chapter 11
Falling down
Rocket had made his peace with what might yet be his undoing and aligned his scouting ship with the gate, readying it for the strafing run -maneuver. He would have about ten seconds window to release the buoy and get the hell out of dodge before the automated defenses around the gate could lock-in. He was still playing the possibilities through his mind when his musing was interrupted by series of loud clanks from the storage chest's direction behind his seat.
Alarmed, Rocket terminated the vector and immediately took off before the ship's cloak could be compromised. Changing the course towards the ninth moon of Procyon-4, the nearest stellar body.
He wasted barely any time in landing on the rocky surface before throwing the trunk lid open. There were a couple of things Rocket might have reasonably expected to find as a reason for the odd noise, but a pair of little brown eyes and a furry snout were definitely not among them. Frankly he was shocked and almost had a heart attack when the first three barely audible words his son wheezed out were "Daddy... I can't breathe..." while simultaneously gasping for air like a fish on a pier.
'The fuck son? how did you? - never mind. Got to DO... something, anything. Oh, my gods don't die on me kit. Daddy fixes, don't you worry, oh my god, what the flark?!" Were the first words out of panicking Rocket's mouth. He wasted a lot of precious seconds just to get a grip of his own panicked state never mind his slowly suffocating son.
Perfect tactical instincts to the rescue! He was so shocked that he barely even registered what he was doing consciously and allowed his instinctual awareness to guide his actions.
Medical scan. Done. Hypothermia, low oxygen saturation due to thin, basically just a residual cabin atmosphere. No broken bones detected beyond already known injuries. Good. Next. The emergency suit... emergency suit... FLARK! Where the hell... Oh there. Okay, good. Stuff the kit into it. Hook the suit into ship Oxygen supply outlet. Done. Breath man, breath. It'll be alright just relax... the kit will be fine now.
Rocket would have dried sweat from his brows if he wouldn't have had the suit on. So, he did the next best thing and leaned forward until his head hit the knees and let out a slow tired groan before refocusing on his son, now seated and definitely and firmly belted to the co-pilot seat. Space was no place for kits but since he couldn't just tell Trey to go home, he would at least make sure his kit was safe and safest was for the kit to stay put and not to move a muscle unless told otherwise.
"Trey? TREY!" Rocket tried through the helmet radio before remembering that he probably didn't know how to respond to the intercom. "Okay, hang on a moment... You can hear me now? It's not too loud or anything?" Rocket asks fiddling a bit with his kit's suit radio and size adjustments to make it fit better. It would remain as three sizes too large but Trey would no longer be in danger of "drowning" on it once he was done with the adjusts.
"Yess, daddy. No is fine?" Trey responds almost meekly.
"Good... Because what the FLARK were thinking that you were doing, you moron! You could have got yourself killed you d'ast idget!" Rocket practically roars in all his anger and fear at his son. The kit flinches and recoils in fright, trying in vain to 'escape' the situation by curling into a small ball at his seat.
"I'm sorry daddy, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you hate me now. I'm soryyy!" Trey blubbers eyes wet from tears and Rocket finds it impossible to even try to feel any real anger. Was he suddenly ashamed at yelling for his own child in such a manner? Yes, he was most aware of it. He reaches forwards and unlatches the kit from the seat, so he can scoop him up to his lap and starts rocking the kit soothingly against his chest. It was awkward due to space suits and cramped space in the cabin but luckily Trey was small.
"C'mon Trey. Don't cry. It's bad for you when in the suit. Daddy's not hating you. Just got scared a little that's all. hsshh. I'm sorry I yelled at you. I won't do that again."
"Sniff, Promise?" Trey wheezes between a few hiccups and calming down a little.
"Yeah, just... Next time just ask son. Space is really dangerous for kits to go on their own." Rocket says latching Trey back on to his seat.
"I'm sorry daddy." The kit sighs with a low sniff staring at his feet. "You didn't know. Look it's okay." Rocket emphasizes by playfully clacking the kit's helmet with his metal gauntleted claws.
"So, how did you get in here anyway? I thought I'd put the ship on lockdown?" He asks while fiddling with the ships instruments and couple of palm-sized seat mounted G-force dampener units He'd ripped off from the pilot seat. "Don't be angry daddy." Trey pleads.
