Chapter 54: Break Out.
The sounds of the oncoming heavy footfalls boomed loudly in the metal corridor outside the door of the main computer room was incredible, it sounded like a symphony of metal drums all being played at the same time in a tight space causing a continual wash of overlapping echoes.
This combined with the noise from the alarms made it severely disorientating it also meant that they barely heard the voices coming towards them ahead of the footsteps, "How may I be of assistance?" was one statement that cut through.
"You are not supposed to be here" was another and Xao paled and looked at Jay who had all of his weapons trained on the door.
"It's the Working Joe's!" Xao said and Jay glanced at him.
"Wait isn't that a good thing? Aren't they controlled by you guys?" Jay said about a second before a massive metallic boom sounded from the door as something heavy was slammed into it with some serious force.
"I think whoever hacked the system and rigged that trap in the server core has compromised the Joe's!" Xao exclaimed.
"Fucking great, how many of them have you got on board?" Jay asked as something else was slammed into the heavy blast style door, it sounded like they were hitting it with hammers or other types of tools and by the loud scraping noises, they were trying their hardest to pry it open.
"Quite a few thousand, their purpose was to run the ship while everyone in was in cryosleep, then they would be the ones to do the majority of the heavy lifting in building the buildings of the colony freeing the human engineers up to do the more important tasks, so yeah we got quite a lot of them on board," Xao said sounding kinda forlorn now.
"Pauking great" Jay said.
Suddenly his comms sparked up, "Jay! Come in, Jay!" Commander Proudheart's voice came through his headset and Jay could already hear the anxiety in his voice.
"Go ahead commander," Jay said pressing the comms PTT mounted on the grip of his rifle so that he didn't have to take his hands off the weapon.
"We're under attack here, the androids have gone crazy, we've managed to lock down the bridge but they are trying their pauking hardest to get in here, you need to get into cover or back to the ship before they find you, over," the commander said.
"Too late for that commander, they got us trapped in the main computer room, seems these fuckers rigged some kind of trap into the system so that as soon as we removed the backup black box it triggered all this though I think it would have gone off no matter what we removed, so yeah now they are outside and banging on the door and we're trapped in here, any ideas? Over" Jay said.
"Pauk, ok we're going to try and make our way back to..." the commander began but he was cut off by a massive explosion that shook the whole ship.
"What the pauk was that!?" the commander yelled in the comms.
"No idea, hang on I'll try to use the Sweepers to find out, over," Jay said as the idea occurred to him.
"Good idea, the pauking cameras up here are down along with everything else, over," the commander said.
Jay quickly opened the control systems for the Sweepers and he set them loose again before hooking into the controls of one of them manually which overlayed the camera feed from the little high-speed drone into his HUD.
As it switched over to its thermal vision instantly Jay could see a mass of humanoid bodies directly below it as it clung to the ceiling as the Sweepers were programmed to go into CCTV mode after they had completed their initial sweep, so they would locate a viable spot and lock onto the wall or ceiling, this time it was hanging onto the ceiling of a corridor near the engine room.
"Holy shit they are fucking everywhere" Jay exclaimed as he panned the Sweeper's camera around to look about it, the Working Joe's were reaching up and trying to grab at it and also swinging various tools at it trying to hit it off the ceiling.
Rather than fly Jay decided to walk the Sweeper along with the ceiling as thanks to its magnet tipped legs it was able to stick to any metallic surface, it scuttled along like a large metallic spider giving him a view down the corridor as he moved it towards the engine room, that's when he saw not only the source of the explosion but also something that froze his heart and made him reach for his PTT.
"Commander we have to get off this ship right pauking now!" Jay exclaimed the panic in his voice very very evident.
"Calm down Jay and tell me what you see, over" the commander came back to him.
"That explosion we felt, yeah that was the Working Joe's blowing themselves up with something in order to get the engine room doors open, they are going to detonate the engines, if we don't get off this ship right now we are all going to be a very large cloud of floating vapour, those engines are nuclear powered, if they manage to either blow the reactors or detonate the FTL, well yeah we are just gone, not even our armour can take that, over," Jay said feeling his heart hitting so hard in his chest it felt like it was beating out a rhythm on the inside of his armour.
"Oh pauk! Ok, roger that, there's no way we can fight through all of them in time to reach them, whatever you do find a way back to the ship! We are using the vents, so get moving Jay! Over and out" the commander said.
