A/N: Sorry about the delay, everybody! I've been super busy with college over the past year, and haven't had much time to myself to write. But now I'm off for the summer, and I'll have much more time to myself! I'm also currently working on a surprise regarding this fanfiction, and I plan to release it with the next chapter!

With that, please enjoy the longest chapter so far!

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ZURKIE'S GASTROPUB,

SCARSTU DEBRIS FIELD,

PRESENT DAY.

As Daniel exits Zurkie's Gastropub through the exit teleporter, and emerges outside into the surrounding void of space carrying the repaired central processing module in his left hand, he walks past Ms. Zurkon and bids her farewell, and thanks her again for the ammunition she sold him for his Holo-weapons on his way in. The jade robot returns the farewell with a warm 'You're very welcome, hon!', and a wave from her pincer-like hand.

As he continues walking down the ramp leading to the ship landing port, Daniel sees a medium-sized Pirate ship similar to the ones he encountered on Torren IV the previous day, that wasn't there on his way in, hovering above a far landing platform. He spies a few Pirates on board the ship's deck, seemingly busy with various jobs on board.

With his helmet display's magnifier, he easily sees that the Pirates were subtly watching him. Daniel feels a sense of unease and quickly passes the Central Processing Module over to his right hand, as he recalls Rivet's warning that they plan to ambush him. His left hand twitches, ready to clench at a moment's notice to activate the time displacing device imbedded within it. The 'Time Shift', as he recently named it.

Earlier that morning, he and BT did multiple tests and discovered many things about the Time Shift's capabilities, some of which would be quite useful in the future. (If he lived long enough to make use of it.)

They discovered that Daniel could no longer simply Phase Shift out of danger like he could before. Though, the trade-off of being able to bend time to his will seemed more than fair. There was also seemingly no limit to how long the Time Shift could remain active, if the steady decrease in his body temperature was to be ignored.

His choice in clothing, or any kind of external heat source for that matter, had no effect on the practical length of time he could keep the Time Shift active, before he would begin to feel the negative effects of hypothermia. Though, both would affect how long it would take for his body temperature to recover, meaning he would be able to use it more frequently on warm planets, like Torren IV for example.

And finally, if he were to fire any kind of gun while it was active, the round would still travel at a considerable speed, but would be slow enough for Daniel to possibly dodge incoming fire. And no, the Time Shift unfortunately did not work alongside BT when he was inside the Titan's cockpit and linked to him, like Major Anderson's time travel device did. BT hypothesised that this was likely due to the massive difference in mass between them both, and that it might be possible to share its effects with something, or possibly someone closer to Daniel's mass.

Back when Daniel helped out that waitress, the entire ordeal was over in a blink of an eye, to anyone who happened to see it. To him, with time slowed to a crawl, it took about a quarter of a minute to calmly collect the near-frozen glasses from the air and return them to their tray, and then use his other hand to quickly deactivate his Time Shift and catch her mid-slip.

Despite the good deed, Daniel knew that he had been unwise – no, borderline stupid to activate the Time Shift in front of so many people, even if it was a simple heat-of-the-moment impulse. And judging from the shocked look on Rivet's face, she had definitely witnessed the kind of power it granted him at the mere clench of his fist.

Then again, luck must've been on his side, as it seemed that she was the only person in the pub who actually noticed, which was aided by the fact that the place was nowhere near as crowded as it was the last time he was there. He had no doubt she would have more questions to ask him in the future. Though, she was probably just being curious.

As he gets closer to his ship, the Commando presses his fingers to his helmet radio. "BT, we might have trouble. Get the ship ready for take-off." He orders "And be ready to cover me if those Pirates try anything." He adds, as he continues through the landing port, passing by several aliens refuelling their ships, chatting to one another about current events, or evacuating the contents of their stomach after having too much to drink in one isolated case.

"Copy that, Pilot." BT responds monotonously.

As Daniel walks past yet another ship, he takes a wide berth around it, just in case there were any Pirates ready to jump out with swords and pistols drawn. Another ten or so paces later, he finds himself walking down the ramp leading towards his Crow, which was already hovering in place above the platform, ready for take-off.

The Militia dropship's side door slides open with a hiss, and Daniel quickly jumps inside, after doing a quick double take at the Pirates' ship, and seeing that strangely enough, none of the cannons were being manned and aimed towards him like he expected.

"BT, get us out of here, now!" Daniel barks, quickly strapping himself into one of the troop seats while holding the module tightly to his chest, having no intention of sticking around any longer. The side door promptly slides shut and the Crow quickly takes off from the platform and flies away into deep space, producing a shockwave that scatters bits of trash and other debris across the platforms, while also throwing many unfortunate aliens close enough to be affected onto the ground.

Daniel breathes out a sigh of relief, "That was close, too close." The Pilot says as he unclasps himself from his seat, then kneels down onto the floor and reaches under the seats and pulls out a black duffle bag from underneath it. As he then places the Central Processing Module into the bag before securing it back beneath the seats, he is about to order BT to bring them back to the Braxton, when he hears one of the instruments in the cockpit begin to beep in warning.

"Warning Pilot; detecting an incoming bogey on radar." BT warns, and as Daniel is about to go to the cockpit to see what was on the radar for himself, said radar appears in a window on his HUD, displaying a yellow dot at the very bottom of it, indicating that the bogey was following far behind them.

Shit, they're playing it smart. Daniel thinks to himself, simultaneously realising that his Time Shift would be of useless to him, trapped within the confines of his ship. He straps himself into the pilot's seat, now believing that the Pirates might be planning to disable his ship and strand or capture him in deep space, as if they wanted to kill him, he was certain that they would've tried to do so at Zurkie's. He'd overheard some stories from other patrons of what Space Pirates often did to their prisoners while he was waiting for Rivet to arrive, and none of them were good stories. Even then, with all these 'what ifs' running through his mind, Daniel was completely unaware that the Pirates had no intention of harming him in any way under their First Mate's new orders.

Daniel knew that his Crow wasn't as nimble or well-armed as any of the Militia's Hornet fighters; it was only a dropship meant for deploying and evacuating troops. Even though it was armed with a fifty-calibre minigun under its nose, it was only intended to be used for self-defence, and with the Crow not possessing the shielding technology like the IMC's newer Goblin dropships did, they wouldn't stand a chance against a ship armed with a half a dozen cannons.

With simply fighting the Pirates out of the question, Daniel knew that there was only one option left.

"Scratch that, we've got to lose them, BT!" The Commando tells the Vanguard, knowing that they couldn't risk leading the Pirates back to the Braxton.

"Copy that, executing evasive manoeuvres."

Soon after Daniel quickly straps into the pilot's seat, the Militia Crow swiftly accelerates before taking a wide right turn, avoiding getting any closer to the Pirates' ship, before eventually heading in the general direction of Zurkie's refuelling station floating just on the edge of the Scarstu Debris Field.

"I will attempt to fly us through the Scarstu Debris Field; it will give us the best possible chance at successfully evading the Pirates."

"Ok, do whatever you need to, bud!" Daniel acknowledges with a hint of unease in his tone, as there was practically nothing he could do to help, and clutches onto the armrests on either side of his seat.

As they fly past Zurkie's at a distance, some of the aliens on the refuelling platforms were still recovering after being hit by the shockwave caused by their sudden take-off, and some of which begin angrily shaking their fists and shouting curses at the green and yellow ship as it zips past.

As the Crow continues dodging asteroid after asteroid, Scarstu's debris field starts becoming denser and denser with the asteroids within gradually becoming more plentiful by the second. A few moments after, Daniel watches the Pirate's marker on the radar begin falling further and further behind them, until it finally dips off of the radar completely, likely no longer being able to navigate the debris field due to their ship's larger size compared to the Militia Crow.

Daniel relaxes upon seeing this, and promptly releases the armrests he didn't realise he'd been squeezing in his grip.

"It appears the Pirates bear some resentment towards you." BT mentions, the Crow's console flashing in sync.

Cooper lets out a frustrated sigh in response. "Tell me about it..." He says sarcastically, resting his head against his hand leaning on the armrest of his seat.

"It is likely resulting from the repeated skirmishes between you both, as well as you recently stealing the Ark fragment from their possession on Torren IV." BT replies to Cooper, oblivious to the sarcasm in his Pilot's request.

"Speaking of which, have you gotten any closer to finding any more Ark fragments, BT?" Cooper asks the Vanguard.

"I was able to confirm the presence of an Ark fragment somewhere within Polaris' Cerullean Sector." The Titan informs. "Additional analysis is required to determine its exact location, due to lingering gases within the sector interfering with the Braxton's scanners."

"Okay, that's great." Daniel replies. "In the meantime, let's head back to the Braxton and get that communications system up and running again." He says with a small smile underneath his visor, looking back under the troop seats at the duffle bag containing the repaired module.

"Solid copy, Pilot." BT replies.

The Crow suddenly takes a left turn, and after flying through Scarstu's Debris Field for another few minutes, they eventually reach the outer edges of the debris field, revealing the void of deep space to the Commando once more.

"Initiating Jump Drive. Jumping in three, two, one, mark."

The green and yellow Militia Crow subsequently vanishes with a flash, leaving behind no trace besides a brief stream of blue energy in the general direction it went.

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While Daniel and BT were able to make it out of the Scarstu Debris Field unscathed, the Pirates following them on the other hand, were in a completely different boat altogether...

Back on their ship, the Pirates scrambled to their feet after their ship suddenly struck an asteroid with a loud metallic crash, the resulting damage ripping several engines from the ship's body and outright disabling the remaining ones. As the Pirates' ship floats helplessly through the debris field, leaving a trail of wood and metal debris behind it, the Pirate officer at the ship's helm growls in anger. The same Pirate officer that had been in charge of chasing the Commando the day before.