"No, why would I be. What did you do Trey?" Rocket replies while hooking the Anti-G units into Trey's seat. The kit might be his son, but no child could take the full 12 or more G's from a ship like this without sustaining some kind of injury as a result, not even if his son would have had the same cybernetic skeletal system as he did -which his son, thank the Maker, obviously didn't have. The tool chest had a field to keep things stored inside from breaking and subsequently Trey as well as was demonstrated.
"..." The kit opens his mouth but closes it with a snap.
"Trey..." Rocket coaches keeping his voice carefully neutral.
"I watched you... I just wanted to see it one more time and then the door closed, and I didn't know what to do and I got tired and hid in the box so you wouldn't get mad at finding me here."
"You watched me... operating the panel and entering the code?" Rocket repeats slowly. Trey nods.
"I didn't mean to. It's not my fault it's just so easy." The kit adds defensively. Rocket blinks for a moment in bewilderment. His 16-digit pass code was Easy to memorize for Trey? EASY! He concentrates his thoughts for a few moments to consider what it might actually mean.
"Okay, ahh look son. I'm not mad okay. Just tell me, did you actually figure out the code or just recalled it?"
"Recalled. It's easy, mommy doesn't really want to play memory games with us even when she says it's not so and other kits say we cheat. We don't, we're just good at it!" Trey declares putting special stress on the 'not cheating' -part. Rocket had no difficulties in believing his son. Eidetic memory was a natural trait which usually faded with age but in his case, it had been genetically enhanced and cybernetically augmented to reach inhuman levels. On hindsight it seemed obvious that his kits would have inherited the trait. What else had they inherited from their father's side? His cyber-tolerance, the so called 'spacer-genes', lightning reflexes? He wasn't sure but hoped that none of that would have to come to play In Trey's life. Most of those 'talents' had only lent him a life of pain and misery. Particularly cyber-tolerance, without it he probably would've died on the operation table long ago instead of becoming stuffed to the brim with it.
"So how long have you and your brothers had this knack for playing memory games?"
Trey seems to stare at nothing in a fashion that that was almost uncomfortably familiar to Rocket before replying with a question of his own. "Is that why mommy didn't want to send us to pre-school. Because we're different like you?" A surprisingly sharp question from a kit, Rocket muses.
"I can't say but trust me you're not different Trey, you're extraordinary and don't let anyone think less of you or your siblings for it." Trey seems to think of it for a moment and Rocket is again forced to wonder just how smart were his kids really? Certainly more astute than most in their age group. "I won't daddy." The Kit eventually replies.
"Want to play bit of memory game with daddy?" Rocket asks after a moment of inner debate if a responsible parent would turn any of his kits into ad-hoc combat co-pilot or not. No matter how smart they might seem. "O-okay, daddy." Trey asks somewhat cautiously, sensing that his father was planning on something. "Good. Now look closely as I go through the controls and you repeat their names and functions, pointing at each once I'm done. You following me so far, son?"
"Yes, I repeat and point them out."
"Great, here we go. This one is the ignition system. The main sequence works like this when in low gravity..." Rocket starts going through the dials and dashes which Trey then faithfully mimics.
"The last dials here are the automated landing sequencer, but you shouldn't use that unless you're sure it's a level surface you are landing on, and that's basically it son. " Rocket finishes with a bit of flourish as his son dutifully repeats Rocket's motions.
"Very good, son." Rocket says approvingly, and Trey practically beams with pride which makes Rocket smile as well. "Did I do good daddy?" Rocket nods with a bit of smile while pushing a few buttons that rearranges the partially holographic controls to be in actual reach of Trey as well. "Excellent my son. Now notice the dash and how I just mirrored it to you. Go ahead fire her up. You can't crash her." Rocket encourages. Trey nods tiny fingers twitching. The kit concentrates carefully before touching any of the dials. The ship lifts up and stays there, if shakily as was to be expected.
"Okay, this is a good height. Now take the readout and tell me what you think it means..."
Trey's face crunches. "We're floating in the air?"
