Chapter 105 – Best Laid Plans
"I don't hear his engine." Breeze whispered as Rainbow Dash settled back into her cockpit.
"Good, I don't want to deal with him right now." she said.
"Why?" the unicorn asked as she slowly pulled out from her hiding spot.
"I don't feel like we're ready for him just yet." she admitted, "Plus, he has Sselekk's old shield. If he's as good as Sselekk says he is, then we're going to have to be ready."
"He may not give us a choice you know." Breeze admitted.
"Yeah, I get it." Rainbow agreed, "But for now, let's just focus on securing as many points as we can without getting spotted."
"Ok, I'll keep my eyes open." he said and turned his pedestal.
"Look," she said after a bout of silence, "I get it. He's dangerous and smart. You want to take him out of the race as fast as you can to keep our friends safe." Breeze turned his eyes down to the floor in both thought and a bit of disappointment, "But we can't just jump in. We took Mirikka out of the picture by luck, you had just enough left over to take out her engine. But just barely. I don't like running and hiding like this, but I don't really see any other option right now, do you?" Her special somepony began by opening his mouth, but she interrupted him, "Realistically speaking?"
He sighed, letting his frustration turn to disappointment, "No." he said.
She sighed, just like he did, "I'm sorry." she said, "He scares me." Breeze looked up at her picture on the screen, "He scares me a lot. It's like I can feel his intentions. There's just something there that just unsettles me."
'Bloodlust.' Breeze thought to himself, instantly recognizing what she was talking about, 'It's her first time feeling that directed at her specifically.'
"So, do you mind if we try and avoid him until we're ready?" Rainbow asked.
He sighed, and smiled, "I don't mind at all." he said, "I just hope the others are ok."
"Me too." the pegasus said in response.
Syls, on the other hand, traversed a narrow street that looked like it was a housing district. The buildings were close together for the most part, and several looked to be two or more stories high. Throughout the history they traveled through, she couldn't help but look from side to side in nervousness, "Get a load of this place." she said in mock amazement, her nerves fraying as she traversed. "It's ancient." Her gunner, Tris, glanced around nervously. An uneasy feeling settled in the back of her mind. "You ok?" Syls asked.
"I get the feeling we're being watched." the taller Dryskian said as she continued to look around.
"Relax." Syls said, though she too felt a bit of unease, "It's just the tight streets we have to traverse." she said this more to convince herself, "Yeah, just a bit of claustrophobia. Nothing to worry about." The two continued their vigilance, never once spying the small drone, one shaped like a Sunik ship, following above them.
"Are you sure brother?" Chivalry asked as Honor lowered another doll down to her, they had discovered three dolls as of now in quick succession, and just now secured the last of them.
"Most definitely." he said as she gently laid the doll on her gunner floor. He then turned to a large pile of rubble, and focused, "I know you're there. Come out and we can talk."
From behind the pile, a smaller Sunik ship emerged and slowly came to them. Once a short distance away, it lowered itself to the ground and opened the front cockpit shield before a female Sunik lept from the ship, and landed gracefully on the ground in front of him. "How did you know I was there?" she asked, a calming flat tone to her voice.
"I could feel the battle you waged in your mind." he said, "Though what the choices are, I know not." she glared at him at first, and looked confused at the second part. "I tend to respect the mental privacy of others."
"I see." she said, "I am at odds with myself. On one claw, I am in competition with you and wish to honor the code of the race." She then turned to a darker tone of voice, "On the other, I am tasked to win this race at all cost for the glory of the emperor, and am ordered to remove you from the races."
"What does your heart tell you?" Chivalry asked, catching the female Sunik off guard, her stern demeanor faltered, and made way for a look of shock.
"My apologies." Honor said, "My sister asks that of everyone that has turmoil in their minds. She believes that the answer to our deepest problems lies in the feelings we have."
"And?" the Sunik woman asked, "Is it?"
"She is not wrong." he admitted after a pause of hesitation, "But not all problems can be solved by looking inward."
The Sunik woman looked down, pondering the idea. "I suppose mine can." she said quietly and bowed to him, "Your sister is wise." she said, "My name is Ssalikka of the Sunik Generals."