"The vents! Of Course! Xao help me find the cooling vent access, there has to be one in here" Jay exclaimed as the pounding and scraping on the door intensified.
The pair of them began scrambling around the small hexagonal room searching in-between the old-style computer panels and banks, "Here!" Xao exclaimed and pointed up at the ceiling in the corner.
Tucked up into the corner was a heavy metal grate that had been bolted into the ceiling, "It's bolted in we're going to need to cut them out" Jay said and he quickly opened his toolbox and took out a small plasma cutting torch designed for cutting through bulkheads and door locks.
Reaching up Jay realized he couldn't reach the vent properly so he clambered up and jammed his boots into the gaps between machines and boosted himself up balancing himself precariously as he began cutting through the metal, rather than just cut the bolts he cut the seams out to ensure that he'd be able to fit his shoulders inside the gap.
As he was cutting there was a massive banging followed by a gut-wrenching metallic screech causing them both to turn just in time to see the arm of one of the Working Joe's poking through a small freshly smashed hole.
"Hurry Jay! They're breaking through!" Xao yelled sounding panicked.
Jay tried to focus on his cutting but the lines were not exactly straight as every hard smash of his heart against his ribs made his hands shake and Xao yelling was not helping in the slightest and just as the metal grate fell away there was a loud metallic grinding screech.
He whirled around just in time to see the Joe's fighting to wrench the door open from the outside all while still repeating the same preprogrammed lines over and over again, "Xao go! Climb! I'll hold them here!" Jay yelled snapping his rifle into the aim and spinning up his casters, he exhaled a soft breath and squeezed the trigger.
All three of Jay's weapons opened up at the same time unleashing a glowing plasma barrage on the doorway, the plasma rounds melted right through the arms that were reaching through the gradually widening door jamb cutting them clean off and leaving them flopping around on the floor like a fish yanked out of water minus half it's faced by an overzealous Yautja girl who is trying to impress her perspective ooman with her hunting prowess.
But the loss of the limbs didn't seem to even slow them don let alone deter them in any way, "Fuck! Fuck! Pauk!" Jay yelled as he kept firing trying to shred as many as he could to block the doorway as the ones behind these front runners were jamming their white bleeding comrades into the gap like someone trying to force clay or plasticine through a mould.
"Jay! Get up here quickly!" Xao yelled from the vent and Jay spun on the spot and as he did the casters on his shoulders spun and carried on firing as he ran towards the open vent and began scrambling up the wall trying his hardest to hoist himself inside, his casters only just making it back into their hostlers as he dragged himself into the narrow passage.
"Pauking crawl! Go!" Jay yelled to Xao and as he watched the young man began to crawl for his life down the narrow metal shaft on his hands and knees.
The Working Joe's finally made it into the computer core and Jay could hear their voices echoing up the vent as well as the sound of them climbing over each other as they fought to get into the vent behind them before the booming of them crawling along behind them somewhere in the darkness drove them on.
As they were crawling they could hear both shooting and more explosions rocking the ship, followed by incredibly loud alarms ringing which indicated a fire onboard somewhere, "They must have hit the chemical fuel storage! If those fires spread they could blow the ship clean in two! We have to move!" Xao yelled and the pair crawled for their lives until they managed to reach a hatch that dropped them down into a storage room of some kind.
"Commander! Commander come in!" Jay yelled into his comms.
"Go ahead Jay!" commander Proudheart yelled back and by the firing, Jay could hear in the background they were involved in some seriously heavy fighting.
Jay peeked out of the door and found the corridor clear but the feed from his Sweepers were all showing Joe's were pouring into every corridor on the ship so it wasn't going to be long before they found them, the corridor between them and the docking hatch was jammed solid.
"I don't think we can make it back to the ship from here, there are just too many for us to fight through, I'm going to get Xao to the escape pods as they are closer, I'm not going to risk an unarmed civilian trying to fight through all of these psychotic androids, over," Jay said noticing the sign on the wall as he spoke and pointing it out to Xao as he spoke.
"Roger that Jay, get yourself into a pod and eject, we are nearly at the ship and we'll swing around and pick you up, just make sure you get clear of any potential blast zone in case they manage to detonate the engines, over and out," the commander said.
"Received and understood, over and out," Jay said.
"Come on let's get to the escape pods, my ship can grab us once we're clear," Jay said.
"But what about my sister!?" Xao yelled.