"All right, that's the basic gist but what we're really doing is that we're being synced with the spin of the planetoid below us, but you don't need to worry about that now. I'll explain it better later. Now press that symbol over there, it activates the cloaking device that hides us from our enemies." He instructs. Trey does as told. The only visible change to indicate that it's now on is a blinky yellow light in the dash and the engine pitch changing a fraction.
"Alright, looks good. Now give the engines a bit of thrust like so... while using your left paw on the dial to guide the nozzle upwards..." Rocket instructs Trey into leaving the relative safety of the small moon. "Good. Whoops! - not that much." He corrects his son when the ship suddenly jerks forward, and Rocket needs to take hold of things.
Once the ship was safely flying in free space at relative low speed, though terribly fast for a fledgling pilot like Trey, the Kit could safely practice steering and Rocket had time to readjust his approach plan on the gate.
"Okay, pass the controls son. Time to do what we came to do here." Rocket bids having made his mental adjustments for his plan.
"Oh daddy, do we have to?" Trey sighs having finally started to enjoy his time as a pilot but obeys after a fashion and passes the controls almost as exactly as Rocket had shown him earlier.
"Well yeah. You do want to get home one day don't cha?" Rocket reminds his son while making sure with his gaze that his son is securely fastened to his seat before taking full control of the ship again. "Right, kiddo. This part's going to be rough so don't be scared okay?"
"I'm not a baby, daddy." Trey huffs folding his arms in manly-man fashion in front of him. Rocket stifles a laughter at the ridiculously "macho" pouting poses his son is holding and steers the ship back towards the black matter gate.
He veered the ship in upward angle from his perspective -space has no true up or down but it was easier to comprehend your position if you thought things as up & down and left & right even in space. He then lunges sharp down to be at 90-degree angle to his previous vector and pushes the throttle in full, rattling anything that isn't bolted down inside the cabin as the tiny craft begins to vibrate like crazy from the sudden violent acceleration. Trey was transfixed to stare ahead, whether from fear or awe. Rocket couldn't say but at least he wasn't about to throw up. Spacer-genes son. Rocket thought grimly before concentrating on the mechanical female voice belonging to the ship's AI.
ten thousand
nine thousand
eight thousand
seven...
six... five
"Ohh shiitt... Gonna overshoot"
three thousand!
"Fucking heell...!"
one thousand
Warning! Proximity danger. Warning!
Buoy launched. Buoy approaching target. Target reached.
"Come on you piece of Glark! Turn around you son of a slaag!"
"Ngghh, ughh. C'mon just a little more!"
"Holy flark, let's NOT do that again, like never." Rocket declares teeth still clenched tight to fight off the effects of massive G-forces he had been subjected to just moments ago. It was an effort to even their trajectory and get them away from the Badoon fleet that was suddenly buzzing like a hornets' nest. Getting the ship back into cloak and setting some semblance of a course back to Procyon-6 was easy in comparison. His eyes were blackening, and he could feel trembling on his palms and feet slowly climbing up along his arms and legs.
"Maker's mercy. Not now." Rocket curses. His vision was swimming with black spots and he realized that it may not have been the best idea to strip all the g-force dampeners from his seat to boost Trey's. "Frakk me!... Take the wh-eelll s-son. I-I don't feel too good." Rocket mumbles shakily, slumping forward in his seat harness. "Daddy? Daddy, wake uu-p?!" Is the last frantic cry in his ears before his eyes roll up in his head.
It had been two days since Vren Underhill had climbed over the mound and if he wasn't back by noon today they'd be forced to accept their defeat and return back to main group. Food was running low and the nights had been miserable, freezing cold fog that was followed by steaming hot days. In short, they were hungry, tired and miserably unhappy lot whose time was running out. Not an ideal situation by any stretch but supposedly it beat being dead or enslaved -if barely. Roork thought sourly and threw another pebble to ricochet from the canyon walls. It having missed the intended target by the barest margin, made from a couple of larger stones set atop one another.
"Come on man. Put some effort to it, will ya?" Eir the red sighs throwing his rock dead center of the target.
"I hate this stupid fuckin' canyon." Roork declares giving a dour glance at their surroundings while picking some more ammunition from the sandy ground. He stands up stretching his back and walks to Eir, readying to throw another stone. A sudden cry from Tam Two-trees running towards them from their camps direction makes him drop his arm and look at the youngling running towards them. Eir eyes the boy sideways before caching up on him. "Hey, hey, hey kid easy on the draft beasts. What's going on?"
