won't be worth it."
"They could have information," Laes insisted, leaning forward a little in his seat. He grasped the armrest to make sure he wouldn't accidentally slide off. "So um... Keeping them alive makes the most sense."
Why did he always sound so unsure about things? He was sure about wanting to keep everyone alive. He was so sure he was almost about to fall off of his chair, but fortunately he was paying enough attention to slide backwards enough to keep himself from falling.
"It should be fine if Lyra and Darden keep an eye on them," Lard Nar said.
The ex-leader of the Resisty wasn't saying very much... maybe he wanted to disagree?
Lard Nar had a lot of reasons to hate the Irkens, yet despite listening to a conversation between him and the Tallest, his former cellmate's neutral expression hadn't changed at all.