Despite his crew's warnings that their ship wouldn't be able to safely navigate the debris field and that they should instead turn back, the Pirate Officer had ordered the crew to keep following Obsidian's ship, due to his own wounded pride from what had occurred on Torren IV. His crew failing to kill a single man under his command, despite that man being, according to his crew, 'too fast to hit', had reduced him to a laughing stock amongst all the other Pirates.

How he wasn't immediately stripped of his rank and reduced to swabbin' decks, was nothing short of a miracle. (And a bit of begging the Captain for another chance, which of course was aided by his good record up until that point.) As such, he wanted to prove to the other Pirates that he wasn't a 'Joke of an Officer', despite the events of the previous day.

The Officer scowls, regretting that he should've just swallowed his pride and actually listened to their warnings. He lets out a fiery growl upon realising that there was only one thing he could do to get himself and his crew out of this situation alive:

Begrudgingly, the Pirate Officer pulls his communicator from his pocket and dials Pierre's frequency. After a few seconds of somewhat restlessly waiting for the First Mate to answer, he does so.

"What is it? Have you located the Commando's hideout?" Pierre asks.

"No, First Matey... erm, we lost him." The Officer reluctantly says, bracing himself for the inevitable angry tirade Pierre would unleash on him.

"Incompetent imbécile! I trust you with one simple task, and you still let me down!" Pierre shouts over the communicator after a furious growl.

"I will give you one more chance to find where that Commando is hiding, and in exchange, I will keep this matter off the record." The First Mate offers. Pierre knew of the Officer's willingness to make up for his past blunder, and as such this offer was simply too good for the Pirate Officer to refuse.

"Aye First Matey, but we've no idea where he might've gone!" The Officer informs, as he watches one of his crew members duck underneath an asteroid passing over the ship's deck, most likely the result of the forcefield generator protecting the deck being disabled from the crash.

"Use your CPU, you dimwit! Where was he headed when you last saw him?" The First Mate asks.

"Well, after he left Zurkie's, we were followin' him just fine, but then he suddenly turned 'round and flew back into Scarstu's Debris Field, and that's where we lost him." The Officer recalls.

"He probably noticed you following him! What did I say about being discreet?!" Pierre chides loudly, causing the Officer to flinch.

The First Mate sighs loudly in frustration. "Where was he going before you lost him?"

The Officer pauses briefly to think, placing his hand against his chin. "He was headed further into the system, I think?" He answers.

"There's only one other planet in this star system..." Pierre realises, as he laughs wickedly. "Return to the Cove at once and organise a search party to assist you in searching that planet, what was it called again...?" He muses. "Whatever, search every centicubit of that planet's surface and inform me at once if you discover any leads on the Commando's whereabouts."

"Aye aye, First Matey!" The Officer replies, as the line goes dead.

As the Pirate officer pockets his communicator and lets out a sigh of relief, thankful that his First Mate had given him a second chance, (which was more like his third, at that point) he realises something when he notices his ship still floating helplessly through space...

He'd forgotten to tell Pierre that he and his crew were stranded.

"Ah, shite..." The Officer remarks, as he starts to dial Pierre back, preparing himself for yet another inevitable chastising from his First Mate.

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THE CARTER BRAXTON,

THARIA.

After inserting the repaired Central processing Module back into its slot with a light shove, Daniel Cooper closes the access panel on the Braxton's Communications System before radioing BT.

"Alright BT, the module's in, and everything else looks good." He informs, as he returns his repair tool back into its repair kit, having repaired some of the damaged circuitry inside the massive machine. "Let's see if it works."

"Copy that." BT responds, as Daniel stands to his feet and backs up away from the communications system, his legs feeling some relief as a result of kneeling for the past while.

A few moments later, Cooper hears the massive machine begin powering up, before it eventually settles into a low hum, with some screens and lights on the system turning on as well.

"Communications system online. Initiating diagnostics..." BT informs. A few moments pass, before the Vanguard returns with good news.

Diagnostics complete: Systems functioning at one-hundred-percent capacity." The Titan reports in Daniel's ear.

Damn, Rivet knows her stuff when it comes to fixing things. An impressed Daniel silently remarks to himself. If he ever needed to get anything fixed in the future, he knew exactly who he'd go to.

"Attempting to establish direct contact with the Militia Headquarters on planet Harmony..." BT informs. After a tense few moments, BT returns with some rather unfortunate news.

"Cooper, I am unable to establish contact with Militia HQ. We are likely out of range."

Daniel sighs. "I figured that much." He states. While he wasn't exactly pleased to learn that, it wasn't unexpected, either. Especially after discovering the existence of an entire galactic civilisation that was also being subjugated by a tyrannical robotic emperor.

After a few moments of thinking, Daniel gets an idea: What if there was some way they could broadcast the distress signal, in all directions? That way, no matter what direction the Frontier was from them, maybe the Militia would receive it in a few months time? After all, all modern types of transmissions and communications travelled at speeds several times the speed of light.

Even if the Militia likely wouldn't be able to arrange rescue, due to the fact that Jump Drives aren't capable of inter-galactic travel, with a bit of luck, they might only be a galaxy or two over. From there, maybe Daniel and BT could acquire a ship that's fast enough to allow them to travel between galaxies in a relatively short time? After all, if this galaxy had teleportation technology of all things, then it would be safe to assume that they probably also had spacecraft technology that made Jump Drives look like early petroleum engines in comparison.

But there was no point in doing any of that, not yet. They had to figure out just where in the universe the Ark had sent them, and the only feasible way they could do so in that moment, was to contact the Militia and inform them that they were in-fact not dead, and in dire need of assistance. From there, the Militia could probably trace their transmission, and use it to determine where they were located in relation to the Frontier. Daniel thinks that his idea was at the very least worth mentioning to the Titan.

"BT, is there any way you could use the communications system to broadcast the distress signal?" He asks, silently hoping that his idea was possible.

"Yes, but I highly advise against doing so. This galaxy possesses technology far more advanced than our own; the possibility that a third-party will intercept and crack the broadcast's encryption is extremely high." BT explains.

"The Militia also likely believe that we perished on Typhon, and any attempt to communicate with them may be dismissed as a form of deception by the IMC."

Daniel sighs, agreeing that the last thing they needed right now was to lead the Pirates or Nefarious straight to their doorstep. But, what other choice did they have? Just do nothing and wait and hope that the Militia comes to find them? Fat chance, all things considered.

"Cooper, Nefarious is likely now searching for fragments of the Ark as well. If he were to acquire even a single one, with the resources and technology he likely has at his disposal, the results could be catastrophic." The Vanguard informs.

"Yeah, you're right." Daniel morosely agrees with a sigh. "We can't let anyone gets their hands on any Ark fragments, period." The Titan Pilot firmly declares. The last thing him and BT needed was for Nefarious to construct his own Fold Weapon, or worse, if that was even possible in this galaxy.

"Agreed, Pilot. Protocol Two, Mission Update: Locate and secure fragments of the Ark." BT announces.

"In the meantime, I recommend that we procure a suitable storage apparatus capable of masking the Ark fragments' energy signatures from the Empire and other third-parties which may want them for themselves."

That would be easy enough if they could get into the Draconis, and salvage the Ark's old casing, implying that it survived both the crash and the Ark transporting it to Tharia. But right now, they couldn't, not with the Draconis almost completely buried and the frequent storms on Tharia. And with the lack of any way to transport BT, it made simply bringing the Vanguard along to dig a way inside currently impossible.

Their second option was to construct an entirely new casing. But that required finding someone who was both capable of and willing to construct it for them. That, and the raw materials it would no-doubt require, which would cost Daniel bolts he simply didn't have.

While on that train of thought, Daniel suddenly remembers the Raritanium he picked up while he was on Torren IV, and quickly materialises the ice-like crystal into his palm from his Holo-Manager.

"BT, if we were to build an entirely new casing, would some Raritanium work?" He asks, holding the crystal up to the lights above him.

"Bring it to me, and I will determine its suitability for a construction material of a new casing for fragments of the Ark." The Vanguard asks.

"Got it, on my way." Daniel affirms, stowing the chunk of Raritanium back into his Holo Manager.

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As it turned out, Raritanium would be a perfect material for constructing a new casing for the Ark fragments. In its raw, crystalline form, it was nigh-impenetrable by scanners and radiation, meaning that it would completely mask the energy signatures of the Ark fragments. He could probably sell it, too, recalling what the Pirates mentioned as they were mining some of it on Torren IV.

"But where are we supposed to get more of this stuff?" Daniel asks, now in the Braxton's spacecraft hanger alongside the Titan. "And I'm not going back to Torren IV anytime soon." He firmly states, recalling his incredibly poor luck during his prior mission on the desert planet. Or good luck, you could say, considering he was still alive to tell the tale. That, and that Nefarious' forces were likely crawling all over the planet right now, searching for the now-non-existent fragment of the Ark.

"Perhaps you could request help from your new allies in the Resistance? If you explain the dire circumstances as to why the Raritanium is required, I am certain they will be more inclined to assist you." BT suggests.

Daniel mulls over the Vanguard's proposition. He was reluctant to tell the Resistance what the Ark was used for, and he wasn't one-hundred-percent sure whether or not he should trust them, yet. If word got out what the Ark was and what it was used for, there was no doubt in Daniel's mind that nearly everyone in the galaxy would want it, for their own reasons or another.

But... how else was he going to get his hands on some more Raritanium?

Reluctantly, Daniel reaches into his satchel and retrieves his communicator with a sigh. "Let me give Phantom a call, and see what he says..."

