Chapter 11. Steg'-in
Steg'-in looked at his surroundings. The hunt was the one place that he had always felt comfortable.
Ever since he was still a pup, and he had settled a fight between himself and his brother by stabbing him through the back with his stolen wrist blades! After that, he had been forced to hide in the canyons south of his town for countless seasons, killing wild beasts for food. One day he killed what he thought was a fanged nosaj monkey, only to find it was a young blood on its first hunt!
He stole the second-rate armor and weapons that it wore, and used them to hunt more beasts and yautja. He eventually cleared most creatures from the canyon, and the yautja had begun to think it was haunted, giving him no choice but to leave the place and hunt for food in his own village.
It wasn't long though, before he heard a female's shriek coming from a nearby dwelling! He ran to the large hut just as Da'guande walked out in disgust! He held his wrist blades to Steg'-ins throat and asked for a reason not to mix his blood with that of the female, who he only refered to as a piece of pauk-de amedha! But after hearing his story, Da'guande took pity on the starving teen, and gave him some food from inside the dwelling.
Steg'-in followed the hunter for years after that, and even though many others would join the group, Da'guande only treated his first follower like a son.
He was jolted out of his thoughts when an ooman ran past them! Da'guande waved his arms at a nearby wall, signaling he wanted the two of them to press their bodies up against it. Soon after, more oomans followed!
One of them pulled a small round object out of its garb and pulled off a piece of it. Another ooman opened a nearby door and the first threw the round object in. Immediately they heard the sound of burner fire, and shortly after there was a loud explosion! After a few seconds of silence, an ooman spoke.
"Did it work?"
"Those guns can take a serious beating, I doubt you could dent it with anything short of a missile launcher!" another ooman replied.
"Can anyone spare a magazine?" The first ooman said.
Another ooman pulled a rectangular object out, and once again threw it through the door. There was more burner fire, but no explosion.
"Jesus, how much ammo can they shove in there?" The first ooman said.
"Why are we doing this in the first place? We've only got forty-five minutes till the place goes into DEFCON 1 lockdown, and after the Calypso gets here he'll go out with a bang!" Another said.
"You've never been inside X! If he finds a way to smuggle one of those things onto the ship, we'll never make it back to Earth!" Shouted yet another ooman.
One of the others got ready to throw another round object, but when he opened the door there was more burner fire, and another round object flew into the hall!
"RUN!" an ooman screamed!
At that moment both objects exploded!
The flames sent Steg'-in flying several noks, and damaged his cloaking device! One of the surviving oomans looked at him and realized what he was! It began to fire at him, but Steg'-in's smart disk was soon sticking through his chest! He got up and extended his combi stick to its full length. He used it to slice through a nearby oomans hand, and then his heart! He then blew another ooman apart with his plasma caster and ran through a gaping hole in the wall where the ooman door had been!
He suddenly heard more burners, and felt a searing pain! He tried to look for the ooman, but didn't see any! Suddenly, he heard a plasma caster, and the burners stopped! He looked around and saw that there was a broken burner sticking out of the wall, next to Da'guande!
Steg'-in was completely dumbfounded!
"How?"
Da'guande pointed at his self-destruct device. He pushed a button on it, and a miniature plasma caster popped out! Steg'-in was so distracted by his friend's hidden weapon, he didn't hear the ooman approaching them!
"How many of you are there!?!" It said.
It pushed a button on the wall, and a thick layer of metal slowly covered the window behind him. He then pulled out a burner, fired it at the two of them!
Da'guande managed to dodge it, but Steg'-in wasn't as lucky!