"Underhill, his back -waiting at the camp. Came to get you as fast as I could." Tam replies noticeably winded.
"Did he-?" Succeed was what Roork wanted to say but felt like he would be jinxing it by announcing it aloud. His superstitious purpose was foiled by Tam. "Succeed? I've no idea but there's something... Look, go see for yourself. I ain't going back there on my own, I mean he looks like and sounds like him but I don't know man... Those damn gold eyes alone are giving me the heebie-jeebs.
"His at the camp?" Eir asks rhetorically, counting his few arrows and testing his survival bow before fading into low brushes that were the stand-ins for vegetation at the boulder dotted canyon. Roork frowns after Eir before starting to walk back to camp with Tam.
"Look Tam, nobody has 'gold eyes'. We'll get to bottom of this, maybe his gotten ill or something. Who knows what kind of diseases these damn sand flies are carrying." Roork reassures his shaken compatriot and slaps one of the eponymous flies off from his neck for good measure.
If Roork had had any reservations about anyone having 'golden eyes' There's none now. Vren is sitting on a rock by the unlit fire pit, head down and wearing some kind of brown monk's robe with a deep cowl. Clothes which he certainly wasn't wearing when he'd left two days ago. He raises his head and stands up from the rock when they approach. Roork stops in his tracks at the sight of the two glowing orbs staring from under the cowl. They felt like they were piercing his very soul from under the hood. Tam screams in fright, turning his gaze away. Roork is rooted on the spot staring mesmerized by the golden orbs. He opens his mouth to say something but doesn't know what to say. Roork doesn't so much see than hear what happens next. Eir rising up from his hidey hole somewhere to his left is letting the arrow loose within the same sinuous motion. Roork hears the string 'twap' as the arrow loose from the bow. Vren turns his head a fraction and does a sweeping gesture with his right hand, effortlessly catching the arrow from midflight. Eir gasps audibly but draws another one without a second thought. Vren's eyes seem to focus on Eir and Roork can hear the bow string snapping and Eir cursing coarsely. Tam whimpers. Suddenly the spell or whatever it is that' holding him breaks and Roork stumbles, almost falling, forwards suddenly remembering that he still had a gun at his belt and not just any gun but one of the Guardian-Ranger's flechette guns. Drawing the gun out feels like his swimming in molasses.
"Stop! I don't want to hurt you, but I will defend myself if you cannot be made to see reason." Vren announces throwing back his hood to reveal his features and turns his gaze away from them. Suddenly everything around Roork comes rushing back to focus.
"The hell just happened." Roork croaks mostly to himself. The half-drawn gun drops on the sand forgotten as he tries to figure out what just occurred.
"Does it really matter?" Underhill asks, the glow in his golden yellow eyes slowly dimming. Golden like a bird of prey. Roork ponders, slowly picking his gun from the sand. He had no doubt it was only because Underhill had allowed it.
"Well, duh. It sure as day matters when some golden eyed freak starts showing off with his powers.!" Eir huffs disgruntled.
"Eir!" Roork scolds.
"Let him speak his mind. Truth to tell I'm not yet fully comfortable with this change either." Underhill says rising his hand to still anything further Roork or Eir might have wanted to say on the matter. Roork doesn't mind that and apparently neither does Eir who with a quiet huff sets to fix his bow string while Tam closes their camp with Underhill's quiet assistance.
"So, what now? We go back home or-?" Tam pipes up having recovered some of his nerves.
"It is what we should do." Vren agrees almost surprisingly soothingly.
"Only if you agree to be medically examined once we get back to base camp Underhill." Roork stipulates sternly.
"If it puts your mind at ease though I assure you it's not a disease that colors my eyes." Vren shrugs pulling the thick cowl back over his head despite the rising noon heat. "My newly opened eyes have yet to lose their sensitiveness to bright light." He comments cryptically when his compatriots throw questioning gazes at his direction.
"Sunglasses would have been less conspicuous than crazy cultist cowl, just saying." Eir remarks sarcastically.
"I wasn't there for the fashion tips; besides they had run out on sunglasses." Vren replies equally spiky.