After scrolling through the list of contacts and dialling Phantom's frequency, the green reptilian alien promptly answers.

"Hey Obsidian. Did Rivet fix that module for you, afterwards?"

"Yeah, it's working fine now, but I've got another problem that I'm hoping that you can help me with." Daniel informs, as he takes a seat on top of a nearby crate.

"Sure! What sort of problem do you need my help with, my armoured ally?" The Rilgarian returns enthusiastically, more than willing to help the Resistance's new ally.

"I need Raritanium, and lots of it." Daniel explains, "I was hoping you'd be able to tell me where I could get some?"

Phantom audibly hums over the communicator. "Well, there's always cargo trains carrying the stuff all over Nefarious city; every one of the factories uses it in some way or another." He explains, "You could probably snag some off of one, if you wait a couple of days for the heat from our last mission to die down—"

"I can't afford to wait that long, Phantom." Cooper interrupts. "I need it as soon as possible."

"Hold on, what do you need it so urgently for?" Phantom questions.

Daniel briefly pauses, carefully choosing his next words, before he sighs. "Trust me when I say that it's better you don't know, at least for now. But I can guarantee that the Resistance will greatly benefit in the long run." He says, hoping to persuade Phantom. He technically wasn't lying in that last part; the Resistance would benefit from Nefarious not being able to get his hands on the fragment of the Ark, if Cooper managed to find and secure it before he did.

"Alright, in that case, I'll come with you and back you up!" Phantom suddenly offers, after silently thinking it over for a moment. "I've actually been planning to board and blow up one of those cargo trains myself, with a spare bomb I have left over from the factory." He admits.

Daniel hears the Rebel tapping away on what was presumably keyboard, before Phantom speaks again. "Okay, the schedule here says that there's a cargo train due to bring raw materials out to a warbot factory in the Industrial District in about two hours." The Rebel explains. "I'm sending you the coordinates to a bridge that you can hide your ship under. I'll meet you there."

"Fair enough, see you then." Daniel replies, as the line goes dead with a click.

The moment Phantom mentioned a train, Daniel immediately thought of tight, enclosed spaces. He makes a mental note to bring a shotgun with him, as he stands up from the crate he's sitting on.

"Well BT, it looks I've got a train to catch." The Pilot remarks, as he begins making his way to the Braxton's armoury to equip himself for his next mission.

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INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT,

NEFARIOUS CIY,

CORSON V.

The Militia Crow emerges from the foggy abyss, and flies up towards a small platform underneath a somewhat inconspicuous bridge on the outskirts of the Industrial District of Nefarious City. Upon reaching the platform, the Titan Pilot inside sees the Rebel, Phantom, leaning against a wall nearby, which has some blotches of orange spray paint on it and the floor. As the ship touches down, the rebel greets him with a quick wave, before standing up from the wall and slowly walking over to the ship.

The dropship's side door slides open, and Obsidian emerges from inside, stepping down onto the metal platform with his L-STAR energy LMG hanging over his chest.

"Now that I've thought about it, they would never expect us to try and pull off anything in the city the day after a mission. We usually try to keep a low profile for a few days." Phantom says to the Commando. "As long as we keep our heads down, this should be fool proof!"

"We're about to board and destroy a no-doubt heavily-guarded cargo train, and you want us to 'keep our heads down'?" Daniel retorts, feeling somewhat uneasy in comparison to the rebel's optimism, especially after the last time they were here.

"Hey, like I said, they shouldn't be expecting us." Phantom informs. "And by the time they do realise it's us and send out reinforcements, we'll be long gone!" The Rilgarian reassures with a confident smile.

"Hopefully." Daniel remarks, as Phantom turns and begins walking up the stairs, gesturing for him to follow.

"Come on; there's a spot not too far from here where the train will slow down to turn a corner. We can jump on board there." Phantom informs.

After climbing to the top of the stairs and going through a narrow walkway, it brings the Commando and the Rebel into a derelict, intersecting alleyway. It seems like no-one's travelled through there for some time, judging from the several overfilled dumpsters with trash spilling out onto the ground around them.

After quickly peaking his head out and looking up and down the alley, Phantom takes a left and quickly speeds up into a brisk jog, with Cooper doing the same to keep up with him. They continue jogging through the alley for a minute or two, taking a turn here and there, until their progress is suddenly halted by a Nefarious Trooper appearing from an intersecting alley far ahead of them.

"Quick, hide!" Phantom hisses, who quickly ducks behind a dumpster, with Obsidian following suit, hiding behind a nearby pipe.

Mere milliseconds after they'd both completely hidden themselves, the Trooper turns and shines a bright light down the middle of the alley, moving back and forth mere inches from where they were both hidden. Then, after a few moments, the light suddenly turns off.

As Daniel starts slowly leaning out to peek, Phantom quickly gestures to him to stay put.

"Don't move; it could be a trap!" The Rilgarian whispers to him.

With the distant sounds of the city around them, it was difficult to tell whether or not the Trooper had left.

With a flick of his wrist, Daniel activates his Cloak and quickly vanishes from view, causing Phantom to be taken aback slightly and widen his eyes in confusion.

Now-invisible, Daniel quickly leans out from behind his hiding spot to see the Trooper still standing in the middle of the alley, one of its laser arms pointed towards them. After a few tense moments, the Trooper lowers its arm and turns to continue patrolling down another alley.

"We're clear." Daniel informs Phantom, as he reappears with a brief shimmer and steps out from behind the pipe.

"Hey – Was that invisibility tech?" Phantom suddenly asks as he stands up from behind the dumpster, to which Cooper nods in confirmation. "Man, the things I could pull off with something like that..." The Rebel mumbles in slight awe.

"Phantom, we're too vulnerable down here on the ground. We should get up to the rooftops." Daniel recommends, looking up and pointing a finger to said rooftops above them.

"That's what I was just about to say." The Rilgarian replies, as he begins looking up and down the alley for a suitable spot to scale to the rooftops.

Phantom's experienced eyes quickly snap onto a nearby recess with another dumpster sitting within it. Looking up, he smiles when sees the recess continuing up the side of the building, straight to the roof.

"There, we can use this to get up top." Phantom informs, nodding towards the recess.

Cooper looks at the recess, and quickly recognises that he can simply use his Jump Kit to jump back and forth between the two walls in order to ascend to the rooftops. But Phantom didn't have a Jump Kit, how was he going to get to the roof?

As Daniel is in the process of internally asking himself that question, Phantom climbs on top of the dumpster and materialises his Omniglove onto his right hand. He then jumps from the top of the dumpster as high as his legs can propel him, and slams his right hand onto the wall, producing a loud metallic bang. His Omniglove's magnetic function activates, and firmly attaches the Rilgarian to the wall.

The Rebel pulls himself up until he gets a good foothold on the wall, then simultaneously disengages his Omniglove's magnets and jumps away from the wall it to the opposite one behind him, turning in mid-air and magnetically attaching himself to that one like before. He repeats this action several times, ascending higher and higher, until he eventually reaches the roof of the building, grabbing hold of the railing and pulling himself up and over it.

Daniel had to admit; the fact that Phantom was able to do something like that without a Jump Kit was pretty impressive.

"Yo! You coming up here, or what?" Phantom calls out from the roof, snapping Cooper out of his thoughts, who sees the Rilgarian leaning over the railing waving down at him.

Daniel then runs at the recess and propels himself over the dumpster towards one of the inner walls. After his boot firmly connects with the wall, the Titan Pilot begins walljumping back and forth with the help of his Jump Kit, and quickly ascends the building. With one last jump, Cooper leaps over the railing onto the roof next to the Rebel.

"Come on, we need to get moving; the train will be here soon!" Phantom informs, wasting no time and breaking into a sprint across the rooftop, as Obsidian soon follows close behind.

Daniel surmises that Phantom's clearly been doing this kind of work for some time, considering that the Rebel was able to keep a consistent lead on him without breaking a sweat, despite Cooper being a trained soldier. As they near the edge of the rooftop, Daniel prepares to use his Jump Kit to leap across the gap to the rooftop on the other side.

Phantom on the other hand, who was still ahead of Cooper by a few feet, jumps onto the railing at the roof's edge and leaps off of it without hesitation. At first, it seems that the Rebel won't make it, until he sticks his right arm out behind him with his palm facing outwards. Then, his silhouette suddenly distorts, as he's propelled forwards over the gap onto the opposite roof via a miniature thruster in the palm of his Omniglove.

As Cooper lands next to him on the roof, the pair continue their sprint towards the train's route.

"The hell was that?" Daniel asks.

"It's my Phantom Dash! Designed and built it myself, as a matter of fact." The Rebel says proudly.

"You named it after yourself?" Daniel questions, raising an eyebrow under his helmet.

"For the record, it wasn't me who came up with the name." Phantom informs with a hint of frustration in his tone. "I would've made you one, but the materials I need to make them are hard to get. Especially that Phase Quartz..." the Rilgarian remarks, Cooper humming in understanding.

The Rebel and the Commando continue travelling across the rooftops for a few minutes, jumping over gaps where needed, until the two eventually arrive at their destination: That being the roof of a building overlooking a huge, bottomless abyss resembling a T-junction far below them.

"Okay, this is the spot." Phantom informs. "The train should be here any minute now."

Sure enough, no more than a minute later, the train in question comes into view in the distance, barrelling towards the T-junction. As it nears the junction, the train quickly decelerates, before it begins turning into the chasm alongside Phantom and Obsidian's position.

As the train turns through the junction and into the centre of the abyss alongside their building, Obsidian and Phantom both soon realise that despite the train flying about twenty feet lower than the roof, it was still simply too far from their building for them to be able to jump on board, Jump Kit and Phantom Dash be damned.