"My people will get her out Xao, don't worry about that, we're Saviours and this is what we do," he said trying to use his pride to calm his nerves.
"But I can't..." Xao began but Jay cut him off.
"You gonna fight through thousands of Joe's with that screwdriver?" he said sharply and Xao looked at the screwdriver he'd picked up from the storage closet and he could see that instantly shocked him back to reality.
"B-B-But..." he began but once again Jay got there first.
"Don't worry my people will take care of her I swear, but right now you are my responsibility, so let's go before I stun you, carry your arse down to the pods and jettison you" Jay said making Xao baulk but then nod in reluctant agreement, Jay really didn't like being the bad guy as he saw the flash of anger in Xao's eyes but he needed to keep the panicky man under control before he did something stupid and got them both or at the very least himself killed.
So with the lights flashing drenching the corridor's metal walls with blood-red lights and alarms blaring echoing off every surface the pair ran for their lives, Jay was on point with his weapon in the shoulder and his plasma casters spinning, they had only gone about twenty yards when they saw the first Joe, infact it saw them first lunging at Jay from behind a cabinet while yelling "You're not supposed to be here!"
It came at Jay so quickly that he had zero time to react, it grabbed his gun and thanks to its incredible strength was able to wrench it from his hands but the moment it did the anti-theft device within the rifle kicked in and it sent a high voltage shock through the android which was far more damaging to the mechanical humanoid than it would have been to a biological being as it was just designed to stun them, but to the mechanical man, it sent it crazy by overloading all of its circuits.
All of its limbs began spazing out and its head began to spin on its neck while sparks shot from both its mouth and ears before there was a loud pop from its head and it just froze as smoke began to pour from its ears.
Both Jay and Xao stood there and stared for a moment as the shock over what had just happened hit them and Jay snatched his rifle back from the now mannequin-like body of the working Joe and Jay felt really weird looking into the now dark eyes of the android and he just couldn't get over how very different these androids were from the ones now living in the Clan, they looked like they were made out of wax or plasticine.
The sounds of rapidly booming footfalls echoing off the metal walls getting closer snapped him out of the shock trance he'd gone into, "Go! Go! GO!" Jay yelled and both he and Xao turned and ran down the corridor only encountering two more of the androids though both fell under a torrent of plasma fire from Jay's weapons before they got anywhere close to either of them.
Xao smashed his hand against the scanner to open the door to escape pods, the mechanism beeped and began scanning his hand and Jay turned on the spot with his weapon in his shoulder as he could hear the footfalls getting closer by the second.
"Hurry up Xao!" Jay yelled as the first Joe rounded the corner and Jay opened fire on it blowing its head in half with his first shot from his rifle before his caster sent it spinning down the corridor in a slow cartwheel that knocked flat a few more that were rounding the corner.
"I'm going as fast as I can! This fucking thing is slow as fuck without the master computer!" Xao yelled back as Jay kept firing continually as more and more kept coming around the corner.
Finally, there was a loud series of beeps from the door and it slid to one side with a hiss, "It opens we're in!" Xao yelled and Jay had to force himself to remain facing the Joe's and not just turn and run for it, so he could keep firing at them.
He very nearly tripped on the doorframe as he stepped through before smashing the door close button with the butt of his rifle, it slid shut just in time before they reached it with Jay's weapons keeping them at bay.
Jay quickly shot the lock melting it shut so that they couldn't force it open quickly or at least not quick enough to stop them ejecting from the ship, Jay turned and saw the series of tubes with what looked like a giant torpedo with a glass front jammed into it.
"These are just one person escape pods, they are designed to seek out a nearby M class planet or anything with an atmosphere, if there is nothing in range it will put the occupant into cryosleep and head for anything it has in the database that's close by, its nuclear powered so it will last for a very very long time," Xao said.
"Alright get in, it will head for the planet most likely but our ship should be able to pick us up before we get anywhere close but if we do enter atmo they grab us from the ground, just stay with the pod and don't wander off, we don't know anything about the local fauna yet we never got a chance to scan it properly," Jay said.
"Planet? What planet?" Xao asked.
"The one outside the ship, we're in a high orbit," Jay said before a massive boom on the door cut him off and the pair glanced back at the door.
"Enough astrometry, eject now talk later," Jay said pushing Xao towards the pod helping him into a gel insert inside the pod and hit the launch cycle which closed the outer glass and fired the pod containing Xao out of the tube-like a missile.