"Just knock it off." Roork sighs willing those two to rather concentrate on putting one foot before the other instead of pointless bickering.
The foursome raised more than a few eyebrows climbing up the cliff face to the base camp. Mostly Underhill and his cowl though there were hushed murmurs about Arik Lowlander missing.
"I see you found... something?" Doc Greyle comments with a frown when Roork ushers Vren into his tent.
"You might say that." He says. "Show him." Roork grunts poking at Vren with his elbow standing mutely beside him. Vren gives the man a tired look before pulling the cowl back. Doc Greyle's eyebrows climb at little at the sight of the now pale golden yellow irises but his too professional to openly freak out and just grabs a medical examining light from his bag to shine the light on Vren's eyes for pupil dilation check.
"Well, I have to say this; while I've never seen anything like this but if it's some kind of illness, please can I have an infection of whatever it is that his having because he seems healthy enough to be put in front of a plough. In fact, I'm pretty sure his in better health than he was when we came here."
Greyle concludes putting away his stethoscope and other examining tools while Vren redoes his robe and cowl.
"Apart from my eyes, I suppose" Vren adds to Doc's statement.
"We'll see in a few days if the sensitivity doesn't abate." Greyle says unconcerned.
"Well that's great. My advice; healthy or not, keep the damn cowl up and 'powers' to yourself. You're freaking people out with those golden eyes enough as it is." Roork grumbles sounding somewhat unhappy.
"I won't be able to hide myself for long, I fear. Weapon unused is a weapon wasted." Underhill's statement makes Greyle's face crunch in concern and Shade water's twist in worry. "Well, try not to 'weaponize' yourself prematurely." Roork grumbles leaving Greyle alone in the tent with Vren.
"I can't blame him for mistrust. I'm still new to this and struggle to contain my powers." Vren admits confidentially. Greyle shakes his head in denial."Boy, don't do this to yourself. You're a man, a young man with his whole life ahead of him, get a wife, have kids -once we've rid of those lizards of course. You're not a weapon to be used and then discarded. Don't waste it thinking yourself as a martyr destined to die."
"Perhaps so but since you're my Doc I see no reason to keep it from you... Part of the 'price' was infertility though I was also assured that I'd have greatly expanded longevity ahead of me to offset it." Vren assents and pulls the cowl back over his head before walking out to find Roork.
"It's not enough sonny, to merely live a long life, it never is." Greyle sighs to himself and starts packing his tent. They would leave soon now that the explorers were back.
"Is that-?" Roork, sitting at the front seat in the lead car lowers his binoculars to ask from the driver Greyle who frowns a bit. "Looks like a check point to me. Are we stopping?" He inquires glancing at his leader. "Yeah, let's move in a bit closer. I'll call the fleet. Pull over on the side behind that bend just before the checkpoint. We'll walk rest of the way to check it out. I don't like the looks of the place." Roork says and grabs the walkie-talkie from the dash. The check point at the end of the serpentine road along the low hillsides seemed like it had been built in haste and then pretty much abandoned. In fact, the whole countryside had felt strangely quiet for the past two days they'd been driving back to east.
"All right people. There's a check point just behind the bend. Me, Eir and Underhill are going to go in and see what we can learn from the situation at the front. Everyone okay with this?" Nobody objected.
"Right, we take full gear guys. We don' know what's in there." Roork orders with a nod.
"Where's your gun Vren?" He asks with a frown, noticing his empty hands where as everyone else is carrying guns. "I only need this" Vren shrugs revealing the photon sword's handle hanging from his belt. "Suit yourself." Roork had decided not to touch those things. They looked fucking lethal -to their users. He checked his ripper pistol and gave the go order.
They studied the small trailer hut for good five to ten minutes before Roork came to conclusion that there was nobody there and that it wasn't some kind of trap.
"The place is deserted but nobody's even touched let alone looted it yet." Roork comments once the trio has searched the trailer surroundings for the missing guardsmen who should logically be there. "I don't think they've been gone for longer than a day." Eir comments, cautiously sniffing at the leftovers in the pot at the stove. "They've given up, these men here and the radio's dead." Vren remarks vaguely while observing the scenery through the trailer window. "I just know." he says when Roork is about to ask how.