But, Daniel knew that he could absolutely make it if he were to use his Grapple. The only question in his mind, was whether or not Phantom had one, too.

"Phantom, you have a grappling hook?!" Daniel frantically asks, as the rear-most carriage finishes turning and the train begins speeding up again.

"I've got a Hookshot, if that's what you mean!" Phantom confirms, raising his right fist and deploying said Hookshot out the side of his Omniglove, realising what the Commando was suggesting.

"THEN JUMP!" Obsidian yells, running and launching himself off the top of the building with the help of his Jump Kit and firing his Grapple at the train. Phantom swiftly follows, propelling himself off the roof with a Phantom Dash and quickly launching his Hookshot towards the train as well.

Both Grapple and Hookshot find their marks, latching onto a railing at the back of the rear carriage. Almost immediately, both Daniel and Phantom are violently yanked by the accelerating train.

They both begin reeling themselves in towards the train. But due to the intense winds, as well as them being inside train's slipstream, Phantom and Obsidian struggle to keep themselves from being blown around, the two almost crashing into one another, if it wasn't for Daniel's quick thinking in using his Jump Kit to dodge the Rebel.

Soon after the near-miss, the Commando continues reeling himself in to the back of the train, the Rilgarian following close behind him.

After climbing onto the platform at the back of the train, the Commando grabs the Rebel's left hand and helps him over the railing and onto the platform. "You alright?"

"I'm good... I think..." Phantom says through heavy breaths with his hands on his knees. "You are crazy, man! Something tells me Rivet's gonna love working with you..." He remarks.

Daniel chuckles slightly. "Believe me, that was tame compared to some of the other things I've done."

Phantom steadies his breathing and stands up straight. "You sound like you have a few stories to tell." The Rilgarian remarks.

"Oh, I do..." Daniel replies, silently recalling plenty from Typhon alone. Time travel, for one. The Pilot silently remarks to himself.

"We should try and keep this quiet, for as long as we can." Phantom recommends. As the two turn to face the large door leading into the train.

"And if it goes loud, we move quickly, do what we need to do and get off the train as soon as possible." Daniel adds, the Rilgarian nodding in approval.

When the two approach, the large door leading into the first carriage automatically slides open with a hiss, Daniel instinctively shouldering his L-STAR and scanning the interior, with Phantom following close behind him, Combustor in hand. Other than a variety of wooden and metal crates stacked on either side of the carriage, there was nothing else of note.

The two slowly make their way through the carriage, Daniel keeping his weapon raised and checking everywhere for any potential hostiles. As he glances over the numerous crates in the carriage, he remembers what it was that he was here for.

"You see any Raritanium?" Cooper asks Phantom.

"None in here, anyway. We'll keep looking, it'll probably be in one of the other carriages ahead." Phantom answers.

As the Rebel and the Commando continue sneaking through the carriage, a monotonous warble suddenly interjects through Daniel's helmet radio.

"Cooper, my scans are detecting a large deposit of Raritanium in the next carriage directly ahead of you." BT informs him.

The door to the next carriage slides open just like the last, and reveals yet another room filled with cargo crates. Amongst them, were two massive open crates on either side of the carriage full to the brim with Raritanium, the ice-like crystals sparkling under the carriage's interior lights.

Phantom lets out a low whistle in awe. "Man, I've never seen this much Raritanium in one place. There enough of it here for ya'?"

"More than enough." Daniel confirms, already having a general idea of how much he needs, thanks to prior calculations by BT. The Commando lets his L-STAR hang against his side as he reaches into a Raritanium crate and begins depositing the chunks of crystal into his Holo-Manager.

Under normal circumstances, as per his training, Daniel would usually secure the rest of the train before he would even think about going near the Raritanium. But, with the current circumstances regarding the next Ark fragment, he thinks best to prioritise the Raritanium first and foremost.

After depositing around half of the Raritanium inside the crate into his Holo-Manager, BT informs Daniel that the amount now in his possession will be more than enough to construct a new casing for storing the Ark fragment. But Daniel knew that it wouldn't hurt to have a surplus, just in case.

"Hey – Feel free to help yourself to some of this stuff; take it as my thanks." Daniel says to Phantom, who's standing nearby with his arms crossed, inspecting the crates of Raritanium himself.

"Appreciate it, man." Phantom thanks him, dematerialising his Combustor as he too begins taking Raritanium out of the other crate and depositing it into his own Holo-Manager.

Nearly everyone in the Resistance used Raritanium in one way or another, from Phantom himself using it to construct his various gadgets, to Rivet using it to upgrade her weapons. So, Phantom was more than happy to help himself to some, too.

Not long after the two continue looting the Raritanium, the door on the other end of the carriage suddenly slides open, and a Nefarious Slugger appears in the doorway.

"Ooh, intruders! Oh, how lucky I am, today was getting boring!" The Slugger gleefully remarks, as it eagerly smashes the wrecking balls at the end of its arms together at the prospect of having something to squish.

With the Slugger being such a large and relatively close target, Daniel doesn't even need to use the sights on his L-STAR, and instead opts to simply fire the weapon from his shoulder, sending a stream of red-glowing charged particles straight at the warbot's head region. Daniel had plenty experience using an L-STAR on Typhon, the energy LMG being very effective in its anti-infantry role.

He'd previously learned first-hand how the L-STAR worked, or rather, how the projectiles it fired affected its targets. When its charged particles hit something, it would disrupt the target's atomic structure, resulting in high heat and kinetic damage, as well as leaving the target temporarily vulnerable to other sources of damage. IMC body armour was rendered practically useless by this absolute monster of an energy weapon, while it was in Cooper's hands.

Its ammunition came in the form of square, magazine-like batteries that were then loaded into the rear of the energy weapon, with each one giving the user one-hundred shots to lay down. They were also much lighter and more compact than traditional magazines, allowing its wielder to keep a surplus of spare batteries in reserve.

The only downsides, was that it would quickly overheat if it was fired for too long, which would then require the heat sink at the muzzle-end of the weapon to be replaced before it could be used again. This meant that weapon required a decent amount of skill and situational awareness on the wielder's part to determine whether they should keep firing and risk an overheat, or stop and risk losing their life.

After taking too many charged particles for its molecular structure to remain intact, the Slugger's head explodes spectacularly, splattering the inside of the carriage and both the Rebel and the Commando in a combination of oil, metal and glass, as the rest of the Slugger's body collapses to the floor with a crash.

Despite the L-STAR being a relatively quiet weapon in comparison to conventional firearms, the sound of the Slugger's head exploding, however, was not.

"Damn!" Phantom exclaims, rubbing some oil off of his cheek. "Let's hope the other Troopers didn't hear that!"

Unfortunately, more Troopers can soon be heard approaching from the carriages ahead, their tentacle-like legs clanking against the metallic floor.

"Phantom, get down!" Daniel barks, as he pulls a satchel charge from his back and lobs it onto the Slugger's corpse, before taking cover behind the Raritanium crate. The Rebel doesn't question the Commando in the slightest upon seeing him toss the explosive ordinance, and he too takes cover behind a metal crate on his side of the carriage.

"I've detected an auditory disturbance - Moving to investigate!" A Lasertrooper reports as it nears the Raritanium carriage, another Lasertrooper following close behind it.

Upon entering the carriage and seeing the destroyed Slugger, the leading Trooper gasps in shock.

"One of our units is down! Who could have done this?!" The Trooper exclaims in anguish, as both it and its other fellow Trooper surround the dead Slugger and lower themselves to inspect their ally's lifeless body, completely unaware of the fatal mistake they were currently making.

Daniel readies the oversized detonator in his right hand, and activates it by swiftly double-squeezing its trigger in rapid succession.

The satchel charge detonates, and the force of the subsequent explosion shears off the appendages of both Lasertroopers and sends their bodies flying into the walls of the carriage, the resulting impact then crushing what remained of them, as their mangled bodies then fall to the floor.

As well as destroying some of the crates nearest to the explosion - their contents getting thrown all around the carriage - the door which the Troopers came through is also blasted off and sent crashing onto the floor of the next carriage.

Then, as the smoke clears, there's a few moments of tense silence, before about half-a-dozen hovering Trooper Heads are seen rushing towards Obsidian and Phantom from the carriages ahead.

"They definitely know we're here now! Get ready for a fight, Phantom!" Cooper shouts to the Rilgarian, as he quickly runs out from behind the half-empty Raritanium crate and quickly advances towards the front of the carriage, letting off a spray of charged particles at the arriving Trooper Heads, killing two of them as he then takes cover behind the doorway at the end of the carriage.

As the remaining Trooper Heads return fire at Obsidian, one of them informing the rest of the train's security of their presence, Phantom gives the Commando some supporting fire with his Combustor from behind his crate. He was somewhat unhappy at the mission going loud so soon, but understood that it wasn't Obsidian's fault. There was no way in hell that they would've been able to sneak through the train, especially with the number of Troopers that were probably on board.

Right as Daniel and Phantom take out the final Trooper Head, the door at the end of the next carriage suddenly slides open, and a Slugger followed by two Lasertroopers charge in.

"Surrender now, squishies! Resistance is futile!" The leading Slugger barks at the Commando and the Rebel, as it rushes through the carriage to close the gap, while the Lasertroopers fire their ion-flux lasers at the Commando and Rebel.

Daniel didn't want to repeat the mistake of using the Time Shift in front of someone again; not unless he absolutely had to. So, instead, he leans out, brings up his L-STAR and starts unloading it into the attacking Troopers in the carriage ahead, Phantom assisting him with shots of superheated plasma from his Combustor.