"I figured you were one of the generals." Honor said slightly defensively, "What is it you were tasked to do specifically?"
"One of my comrades has planned to remove our three biggest competitors; you, your pony friends, and the Dryskian team, in one fell swoop." she explained, "But I feel my part as of now would violate the sanctity of the race."
"So, you wish to challenge us one on one in order to settle both sides of your warring mind?" Honor asked.
"I thought you respected the privacy of another's personal thinking?" she reprimanded.
"I need not read your mind to know what your demeanor shouts so loudly." he retorted, "I wish to honor your request for one-on-one." She smiled genuinely, "Eventually." he added. getting her to look to him in confusion.
"You see, we do not agree with the plot your emperor's chosen have put into place." Chivalry added in. When she saw the deepening confusion on the Sunik's face, she sighed, "You do not know." she realized, "You emperor has not made a true decision in quite some time. It is his chosen council that has been directing fate from the shadows."
"You lie." Ssalikka said as her anger grew.
"I mean not to insult you or your loyalty." Chivalry said calmly, "I wish only to enlighten you. What you do with this enlightenment is now up to you. Have a good day." With that, Honor levitated himself into the cockpit from his perch on the back of his ship, the two of them leaving the Sunik woman to think.
"How dare they." she said to herself as her anger grew steadily.
"Do you think it was wise to say that to her?" Honor asked his sister.
"She needs to know what Spike has told us." she said, "Only then can she make a true choice of right and wrong."
"The emperor wouldn't just sit back and let his viziers do anything they want, it has to be a hoax." she told herself as she tightened her fist, "A lie!"
Rainbow Dash quickly dashed through the next gate, the two ponies giggling to themselves as they did, "Going to the next zone ahead of them was a great idea." Breeze said, "While everypony is searching the first zone, we'll have the second all to ourselves."
"See." she said with pride, "I can come up with good plans once in a while."
"And look." her gunner said, "There's a doll right next to the gate." She slowed down, allowing Breeze to slip out of his gunner room, and with a few air flashes, retrieve the doll. Got it." he told her triumphantly.
Rainbow smiled and then cringed as her ship tilted from something striking her shields. "What the…?" she asked as she turned her head to look at what was shooting her. The large Sunik ship sat at a distance away, the bolts sailing at a rapid pace toward her. Breeze reacted instantly, quickly turning, and using his own bolts to intercept the others. All the two of them could hear was the pilot's bloodthirsty laughter. Rainbow turned her machine to face their assailant and bit down on the trigger in front of her. She knew the blast went off, she could see the flash of light. So why hadn't the shield shattered like it used to? The blasts from Kkelmar's ship stopped, and his laughter faded into a menacing chuckle.
"Looks like the Egghead was right." the Sunik pilot teased, "Even if I'm just barely outside of the range of that thing, it can't touch me."
'Range!' Rainbow thought in recognition, he was at a distance on purpose, and she only had one more shot with the Mass Stun Pulse Canon now. She had wasted a shot out of desperation.
He clicked his tongue against his lips, mocking concern for her, "Aw, did you waste your strongest weapon?" His tone turned back to snarling, "All I need to do, is stay this far away from you, and you can't touch me."
"Oh yeah?" she asked as her anger flared, and she pushed her throttles forward, trying to catch him off guard. Instead, he pushed forward as well, angling himself to the right of her ship. The two of them traded places almost instantly, and Rainbow was centimeters away from once again biting the trigger, luckily she hadn't, she had caught his trick just in time. Instead, she looked down at her shield charge, seeing only a few hist left, "What?" she asked herself.
"Sorry R.D." Breeze said, "His guns are lower than mine, I don't have the right angle. I can't stop them when he gets that close."
It was then she realized the strategy of the Sunik, and he laughed, "GET IT YET?" he gloated in glee, "I've got an invincible shield, and a strategy that keeps you from using your best weapon on me, you may have saved that second shot, but you'll slip up one of these times. Even if you don't, your ship won't survive another pass like that." Kkelmar once again laughed, letting his own bloodthirstiness echo in the reverberation of it, "IT'S OVER FOR YOU, AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!"