"Come in Jay we are at the ship and we're just prepping to launch, those stupid paukers are trying to break through the hatch, pauking hell those things are persistent though I think Kess'all had fun letting loose on them, I..." commander Proudheart began but he never got to finish his sentence because out of nowhere there was a massive roar and a wash of pressure and force that washed over him which cut off almost as instantly as it started and was followed by pure silence.
The first thing Jay's brain managed to figure out was that he was spinning and was surrounded by bright yellow, gold and red flames, it was like was swimming in a sea of liquid fire, this lasted for only a split second before he felt a massive force pulling on him and he was propelled forwards at incredible speed towards the open and vast empty blackness of space.
Jay's brain scrambled to try and figure out just what in the name of flying fuck was going on and that's when he got flipped over and got a very good look at the outside of the human ship and the giant hole in the hull where escape pods were kept along with another whole series of them along the hull all spewing flames and what looked like debris and bodies into space.
As Jay's brain caught up with what was happening his heart froze up, as he watched he saw a series of secondary blasts that caused the hull to swell upwards like balloons swelling beneath the surface before popping and spewing flames into the vacuum of black.
The Joe's must have managed to somehow ignite the thruster fuel pods and the lines that carried the liquid fuel through the ship to the various thrusters littered all over the hull for manoeuvring were carrying the fire through the entire ship causing blasts where it was pooled up.
He could also see a trail of the flame blasts heading right for the Spectre, the fear of what was happening right before his eyes snapped Jay out of his stupor, "Vessi get the ship out of there! There's fire coming pauking move!" Jay yelled into his comms but his warning came too little too late.
A massive blast that sent a massive shockwave out in every direction which tore the docking berth and the Spectre clean off the outer hull and sent it spinning towards the planet with debris smashing into it hard.
This blast also sent Jay spinning off into space along with the pod containing Xao, he also saw the debris smashing into the pod smashing its thruster assembly, Jay was panicking now, hard.
All he could see was stars spinning past his visor and the first thing he did was activate his armour's combat mode which dropped a series of metal plates over his visor and activated the 3D cameras mounted all around his helmet which gave him a full view of the world outside while also activating his high powered shields.
This as it turned out was a smart choice as he was buffeted by both debris and smaller blasts, quick as a flash he got onto the comms, "Commander! Vessi! Kess'all please come in! Can anyone hear me!" he yelled but there was only static and silence in response and that's when Jay knew it was time to enact the emergency protocols, it was time to call in the Clan.
"Mayday Mayday Mayday, to all Clan Mason vessels in range this Savior first-class Jay Mathers of the Runner class vessel Spectre, SOS I repeat SOS four operators in immediate danger of death along with two civilians, there has been an accident and an attack which has destroyed a human vessel named Exodus, I repeat Mayday Mayday Mayday, the ship is going down!" he yelled hitting the emergency beacon which would pulse the message along with his co-ordinates.
This is when Jay's training kicked royally in he knew that the nuclear-powered FTL drive hadn't detonated yet otherwise he'd be a cloud of vapour, so he had to get out of the area as fast as he could, so he immediately activated his armour's flight controls.
Jay spun on his axis to locate Xao's pod which he found spinning out of control towards the planet which without its thrusters to control its descent would either skip off or burn up in the planet's atmosphere, so activating his own thrusters in the flight pack attached to his back and legs he fired forwards and hit the pod at an angle to kill its spin.
The loud bang on the pod caused Xao to press against the glass and to look outside, Jay popped up in front of the glass and gave him a thumbs-up, now Jay knew that he really only had two options at this point, grab the pod and fly deeper into space to avoid the blast when the drive went up or head for the planet and use his own thrusters to slow it's decent and to soften it's landing.
Jay quickly did an evaluation and realizing he only had just over 48hrs of emergency air in the armour waiting in space was not an option, this meant he was going to need to try option B and this was a fucking long shot, to say the least, but in the words of Kess'all in the eyes of the Eternal Huntress and the Great Tree it is better to die saving an innocent life than to live with the guilt and shame of just saving your own.
So taking a deep breath of that precious air Jay grabbed the pood after activating his mag locks, then using his manoeuvring thrusters he turned the pod towards the planets before activating his flight rockets heading for the nearest landmass he could see.