One after the other, the Slugger and one of the Lasertroopers quickly falls to Phantom and Obsidian, their heads and other body parts either exploding or getting holes burned through them as a result of their weapons' effects.

Unfortunately, as Daniel ignores the 'DANGER: OVERHEAT' warning on his L-STAR's miniature display as well as the heat emanating from its now-red hot barrel and keeps his finger pressed on the trigger, a massive spark suddenly occurs near the energy weapon's muzzle, and it abruptly stops firing before he can finish off the last Lasertrooper.

Daniel hisses in pain as he quickly removes his left hand from the weapon after the resulting heat burns it slightly, and the fins at the L-STAR's muzzle pop open to vent the lingering heat from its internal components, revealing its partially-melted heatsink; the weapon now effectively disabled.

This happens at the worst possible time, as Phantom takes out one of the Lasertrooper's legs with a stray shot from his Combustor, causing the warbot to lose its balance and fall to the floor, his Combustor only clicks when he attempts to finish it off. The Rebel then notices the empty plasma reservoir at the rear of the weapon and begins clumsily fumbling with it in an attempt to reload the plasma pistol, inexperienced from a lack of use.

As a result of all this, the heavily-damaged Trooper is able to survive just long enough for it to sound the alarm.

"RESISTANCE ALERT, RESISTANCE ALERT! SEND REINFORCEMENTS!" The Trooper cries out, it's voice distorted due to the damage it's sustained, as it struggles to pick itself up from the floor of the carriage.

After soon recovering from burning his hand, Cooper quickly lets go of his disabled L-STAR, the energy weapon automatically hanging against his side, and materialises his Burst Pistol into his palm. He quickly finishes off the Trooper, the acid-infused rounds piercing through its armour with ease thanks to the L-STAR weakening it.

"I think that was the last of them!" Phantom remarks, after no more Troopers appear from the carriages ahead, as he stands up from behind the Raritanium crate with his reloaded Combustor.

"You heard what that last one said; there's back up on the way! Let's blow this thing up and get the hell out of here before they show!" Daniel tells him, replacing his L-STAR's melted heatsink with a new one from his satchel before tactically reloading the energy weapon.

The Commando and the Rebel quickly begin running through the next two carriages, stepping around and jumping over the decimated corpses of the Nefarious warbots, and passing by more cargo crates and nothing else that's noteworthy.

After the next carriage door automatically slides open, they run out onto some open carriages with an assortment of crates and shipping containers of all sizes, secured to the carriage via magnetic pads on the floor, and the view of Nefarious City is revealed once more.

As they run across the open carriages, jumping over crates, shipping containers and other cargo, Obsidian and Phantom and arrive at the next carriage just behind the train's engine.

As the door to the carriage slides open, and Daniel walks in first with his L-STAR raised, he immediately lowers it upon seeing something that throws the entire plan of blowing up the train out the window...

The Pilot sighs. "Why can't anything just be simple in this galaxy...?" He quietly remarks.

Phantom cocks an eyebrow in confusion at his remark, before he steps into the carriage next to the Commando, and his mouth falls open in shock.

Instead of more cargo, there's prison cells lining both sides of the carriage, with aliens of all shapes and sizes held captive behind orange forcefields. Every single one of the prisoners look up at the door the second it opens, some with fear, others with indifference, as if they've already accepted their fate.

But, upon seeing Obsidian and Phantom instead of one of the Nefarious Troopers, their sullen and fearful eyes widen with hope.

"What the — The schedule said nothing about there being prisoners on board!" Phantom says in worried surprise.

In response to this, one of the female prisoners speaks up. "You can't just leave us here!" She desperately cries out, slamming her fists against the forcefield.

The other prisoners begin murmuring apprehensively amongst themselves.

"Hey, we're gonna get you all out of here, I promise!" Phantom assures, putting his hands up in an attempt to calm everyone. "Just need to get these cells open, first..."

"Cooper, I am detecting Nefarious forces converging on the train." BT suddenly warns Daniel, as a window subsequently appears on his HUD showing the train with a trio of red dots quickly gaining behind it.

"Solid copy, BT!" Daniel replies with a pair of fingers to his helmet radio.

Phantom looks back over his shoulder as he's inspecting one of the control panels to the cells. "'BT'? Who's—"

"These prisoners can wait, Phantom, we've got more Troopers on the way!" Daniel interrupts the Rebel, thumbing towards the carriages outside, as he turns and jogs back through the sliding door.

"Okay, everybody just sit tight. We'll get you all out of here soon!" Phantom reassures all the prisoners with a thumbs up, as he too joins Obsidian outside, the door sliding shut behind him and leaving the prisoners isolated from the outside world once more.

"I thought this was a cargo train, Phantom, why the hell are there prisoners here?" Daniel asks in mild frustration, as he takes cover behind a crate.

"No idea - But we gotta deal with the Troopers and get 'em outta here, before they're locked up in Zordoom Prison or enslaved in the mines on Blizar Prime. If either of those happen, they'll be as good as dead!" The Rilgarian replies.

A few moments later, three Nefarious Dropships fly up from above and behind the train, then slow down to match its speed, with one flying directly above the train and the other two on either side of it.

The three Dropships then each deploy two Lasertroopers and a Slugger onto the train, their arms and legs folded up to allow for easier transport, amounting to nine Troopers in total. Upon seeing this, Daniel and Phantom to take cover behind some crates.

The Troopers and Sluggers all quickly transform out of their compact state in mid-air, their arms and legs extending outwards and back onto their combat-ready forms, as they all land in various different places on the train, causing it to wobble slightly.

"This train belongs to the Emperor!" One of the Troopers declares.

As the Dropships fly off, the Lasertroopers open fire from several different positions while simultaneously keeping their distance, as a Slugger quickly rushes forwards towards the Rebel and the Commando, its long legs allowing it to effortlessly step over any cargo on the carriages.

"Prepare to be pummelled in the name of his Majesty, Rebels!" The Slugger announces.

As the Slugger rushes towards their position, Daniel realises that he doesn't have enough time to safely lay down a satchel charge to deal with it, and instead switches to his EVA-8 Shotgun.

The EVA-8 Shotgun was a select-fire repeating shotgun designed for extra-vehicular combat. It was extremely useful both in conventional and exo-atmospheric conditions, thanks to its ability to also function as a simple pump-action with the push of a switch. This allows the shotgun to still be used in a vacuum, like in space, where the gas system required for semi and fully-automatic fire fails to function properly as a result.

Due the twenty-round drum magazines the shotgun was famously known for being notoriously bulky and heavy, Daniel always opted to use the much smaller and lighter twelve-round box magazines on Typhon. Just like the one he was currently emptying into the Slugger in that moment with help from Phantom's Combustor, which soon collapses in the middle of winding up a swing, its internal systems shredded after receiving a lethal dose of armour-piercing buckshot and superheated plasma.

Kicking out the now-empty magazine with a fresh one from his vest, Daniel quickly inserts the new magazine into the EVA-8 and racks the pump, chambering a new shell. The Commando switches back to his L-STAR, and him and Phantom proceed to engage the Lasertroopers further ahead, their ion-flux lasers burning through some of the smaller crates ahead of the two on the carriage.

"More Sluggers, straight ahead!" Phantom suddenly warns, pointing towards two Sluggers that were currently rushing towards them from the far carriages.

Recognising a stack of Gelatonium barrels a little bit ahead of himself and Phantom, Daniel throws a satchel charge onto the floor next to it. As the Troopers get close to the barrels of Gel, Daniel readies the detonator.

"GET DOWN!" Daniel warns Phantom, as he and the Rebel duck back behind their respective pieces of cover.

The Pilot detonates the satchel charge, and the resulting force of explosion from the satchel combined with the combusting Gelatonium blows the two remaining Sluggers as well as some cargo crates off the train.

At the rate himself and Phantom were taking out the Lasertroopers from their position, Daniel knew that they would eventually burn through his and Phantom's cover. But with the distance the Lasertroopers were maintaining while firing at them from the other end of the train – some of them even standing on top of the rear carriages - there was no way he and Phantom would be able to deal with them before that happened. The only way they possibly could, would be to close the gap and take the fight directly to the Troopers.

While it might've been impossible for Phantom to do just that without being turned into Swiss cheese, it wasn't for Daniel.

He recalls a similar situation that occurred to him on Typhon that gives him an idea, that situation being how he used his Cloak to secretly advance on a squad of IMC Riflemen firing on his position behind cover.

"Phantom, stay here and give me some covering fire, I'm gonna take care of those Troopers!" Cooper orders while firing a spray at the Troopers.

"Okay, man!" Phantom responds with a curt nod, as he lets off a few shots of his own at the Nefarious warbots.

After ducking back behind his crate to ensure the Troopers can no longer see him, Daniel activates his Cloak with a flick of his wrist and vanishes with a brief flicker.

He dashes out from behind the crate and sidesteps a Trooper's laser, as he runs up the carriage towards a massive crate: A perfect position to gain a tactical height advantage against most of the remaining Troopers.

The Commando leaps up on top of the large cargo crate with the aid of his Jump Kit and prepares his last satchel charge. Daniel knew from experience on Typhon that if he was to fire any kind of firearm while Cloaked, doing so would deactivate it and instantly reveal him. But he also knew that throwing grenades and other types of ordinance, didn't.

Seeing a Lasertrooper on the next open carriage, Daniel throws the satchel charge onto the floor next to it, and double squeezes the trigger on the detonator before it can react to the explosive ordinance seemingly appearing from thin-air.