"Hey boss, I found a map. The next town or more like a village holding troops is Kampoor just a few miles east, maybe they can tell us what's happened during the week?" Eir hollers from the tiny kitchen waving a tattered military atlas.
Kampoor wasn't even a town it was barely even a village with perhaps two dozen houses lined along both sides of one single unpaved road leading through it. the mostly wooden township was surrounded by sparse forestland and wide stretches of pasture. The few People to be seen were hurriedly latching their possession on their cars and trailers.
Their small motorcade is being slowed by a farmer hauling all he owns in a tractor. Greyle drives the car on its side for Roork to peek his head out of the window to speak with the driver. "Hey, wait up, slow down old man! What's happening here? Where are you all going? Where's the police, the army, anyone?"
"Coppers are gone fightin' an' gatherin' over yonder with dem military and were gittin' Away, nary a place safe left but surely better be away from here! The gibberlings are coming, I love our bois but dem gibbers 'r darn well unstoppable. Don't think our bois gonna handle' em, nope, no siree!" The elderly driver carrying a hunting rifle waves with his hand while chatting away with his thick midland accent.
"Gibberlings- The heck are those? Drive on Greyle, there's supposedly some kind front post just beyond the village." Roork says with a confused frown, pulling his head back in as Greyle speeds them forward passing the tractor. "I dunno but I don't like where this is going." Greyle shrugs equally mystified.
They've barely reached out of sighting distance from the village when the first or perhaps last of the soldiers come running past them. Some even throwing their weapons and other gear away. Greyle stops the car by the roadside and everyone mounts out with their guns ready. Gunfire is slowly becoming closer but in their trained ears it's clearly sporadic and unorganized. Roork stops one of the fleeing soldiers rushing by, by grabbing him to his side by the collar. The strange incessant chittering sound in the air was getting stronger by the minute.
"What's happening. Where's the rest of your platoon?" He yells hoping to get an answer from the quivering man. "All I know is that the next thing coming after me down that hill is going to be hungry and speaking gibberish! Look, there's too many of them. We can't hold them. Nobody can." He starts running again as soon as Roork let's go off the man. "Shouldn't we kinda scram too?" Tam asks worriedly.
"No. This is why I went to the temple of the Kings." Underhill shakes his head and lights his photon sword with a low ominous hiss and begins to trot toward the high but gently sloped ridge which was blocking their view from the actual battle being fought at the fields beyond it. "You heard him." Roork announces starting to follow behind Vren but stops at the crest of the ridge.
"So those are gibberlings." Roork mutters surveying the battle from afar at their vantage point.
"I think Zom's a more scientific sounding." Greyle grumbles clutching at his assault rifle.
"Oh man that's a lot of Zoms..." Eir sighs seeing the remains of their army in full panicked retreat or fighting in small knots of men and thousands upon thousands of former citizens -now turned to Zoms, charging forward like a brown mass across the field. Roork realizes the situation for what it is -hopeless but this doesn't seem to have dawned to Vren or perhaps the young raccoonoid truly had nothing to fear seeing how his stride hadn't faltered even the slightest. In fact, he seemed ready to face the horde head-on.
The lone cloaked figure faced the gibbering mass, becoming engulfed by it like a toy buried under the crashing wave of half rotten corpses surging forward.
"well, so much for that. I think we'd better..." Roork sighs turning to flee, not wanting to see or repeat what just happened to Vren. Eir grabs his arm forcing him to turn around. "Wait, look! Something is happening."
It seemed to Roork as if a bubble had risen on the surface of that sea of putrid brown and grey. Slowly at first but with increasing speed it begun to move and grind a zigzag path through the 'sea' of bodies. "Holy Molly!" someone squeaks and Roork has to agree that seeing but a one man just carving his way through thousands is as terrifying as its elating. The fleeing soldiers stop their retreat and one by one stop and turn, and they're turning back to fight. They were rallying. Rallying behind the one man who alone would dare to face the gibbering hordes of the Badoon Zoms.
"Well boys. You wanted to get some payback on the lizards." Roork says hoisting his gun to signal them forward with a grin. His group wouldn't be facing these new Zoms, their job would be to strike and eliminate their leaders.