The thruster rockets attached to the flight systems on his Saviour armour weren't exactly designed to haul around the weight of a massive torpedo-like survival pod with it but thanks to being in space without either gravity or air resistance they had no problem moving it, the problem would come when they entered the atmosphere where those things would come into play, getting it moving was the easy bit, stopping it would be where the real fun began.
While he was doing this Jay tried desperately to locate the Spectre and he finally found it just as it spun into the atmosphere streaking across the planet like a meteor, a giant flame tail was burning its wake.
"Commander! Please respond! Can anyone hear me!?" Jay yelled but there was no response and a small kernel of ice formed in his heart, now he knew that Saviors were tough as it got but they were not immortal, all he could do was pray to the Eternal Huntress and the Great Tree and to anyone else that was listening that his friends and comrades would be ok, right now he had his own problems and they weren't exactly small, well actually it was one problem really but it was big, blue and coming up fucking fast.
The pod and Jay hit the atmosphere with a bump and Jay's thrusters prevented them from skipping off allowing him to angle them downwards, the outer skin of his armour began to glow red then white as they punched through the atmosphere, thankfully the suit was designed to do atmosphere jumps and deployments so it could easily handle it, he could also see Xao's scared face looking up at him through the glass of the pod he was clamped onto, he had to do this he had to get them on the ground safely, he was a pauking Clan Mason Saviour and he was pauking well going to save this life even if it was just the one!
Finally, they punched through the atmosphere and Jay's wings deployed to allow him to fly or rather glide down but carrying the weight of the pod it was about as useful as sticking a pair of insect wings onto an aeroplane and then launching it.
All Jay could do was fire his thrusters as hard as he could and use them to scrub as much speed as he could before they impacted the ground, now while the wings on his back might be enough to actually make them fly or even glide really they did help to steer, this allowed Jay to steer the pod away from a huge patch of water, now most people would think that hitting the water would be a far softer landing than hitting the ground, now this is wrong for two reasons, one at terminal velocity water is harder than concrete and two, even if you do survive the initial impact if the pod is bucked up and breached you are going to have to deal with the fear of your pod sinking and filling up with water before you inevitably drown all while trapped in your ready-made metal coffin.
So with those reasons in mind, it's better to try as hard as you could to find soft style ground like that found in a jungle or tilled farmland, hell even a boggy ground would do in a pinch as it could absorb a lot of the impact force and dissipate it.
The best Jay could do was what looked like a truly giant forest below them, "Oh fuck this is going to fucking hurt isn't it?' Jay exclaimed to himself as he saw the trees getting bigger and bigger ahead of them, he quickly activated the emergency landing protocol.
The casters on Jay's shoulders powered up and aligned themselves before launching shot after shot ahead of them aimed at the massive branches in their path but even firing on their full auto mode they couldn't keep with the sheer volume of wood in their way.
The first impact jarred Jay's bones but his magnets held fast as he tucked in as low as he could letting the pod take the impacts of what his casters missed but it wasn't long before they started hitting him too, his shields pulsed hard as each jarring impact depleted some of their charge before finally they broke setting alarms off inside his suit and showing a picture of it on his HUD and the branches started colliding with him directly.
All Jay could do was tuck his head in like a turtle flipped on its back with its stomach armour peeled away, he felt and head as both of his casters were smashed away as both impacts hit him over the back of his head and silently thanked the Eternal Huntress and the science hive for this armour and its strength, but it wasn't enough.
The pod hit the ground hard and sent them bouncing along the ground and Jay released his magnetic locks because if this pod rolled over he'd be crushed under its weight, so as was inevitable he was pitched clear the next time it hit a bump during its slide sending him crashing through the lower branches of the trees before slamming hard back into the ground where thanks to his forethought to tuck his arms and legs into a ball be bounced along the ground sending impact after impact right through his bones and muscles, till finally it all just stopped and everything went quiet and black.
The first thing Jay became aware of was a high pitched whining noise that was ringing in ears, his whole body suddenly seemed to remember that it felt like it was on fire and instantly let Jay know about it, he groaned loudly and instantly noticed that he couldn't see anything and a pulse of fear that he'd gone blind sent a shot of adrenaline through him waking all of his senses up like he'd just been plugged into the mains.
He sat bolt upright with a loud gasp of breath and he began turning his head to try and look around himself and it took him at least ten seconds to realise that the cameras were smashed on his helmet and with the plates down over his visor he was effectively blind.