After seeing the Trooper get blown off the train by the explosion, the other three remaining Troopers briefly stop firing their lasers in apparent confusion.

Still Cloaked, Cooper materialises his Shatterbomb Glove onto his right hand, the glove instantly materialising a Shatterbomb into his palm. Without skipping a beat, he hurls it directly at the next Lasertrooper's midsection and continues jumping across the tops of the crates towards the two remaining Troopers standing on top of the rear carriages.

The Shatterbomb detonates on contact, the explosion throwing the Trooper backwards and blasting its head straight off its body. Its head falls into the carriage's floor and bounces along it for a few meters before eventually coming to a stop, while its crystalline-shrapnel-filled body crashes to the floor of the carriage.

As he lands on top of another crate, the Pilot turns his attention to the two final Lasertroopers standing on top of the rear carriages, and throws another bomb towards the closest of the two.

"Where are those bombs coming from?!" The last Trooper cries out in confusion, as it watches its fellow Trooper get launched off the train from an exploding Shatterbomb.

As another Shatterbomb appears from thin air, the Trooper's eyes widen in surprise as the armoured Commando suddenly appears on top of a crate with a shimmer. The Shatterbomb explodes on contact with the Trooper's hull, sending the warbot flying onto its back and shattering the orange glass dome on its head.

"Phantom, that was the last of them! Hurry and get those cells open before more show up!" Daniel speaks into his communicator, the Rilgarian replying a confirmation as the Pilot turns and begins leaping back across the crates towards the front of the train.

When he re-enters the prisoner carriage, Cooper finds Phantom kneeling in front of an open control panel for one of the cells, tapping away on his tablet he had plugged into circuitry behind it.

"Phantom, what's the plan?" Daniel asks curtly.

"The plan is; once we get all these cells open, I'll get on the train's controls and take us somewhere where we can get everyone off safely. Then, I'll arrange for backup to meet us there to get them off-world." The Rilgarian explains, while keeping his eyes trained on the control panel in front of him.

After a few more moments, the red screen on the control panel turns green, as the orange forcefield it corresponded to fizzles out and deactivates, much to the relief of the prisoners inside.

As Phantom continues working to get the other cells open, Daniel's eyes wander over the group of aliens leaving their now-open cell. He notices that while the group was rather diverse in terms of species, they all shared similar features, such as their clothes being well-worn and stained with dust; likely originating from them living on a dry planet.

But, when he notices a few smaller aliens in the group, many of them nervously clinging to the larger members of their species, Daniel's eyes widen as he quickly realises...

...They were children.

Stunned in shock, Cooper doesn't immediately register the sound of the carriage door sliding open behind him.

However, Phantom and the other prisoners do, as the Rilgarian looks up from the control panel he was currently working on to see two heavily-damaged Trooper Heads – one missing its glass dome - hovering in front of the door.

"Nice try Rebel, but decapitation only kills organics!" The leading Trooper laughs, as both Troopers aim their head-mounted lasers at the Commando and begin charging them up, the orange lasers glowing and crackling menacingly.

Upon hearing the Troopers, Daniel snaps out of his stupor and turns around to face them in the process of charging their weapons. Simultaneously, his fist instinctively clenches and activates his Time Shift, resulting in everything around him slowing to a crawl.

Before the two Trooper Heads have a chance to fire their lasers, the Commando instantly appears behind them and takes them out with two quick point-blank blast from his EVA-8 Shotgun in the blink of an eye.

After the two Trooper Heads die, Daniel looks over at Phantom and the prisoners, and sees their shocked faces, as well as their mouths agape in pure shock.

But before anyone can do or say anything else, the train suddenly brakes and the carriage lurches, causing everyone inside to stumble slightly as a result. Then, as the train slows to a stop, a voice suddenly reverberates throughout the carriage, one that Cooper vaguely recognises from the broadcast BT intercepted when he was leaving Zurkie's for the first time.

"Oh, my, my, what a show!"

Phantom and the prisoners also recognise the voice, the rebel's bewilderment quickly turning to a foul grimace, as some of the prisoners gasp while others cry out in fear, upon hearing the voice of Emperor Nefarious.

"I must admit; I didn't expect the Resistance to perform something as bold as this!" Nefarious remarks. "And I also didn't expect to ever see one of your kind again, much less in my galaxy, in my city... Commando."

"So, I'm guessing you're the so-called 'emperor' I've heard about?" Daniel supposes, his eyes quickly scanning the inside of the carriage for any cameras, of which he can't find any that are visible.

"Oh, it's lovely to see that I'm still well-known beyond my galaxy. And do tell me; where did you come from? I was certain that I had exterminated your kind off the face of the universe." Nefarious adds with a growl.

Daniel is left slightly confused by Nefarious' statement. But before he can dwell on it, the Emperor continues.

"Oh, but I'm sure you've travelled a long way to be here, and what kind of Emperor would I be if I didn't offer my esteemed guest a warm welcome?"

"Cooper, be advised: A large airborne bogey is rapidly approaching your position; E.T.A, ninety seconds." BT suddenly warns Cooper.

"You may have performed well against my lowly Troopers, but I am curious to see how you'll perform against one of my Seekerpedes!" The Emperor announces, before emitting an evil, drawn-out laugh. "Best of luck to you, Commando! Oh, and do try to make this interesting!"

"Oh, Zoni! We're all gonna die!" One of the prisoners gasps, throwing his hands to his head in exasperation. The other prisoners scream in panic, with some of the children beginning to cry.

"HEY! Everyone calm down! No-one's gonna die! Like I said, we're gonna get you all out of here!" Phantom firmly reassures, the confidence in his tone actually calming the panicking prisoners down somewhat.

Phantom then quickly removes his tablet from the control panel as he turns and runs into the next carriage, with Daniel quickly following suite behind him.

The next carriage was clearly a control room of sorts. The interior was sleek and noticeably more compact compared to the others carriages, with row of monitors displaying various camera angles around the front, sides and back of the train's engine, all situated above a large control panel near the front of the room.

As Phantom reaches the control panel, takes a hold of the train's throttle lever and pushes it forwards in an attempt to get the train going again, the train briefly begins speeding up before it suddenly stops again despite the Rilgarian's input. As Phantom looks at the train's controls in confusion, one of the screens above the control panel flashes red and displays 'MANUAL CONTROL DISABLED' in big orange text.

"Did you really think that I wouldn't know you would try that? I honestly feel insulted!" Nefarious' jeering voice suddenly cuts into the carriage.

Ignoring the Emperor's taunts, Phantom swiftly plugs his tablet into a slot the train's control panel and begins hacking into it. After a few moments, his tablet's screen turns red.

"Damn it! They must've changed the security protocols; I can't get past them!" Phantom yells in alarm, quickly retrying the hack, but cursing after getting the same result a few moments later.

"Oh, how I love that look of hopelessness and desperation!" Nefarious taunts, the Emperor enjoying every second of Phantom's dismay. At this point, the Titan Pilot had had enough.

"Move over; let me try." Daniel orders Phantom, clasping a hand onto the Rilgarian's shoulder and pushing him aside as he draws his Data Knife from its sheath on his vest.

"Have you lost it?! What do you think a knife's gonna do?!"

Daniel remains silent, as he removes Phantom's tablet from the slot in the control panel and shoves it into the Rebel's hands, before quickly deploying the wings on his Data Knife with the flick of a switch and jamming the blade into the slot. The holographic display on the Data Knife bursts to life, displaying the progress on the hack in a luminescent orange.

A few tense moments later, the display turns from orange to blue, and the red screen above the train's control panel turns green and displays 'MANUAL CONTROL RESTORED', as Daniel then removes the Data Knife from the slot and returns it to the sheath on his vest.

"Oh, well done! If you can't hear it, I'm rooting for you, Commando!" Nefarious taunts, his sarcastic metallic clapping audible in the background.

Daniel pushes the train's throttle lever all the way forwards, causing the train to begin moving again and quickly pick up speed.

"Now, get us out of here Phantom." Daniel orders a bewildered Phantom, patting him on the shoulder and subsequently snapping him out of his stupor.

"...You have a trick up your sleeve for everything don't you?" Phantom remarks in awe, as he grips the train's steering wheel with both hands and begins driving the train.

After a few moments of driving the train with no issues, Phantom notices some movement on the monitor displaying a camera feed facing behind the train, and his stomach drops. A massive, white object looms in the distance far behind the train, steadily getting bigger and bigger. When a bright blue light suddenly flashes at the front of the object, Phantom's eyes widen as he realises that he has only mere seconds to react.

"HANG ON!" Phantom shouts over his shoulder to Obsidian and the prisoners in the carriage behind them, as he suddenly rips the steering wheel to the right only a split second before a powerful blue laser connects with the train. The laser burns straight through the rear carriages at an angle and severs them from the train. The thrusters underneath the carriages keeping them airborne quickly die out after being cut off from their power supply, and promptly fall into the abyss, never to be seen again.

As a result of the sudden hard change in direction, Phantom and Obsidian are both thrown to the left, the Rilgarian clinging onto the steering wheel for dear life, while the Commando manages to catch and anchor himself with his Grapple, by quickly firing it into the floor. Unfortunately, the prisoners in the carriage behind them, however, aren't so lucky, having nothing to brace themselves against as they're all flung to the floor and land on top of one another.

"The hell was that?!" Cooper shouts, quickly regaining his footing and retracting his Grapple as Phantom steadies the train out.

"The Seekerpede's behind us!" Phantom replies in a distressed manner. As he glances at a dial displaying the train's speed, he notices that the train has gotten moderately faster since losing the extra weight. Another quick glance at the monitor showed the Seekerpede was still gaining on them, but much slower than before. This gave him an idea.