Roork tried his best to ignore the combined putrid stench of coppery blood and rotting flesh now hanging over the battlefield. A gun went off somewhere in the background. He tried not to wince every time it happened despite knowing what the sound meant. He stepped gingerly between mutilated bodies to avoid stepping on any spilt entrails making his way towards the brown robed figure sitting still at the middle of the carnage.
"You alright Vren?" He asks cautiously, unsure of the young man's current mental state. Vren turns to scowl at Roork his golden eyes burning bright like twin suns from under the deep hood. Vren blinks his eyes causing the twin suns to flicker nervously before answering. "No, not really. Those poor creatures -they're not truly dead you know. I-I could feel their minds, feel their gratitude, gratitude for the end to their pain. How could anyone do this to another being? Force them to exist between life and death like this." Roork gazed at the thousands that Vren had hacked to pieces with his ray sword that were laying around them on the grass and suppressed a shiver. "Because our enemy has no regard for lives other than their own." He finally replies. And it's not for the first nor the last time for him ponder the meaningfulness of it all, both life and death.
Poor Trey, barely old enough to go to school and already forced to take the tasks which most adults couldn't have handled. His father, whom he'd barely even known to exist only a few weeks earlier, was leaning boneless against his seat harness and likely unconscious. He didn't know what was wrong with his daddy and it scared him, scared him almost even more than the explosions getting closer to hit them with every salvo that rocked the small spacecraft or the fate of his mommy and baby brothers. Perhaps it was a good thing that Trey was too young to even imagine all the bad things that realistically could've happened to her and his brothers. He missed them, he missed home and his friends. He just wanted to go home and felt a tear leak from his eyes. He tried to wipe it but forgot that his helmet's visor was in the way. He had to let it irate. He wished he was bigger, so he could properly see outside and get a better idea of what was happening and where they were going. He hoped he was doing good with avoiding the explosions by trying to steer the ship this way and that while still going relatively straight line towards the bluish marble closing in slowly, though the ship seemed to respond differently from what it had when daddy had let him fly a bit.
It took Trey a minute or two to realize that the big ball they were heading to was a planet. Another shot rocked the ship and this time even Trey knew it was a bad hit.
Malfunction. Autopilot disengaging. Pilot attention required.
The feminine voice announced but Trey had no idea what it had just said -the ship's computer used Xandarian. He only realized that the controls were suddenly his because the ship started to spin wildly around its axis until he clutched the controls and closed his eyes for a second to recall how daddy had shown him what to do if it happened and the ship righted, if barely.
Had Rocket been conscious he could have told Trey that the Badoon likely wanted them alive for questioning and had in fact forced their ship to land but Trey had no knowledge of such things and blithely assumed that they'd given up on the chase since they were no longer being fired upon and did as he'd been taught when certain symbols appeared on the screen in front of him, in order to have their ship automatically home in and land on preset coordinates.
Trey was terrified. Their ruined ship was on fire and had been almost from the minute they'd successfully crash landed.
A group of lizard men had been waiting and snatched them out of the burning ship. They'd poked his daddy but figured to deal with him later because he was still unconscious. The Badoon had slammed him down to lay against a tree base, momentarily forgotten while concentrating on Trey since he was not unconscious. Trey would have tried to run if his legs hadn't been injured. At best he could only crawl. This seemed to amuse the Badoon greatly.
" Zoook bak reee!" One of them said poking at Trey with his weapon and barked something to its two fellows and they all croaked heartily together. Trey assumed it was them laughing. He tried his best to suppress his whelps and wished he'd had a gun too, but mommy had been strict with not letting him or his brothers near them.
"Zoook bak joorde?" One of the lizards barked and another one raised its gun at Trey, ready to shoot him. "Bgaak ur Joorde? drook glooo igbuoo gjaak oo." The one on the right harrumphed in response. Trey tried to crawl away. The gun made a small whining noise as it spooled, and Trey closed his eyes whimpering in terror.
Rocket felt himself wake when hitting against something hard. He was still aching, but the episodic pain had ebbed for now. He blinked trying to get an idea of what was happening. "Zoook bak reee!" let's make the little shit dance! someone yelled in the guttural Badoon and he could hear through his helmet intercom that Trey was crying. he wanted to kill his son's tormentors -with bare hands if necessary.