Jay tried to bring up his HUD display and when it finally appeared it was flickering badly, "Armour compromised, shielding destroyed, life support systems destroyed, onboard weapon system destroyed but the battle rifle is green and operational, power systems damaged and failing, ejecting from user to prevent loss of life, goodbye Saviour and good luck Eternal Huntress look after you" the voice of his armour's OS said before there was a series of clicks and hisses and the whole thing simply just fell apart releasing him from it in the process.
This left Jay sitting in the dirt looking around himself and squinting in the bright sunlight, infact this was just in time to catch a massive flash far above him, this was swiftly followed by a dull and muted roar as the FTL drive finally detonated in the upper atmosphere.
Jay shielded his eyes and looked down, when he was able to look back up all the clouds were gone leaving behind in their wake an impossibly clear and bright blue and purple sky with what looked like a second sun visible only for a few brief moments before it winked out of existence.
A sudden dull banging noise snapped Jay back to his senses and he quickly began looking around himself, he was sat in a massive pile of dirt and leaf litter that his slide along the ground had kicked up and piled under him, a few yards off to his left he saw the escape pod still amazingly in one piece up against a large tree.
Jay scrambled to his feet unsteadily and then limped his way over to the pod but not before collecting his rifle from the scattered pile of his destroyed armour which left him only dressed in his undersuit and somehow the metal boots from his armour along with his wrist comp which looked to be in one piece somehow.
As he reached the pod he could see Xao alive and well inside the pod pounding his fists against the inside of the glass and instantly breathed a sigh of pure relief, he'd achieved his goal, he'd saved an innocent life, now all he had to do was to get him out of the pod.
As soon as he saw him Xao looked relieved and a smile broke out on his face one that Jay himself felt spreading across his own face, "Hold on I'm going to get you out of there" Jay yelled loud enough for Xao to hear him through the thick reinforced glass.
Looking around the side of the pod Jay located a control panel and he quickly pried it loose to look for the controls protected underneath it, now it looked like the suit's power systems were toast but thankfully there was a manual crank handle, he quickly began to crank the handle until with a loud pop the glass popped off and flew away landing with a thump a few feet away.
Xao was out of the pod-like a Jack in the box, he literally threw his arms around Jay and held onto him tightly, "You saved my life! Holy shit when that blast fucked up my pod I thought I was a goner, I thought I was going to suffocate to death in that metal coffin in fucking space but then you just show up like a fucking blue Angel and pull my arse out of the fire, thank you so so much Jay" Xao said and Jay hugged him back though for him it was more out of being thankful for just being alive himself.
'You're welcome Xao" he said softly.
Once the young Asian man let him go they both looked around, "So where the hell are we? And where is your ship?" Xao asked and jay felt his heart sink again.
"I don't know Xao, I saw them get blown off the hull and into the atmosphere, so I think it crashed, I know your sister and the rest of my team were on board because they called me as it happened, the good news is that the Spectre is a supremely tough little ship, all Clan Mason ships are built tough as nails so if we managed to survive this with just a suit of armour and an escape pod there is no reason that they didn't survive as well, add on top of that Vessi is one of the best pilots in the Clan if anyone could have put them on the ground so that they can walk away from it its her, so don't you worry Xao i know they will be ok and i sent out an SOS just before we hit the atmo so with a bit of luck our mother ship will pick it up and come to our rescue, in a day or two that it takes for the signal to travel the distance to them, you'll see pretty soon we'll have Clan Mason drop pods coming down through the sky like a meteor storm, we do not leave our people behind or in peril, its part of being Clan Mason, we fight to the death not for glory but for one another" Jay said passionately.
Xao still looked a little fearful but he nodded before looking around the forest around them filled with trees so big they looked like they were trying to touch the dun directly, "So now what?" he asked and Jay rubbed his chin.
"We find shelter, gather resources and then we try to figure out if we can reach the Spectre or we wait for rescue, though to be fair I'm a Saviour so possible or not I will still try to make it to my people, it's my sworn duty so most likely I'll be heading out as soon as is possible," Jay said and Xao nodded.
"I'll be right behind you, my sister is on that ship of yours and if there is one chance in a billion we can reach them I'm coming," he said.
'Well alright then, well let's find cover before night sets in and we can plan this from there" Jay said to which Xao nodded and the pair took one last look at the crash site for anything useful that had survived the impact before they set off deeper into the forest with Jay on point weapon at the ready.