"Go and decouple the rest of the carriages, we need more speed!" Phantom orders the Commando, pointing a finger toward the back of the train.

"On it!" Cooper acknowledges, as he turns and runs back through the prisoner's carriage, sidestepping and outright needing to jump over some prisoners who were still in the process of picking themselves up from the floor.

Daniel emerges outside, the first thing he immediately notices is that the carriages at the back of the train are completely gone. The second, is the massive, centipede-like craft flying in the distance behind the train. Several times larger than even the biggest of Titans, the Seekerpede was hard to miss, equipped with equally massive mechanical mandibles on its front with big, obvious missile pods on the sides of its head.

Knowing that the weapons he had on him probably wouldn't have a hope of putting even a scratch on the Seekerpede's armour, Daniel instead quickly scans the floor of the carriage beneath him, his eyes soon spotting a large metal couple in the gap between the two carriages, securing them together to the rest of the train.

Not knowing how to even begin to manually decouple the remaining carriages from the train, Daniel's instead opts to materialise his Burst Pistol into his hand and squeeze off a few rounds into the couple. The acid sizzles and sputters as it chews through the couple, before eventually, the couple breaks with a snap, and the carriages in front of the Pilot separate from the train before they promptly lose speed and plummet into the abyss below.

The train lurches again as it begins speeding up, and the Seekerpede chasing the train begins steadily becoming smaller and smaller.

"Phantom, rear carriages are decoupled!" Cooper informs the Rebel via his communicator.

After a few moments, it seems like the train is finally beginning to outrun the Seekerpede, until suddenly, the search-and-destroy craft begins charging up its laser again, the bright light produced partially obscuring it from view.

Before Daniel can shout a warning into his communicator, the train suddenly dodges to the left, right when the Seekerpede fires its laser.

Almost as if it's learned from the last time, the Seekerpede seemingly predicts the train's movement and goes straight for the kill, tracking its laser beside the train's engine. The laser connects with the large thruster on the right side of the train's engine, obliterating it in an explosion that violently shakes the rest of the train. Before the laser can burn into the rest of the engine, miraculously, the laser suddenly stops, presumably to recharge.

As the train lurches yet again and quickly begins decelerating, it starts leaning slightly onto its right side, the train off-balance as a result of missing its thruster. At the rate they were going now, the train didn't have a hope of outrunning the Seekerpede, which was now steadily gaining on them. In a few moments, the Seekerpede would land the killing blow.

Stuck here on the train, Daniel's ability to move was extremely limited, and even his Time Shift wouldn't offer much in terms of an advantage. As he looks over at the buildings whizzing by the train, he gets an idea as he recalls...

"I'm rooting for you, Commando!"

...Nefarious was clearly interested in him... For some reason.

With this in mind, if he could get off the train and back onto solid ground, there was a chance he would be able to lure the Seekerpede after him. Then, he'd have way more options in terms of manoeuvrability, which would allow him to take full advantage of his Time Shift's capabilities, and he just might stand a chance at escaping it. Either way, the train certainly didn't.

With this idea in mind, Daniel quickly dashes back through the door into the carriage, dodging terrified prisoners desperately clinging onto whatever they could hold onto, until he reaches Phantom at the front of the train, who was struggling with the train's steering wheel and other flight controls to keep it flying straight.

"Phantom, I have an idea! Can you get this thing closer to those buildings?" Daniel quickly asks, pointing to one of the monitors displaying the buildings in question whizzing past the train.

"I can try! What are you planning?"

"I'm going to jump onto one of those buildings, and try to lure that thing away." Daniel quickly explains in a calm manner, that almost throws Phantom for a loop for how nonchalant he sounded.

"Are you crazy?!" Phantom exclaims, the Rebel briefly turning to look back at him with a face filled with disbelief.

"I don't see any better options; we're sitting ducks in this thing!" Cooper retorts.

Phantom lets out a frustrated sigh. "Okay, fine!" He shouts, as he carefully begins driving the train closer to the buildings, pushing another lever forwards to gain some altitude. "I swear, you're worse than she is..." He mumbles. After another few moments of gently coaxing the controls, the train pulls up alongside the rooftops, and Phantom pulls back on the trains throttle slightly.

"I can't slow us down any more, the engine will stall if I do!" Phantom informs.

"Don't worry, this will do!" Daniel reassures, as he turns to exit the train's engine room. "Here's hoping that this works..."

"Wait, hold on! Take these with you!" Phantom suddenly calls out, Cooper turning back towards him, as the Rebel temporarily turns on the train's autopilot with the push of a few buttons on the control panel. He then quickly shrugs his backpack off of his shoulders and unzips it, before he pulls two objects out of it.

"Here's my spare bomb and its detonator. Probably won't do much to it's armour, but it might come in useful." The Rebel explains, as he hands them to Cooper.

"How much of a punch does this thing pack?" The Commando asks, inspecting the high-tech bomb and carefully handling the detonator in his other palm.

"Trust me, it'll make the ones you used look like toys." Phantom answers.

Daniel nods in thanks as he stows the bomb into his satchel and puts the detonator into a spare pouch on his vest.

Unbeknownst to him and Phantom, their whole exchange had been heard by the prisoners in the carriage behind them, including the Pilot's offer of luring the Seekerpede away from the train.

As Daniel jogs back through the carriage to leave, the prisoners quickly parting to let him through, they can only stare at him in awe and admiration at what he was about to do for them, at the risk of his own life. Before he can go through the door to exit the train, he's interrupted by one of the prisoners calling out to him.

"Wait!" A female alien suddenly shouts, as she runs out from the crowd towards the Commando and quickly grabs hold of his left arm, stopping him in his tracks.

"Who... Who are you?" She quietly asks, her large blue eyes almost seeming to pierce straight through Cooper's visor and into his amber eyes behind it, while the other prisoners look on at them in silence.

The Commando briefly pauses, his crescent-shaped visor silently staring back at her. At first, Daniel is admittedly caught off-guard, and unsure of how to reply. But then, as if on cue, he suddenly recalls the moment when Zurkon Junior gave him his new 'title' as he entered the bot's Battleplex the day before:

"Introducing... OBSIDIAN!"

"...I'm Obsidian." Daniel softly responds after a few moments, before he gently pulls his arm away from her grasp and turns and exits the train, the door closing behind him.

The Seekerpede had gotten significantly closer in the time Cooper was inside the train and was now much larger in the sky behind it, and was steadily getting bigger and bigger. Whether or not the Seekerpede's laser was still recharging, or that the Seekerpede was now playing with its food, was a mystery in that moment.

Daniel turns his attention to the buildings still whizzing by the train. With a clench of his fist, his Time Shift activates, the alien device materialising onto the back of his hand and slowing the world around him to a crawl, the buildings now moving past the train at a significantly reduced pace.

Daniel waits patiently for the right moment, then launches himself off the train with a Jump Kit-aided leap, and lands onto the roof of a nearby building. He wastes no time and quickly deactivates his Time Shift, time resuming at a normal speed as the train swiftly speeds off. He then turns around to face the Seekerpede, shoulders his L-STAR and lets off a stream of red charged particles straight at the Seekerpede's head.

As was expected, the bright red particles only dissipate upon hitting the Seekerpede and cause no noticeable damage to it. However, they served as a perfect way to get its attention, the stream leading straight back to the Pilot.

The Seekerpede immediately slows and turns its attention towards the lone man standing on the roof, completely forgetting about the train. Then, the Seekerpede suddenly emits a near ear-rupturing mechanical roar and mashes its mandibles together in apparent anger, as it soon changes course from chasing the train and towards Daniel's building.

"You want me, Nefarious? Well, come and get me then." Daniel quietly growls, as he turns and starts sprinting across the rooftops, quickly checking over his shoulder to confirm that he has the Seekerpede in tow.

As the Titan Pilot leads the Seekerpede deeper into the city, Phantom pulls his communicator out of its pouch and quickly dials the frequency for the Resistance's unofficial leader: Carl Quantum.

Quantum quickly picks up, but before he can even say anything, Phantom beats him to the punch.

"Carl, I need help in the city! We've got a train full of prisoners and there's a Seekerpede on our tail!" Phantom frantically explains.

"WHAT?!" Quantum responds in shock, and has a mild coughing fit which he quickly tames before continuing. "What in Zoni's name happened down there, Phantom?!"

Phantom had already informed him that he was going to be raiding and destroying a cargo train with Obsidian, after the Commando had requested his assistance in acquiring some Raritanium. Despite Quantum's reluctance to approve on such a mission so soon after the last one, Phantom, like he'd reassured Obsidian, reassured Quantum that they wouldn't be expected, and that it would be a simple in-and-out job. So, his shock was completely justified.

"Long story! Obsidian's luring it away from us as we speak, I need help to get these people off this planet pronto!" Phantom frantically informs.

"Okay, head to the nearest safe-zone, I'll send backup to meet you there!" Quantum replies.

"Got it!" Phantom acknowledges, as the line disconnects.

Phantom silently prays to Zoni himself that they would be able to get to the safe-zone and get the prisoners off the train and safely off-world before anything intercepted them. However, he was completely unaware that the Emperor was now focusing all of his attention on Obsidian.

————————————————————

Torren IV was beginning to sound very appealing to Daniel in that moment.

As the Seekerpede continuously fires its laser and missiles at him, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, the Pilot easily avoids them with the help of his Time Shift and continues parkouring across the rooftops, the Seekerpede following close behind. However, Daniel was quickly beginning to feel the side-effects of over-using the time-distorting device: He could feel himself beginning to slow down and become more sluggish, and the otherworldly cold produced by the Time Shift was now causing his body to shiver slightly. He knew he wouldn't be able to continue using it for much longer.