He felt his guns in their holsters at his side. Good thing the fuckers hadn't thought of taking them away yet.
" Zoook bak joorde?" How about making a slave out of it? One of them was asking next and Rocket took his pistol into both of his trembling paws to keep it steady.
"Bgaak ur Joorde? drook glooo igbuoo gjaak oo." What for? it's a broken slave. Just kill it already so we can eat. I'm starving here.
Rocket raised his gun and shot the one threatening his son with a gun first -through the back of its head. The Badoon's companions turned to look at Rocket but before they could react again he'd shot the one at his right after shooting it twice -first in the arm and them in the lower torso. The one at his left dashed behind a tree and went on doing blind potshots at Rocket which went off by a mile because he was so short. Rocket responded by shooting the whole clip until he finally managed to steady his aim enough to actually shoot the Badoon's kneecap off that was peeking out from behind the tree trunk, forcing him to fall more into open at which point it was easy for Rocket to put his last plasma rounds through its body.
Rocket let his gun hand drop. His vision was swimming again, but he knew he'd need to get up. They couldn't stay here. The Badoon would send a larger group once these three would be noticed missing.
He staggered but eventually rose up by leaning against the tree for support.
"Son, you all right. They didn't hurt you, did they?" He asks through the helmet intercom.
"No daddy. I'm fine." Trey lies bravely and starts crawling on his belly towards his father. Rocket sighed inwardly. His son may be physically fine but mentally... No kit should be forced through this mangle they'd been at. He meets his son at halfway and lifts his and his son's helmet visors up to touch his nose with his son's as a sign of affection and scoops his son to sit at his shoulder. Rocket could walk faster even when barely functioning and burdened with Trey on his shoulders in comparison to having his kit using crutches.
It would be morning soon and the smoke from the burning ship would be seen for miles. They'd have maybe half an hour left to run as far as they could from the crash site. No time and not much point to salvage anything from the wreck except a plasma riffle and ammunition from the dead Badoons.
Rocket's legs were just burning after the ten-mile hike but he had had an idea where they were going all along. Just a few more miles and they should be arriving to where he was originally supposed to land when he'd came to Procyon-6. He sagged a little and finally dropped onto his knees to catch his breath. Their goal, a radio station that hosted a giant radio telescope -one of the largest in the planet. Its masts were already peeking from behind the tree line. He gulps for air. "Think you can do just a few more miles son?"
"Okay, daddy" the kit replies passively. Trey might have just sat on Rocket's shoulders the whole way, but he still felt as tired as he'd been if he'd walked the distance himself. At least they had air-conditioned suits on to make the sweltering midday heat bearable.
That the station was bombed and ruined was no surprise to Rocket who knew how the Badoon operated. Though the giant concrete disc on the ground had bomb holes through it, the station itself was intact enough to offer them enough shelter for the day. Rocket practically drops Trey on the ground once they're inside and sags against the bare concrete walls to find spot to lay down for the time being. He reaches his hand out to remove the medicine case from his left thigh. Even in the dim light of the interior there was no mistaking about how much his hands were trembling. Luckily the ampoules and the dispenser inside the case were still intact.
His hands were shaking enough to turn even the simplest of task of pulling up a sleeve and filling an automated syringe into an exercise in marksmanship. His whole body shook so badly now but he needed a shot. Needed the shot to stop the tremors. Again, the syringe dropped from his trembling hands and the ampoule followed. He watched it roll across the concrete floor to a stop against a chair leg. He looked at his trembling paws and felt so useless. How could he keep his son safe if he couldn't even medicate himself anymore? He buried his face into his arms. He wouldn't cry, wouldn't ask help, it was not how he'd been conditioned to behave. A tiny paw grabbed his arm pulling him to look at his son. Trey said nothing but in his eyes was compassion, no pity or obligation just compassion. He silently offered the phial to his father who took it equally wordless and again tried to place it into syringe but this time tiny child's paws grabbed the larger adult's paws, steadied and guided them just enough for him to draw the needed amount and then helped him to hit the vein in his arm. Relief surged through him. He felt himself sliding down against the wall and to lay on the hard floor. It didn't matter, it wasn't important, the pain was gone, the muscle tremors were gone -for now.