After hitting his Cloak to buy himself a brief moment to slow down and recover, the Seekerpede screeches in frustration is it slows down and begins firing missiles at the surrounding buildings upon losing its quarry. Daniel seemed to be correct in assuming that Nefarious was more interested in him than the train, as the Seekerpede appears hell-bent at ensuring his demise.

Pilot jumpsuits, like the one Daniel was currently wearing, contained special fibres that mask their wearer's heat signature from thermal sensors, and was originally intended to make a Pilot's Cloak more effective against Titans. So, even if the Seekerpede possessed similar thermal-sensing technology, Daniel would still remain completely invisible to it while Cloaked.

Right before his Cloak runs out, Daniel drops down out of sight onto the side of the building and starts wallrunning, hoping to put some distance between himself and the Seekerpede, as well as buy himself some more time to recover from his Time Shift's effects.

"BT, does that thing have any kind of weakness I can exploit?" Daniel asks coolly, as he continues wallrunning back and forth between the buildings with the aid of his Jump Kit.

"Scanning... Scans indicate the Seekerpede possesses a large flight stabiliser located behind its head region. If you were to damage it, it may impede the Seekerpede's flight capabilities." BT explains, as a holographic model of the Seekerpede appears on Daniel's HUD and highlights the circular flight stabiliser in yellow, showing exactly where it was located behind the Seekerpede's head.

Daniel realises that if he could destroy the Seekerpede's flight stabiliser with Phantom's bomb and permanently ground it, it would no longer be able to continue chasing him or the train, and thus allow both to escape.

Once he's gotten a good distance away from where the Seekerpede last saw him, his Cloak recharging during the process, Daniel vanishes again with a quick flick of his wrist, before he quickly reascends to the rooftops with the help of his Grapple, to get a visual on the Seekerpede. He soon sees it searching the vicinity of where he previously was with a large spotlight, and notices that its flying too high and too far from any buildings for him to be able to reach it, even with his Grapple.

In that moment, Daniel wonders whether or not Phantom had freed the prisoners yet. The Titan Pilot pulls his communicator from his satchel, with the intention of finding that out.

"Phantom! What's the ETA on those prisoners?" Cooper speaks into the communicator, as the Seekerpede unleashes another salvo of missiles into an unfortunate building, blowing it to smithereens.

"I'm unlocking the rest of the cells now! We just need a little more time, we'll be outta' here soon!" The Rebel promptly replies.

Currently unable to reach the Seekerpede, his only option right now was to continue luring it away, until Phantom gave him the all-clear. As his Cloak runs out, Daniel reappears with a shimmer as he squeezes off another stream of charged particles towards the Seekerpede's head to get its attention again.

The Seekerpede soon looks straight at Cooper, its spotlight completely illuminating him. The Seekerpede roars again as it fires its laser at the Commando, burning a large gash through the rooftop, as its quarry zips away to another building in the blink of an eye.

Cooper continues luring the Seekerpede across the rooftops, periodically using his Cloak and Time Shift to avoid its attacks, until he eventually arrives at what appears to be a large construction site, with multiple buildings under construction and several cranes set up around the area.

He notices a particularly tall crane on the other side of the construction site. Maybe he could climb it, and use it to reach the Seekerpede? A risky plan, for sure, but armed with his Cloak and Time Shift, it was a risk Daniel knew he could absolutely take.

As the Commando continues making his way to the other side of the construction site, he runs past one of the many cranes within it, one that unfortunately wasn't anywhere near tall enough to reach the Seekerpede's altitude.

Then suddenly, the Seekerpede screeches as it lunges at the Pilot like a hungry predator going in for the kill, scraping one of its mandibles across the rooftops towards him. Daniel instinctively activates his Time Shift upon seeing the mandible in his peripheral vision, as it slows to a crawl just mere feet away from him.

Once he makes a safe distance from the Seekerpede, he deactivates his Time Shift with a clench of his fist and keeps running. The Seekerpede swiftly returns to a normal speed, and its mandible slices straight through the base of the crane. The crane groans, as it soon collapses and lands on the Seekerpede with a massive crash, pinning it to the rooftops. The Seekerpede almost appears stunned from the impact, unable to fly for a few moments, before it soon recovers and throws the crane off of itself, then bellows a furious mechanical roar.

The Seekerpede takes flight and returns to the skies as it then unleashes yet another barrage of missiles at Obsidian. The missiles race towards the Commando, before impacting and resulting in a cascade of explosions. The Seekerpede slows down and begins circling the site, inspecting its handiwork.

Unknown to the Seekerpede, Daniel had timed the activation of his Time Shift so that the missiles would detonate just a split second after its activation, the explosions obscuring him from the Seekerpede's view as he blinks away from the danger zone almost instantaneously. Upon deactivating his Time Shift, Daniel then activates his Cloak as he runs toward the crane, buying him some time to scale it, before the Seekerpede can realise that its prey has survived.

Upon reaching the crane, the invisible Commando fires his Grapple upwards and begins reeling himself up, periodically speeding up his progress with some well-timed boosts from his Jump Kit. He's able to make it about halfway up the crane's mast, when his Cloak deactivates and he reappears with a shimmer. Obsidian presses onwards, continuing to scale the mast, until a familiar blue laser suddenly appears, missing him by mere feet as it slices straight through the crane.

The mast creaks and groans as it breaks off from the rest of the crane with a loud metallic snap, and quickly leans over before it starts falling. Hanging from his Grapple, Daniel clenches his left fist, and the severed mast's descent subsequently slows to a crawl as his Time Shift activates. As he looks back in the direction of the Seekerpede, he sees it now looming over him and the crane, it too slowed from the effects of his Time Shift.

This was his opportunity to end this now.

As the mast continues falling at a leisurely pace, Daniel swings himself on top with a boost from his Jump Kit, before he sprints up the remainder of the crane's mast, his legs propelling him forwards with everything they have. Upon reaching the end of the crane, he leaps off towards the Seekerpede, his Jump Kit propelling him through the air.

The Pilot lands on the very tip of the Seekerpede's large mandible, and after recovering from a somewhat shaky landing, he makes his way across it towards the Seekerpede's head, before jumping over the Seekerpede's head with another boost from his Jump Kit. After landing on the Seekerpede's long, flat back right next to the flight stabiliser highlighted on his HUD in bright red, Daniel quickly places Phantom's bomb inside a small vent inside it, his body now beginning to burn from the cold as a result of his Time Shift remaining active for so long.

Cooper then jumps off the side of the Seekerpede and begins descending towards the rooftops below, knowing from experience that his Jump Kit would be able to take the fall. He quickly deactivates his Time Shift with a clench of his fist. Immediately, the crane's severed mast resumes falling at a normal speed, as it quickly plummets and crashes next to the base of the crane.

After a few seconds of falling, Daniel lands on the roof of a building. Due to his body now feeling numb from the combination of his Time Shift's effects alongside the chill from the wind blowing past him as he fell, his legs buckle upon hitting the roof, causing him to tumble as he rolls across the roof for a few feet, before coming to a stop on his back.

Daniel quickly fumbles to get the bomb's detonator from its pouch in his vest, before he manages to get his hands on it. Flipping up the safety cap, he practically crushes the large, red button underneath with both his thumbs.

High above in the sky inside the Seekerpede's flight stabiliser, Phantom's bomb subsequently detonates in a catastrophic explosion that's almost as big as the Seekerpede itself, producing a visible shockwave that swiftly radiates outwards in all directions.

Daniel watches in a daze as the Seekerpede nosedives out of his vision, leaving a trail of smoke and flames behind it, until a thundering crash echoes in the distance. He groans in pain as he stares up at Corson V's dark sky. While the nanites in his system worked well for injuries, they unfortunately did nothing to relieve the numbing cold he was feeling, as his body shivers uncontrollably in a desperate attempt to warm itself up. Thankfully, the weather in Nefarious City in that moment was clear, and the Pilot was thankfully shielded from what little wind there was blowing over the rooftops.

As Daniel makes a mental note to bring some heat packs with him next time, a staticky, but familiar voice suddenly emanates from his satchel, jolting him out his daze.

"Obsidian, come in! I just heard the bomb go off, are you alright, man?!"

Cooper takes a deep, shaky breath as he slowly sits up and reaches into his satchel for his communicator.

"I'm good..." Cooper replies after a few moments, much to Phantom's ease, who breathes an audible sigh of relief.

"I thought we lost you there, man." The Rilgarian admits. "What about the Seekerpede?"

"Hang on, give me a second..." Daniel replies, as he slowly picks himself up off the roof with a groan and cautiously approaches edge of the rooftop. Far ahead, half buried in a series of buildings, the Seekerpede lies motionless, where only its tail that was hanging out of said buildings is visible.

Then, as if on cue, something inside the Seekerpede explodes and sends debris flying in all directions, as well producing a purple fireball that quickly dissipates. Soon, thick, black smoke erupts from the site that quickly begins rising into the sky.

"What was that?!" Phantom questions, having seemingly heard that explosion through the line.

Daniel takes a few moments to steady his breath, before breaking the news. "Phantom... The Seekerpede is down. Repeat, the Seekerpede is down. That thing won't be causing any problems any time soon."

"Wait a minute — Is it dead?!" Phantom asks in intense surprise.

"It sure looks like it. It's not moving anymore, I can tell you that much." Daniel describes, as lets out a cough. "That bomb of yours worked like a charm."

"Holy..." Phantom remarks in shock, before sighing in relief. "Thanks man, we owe you one."

"Alright, I'm getting off this shithole of a planet before another one of those things shows up..." Daniel remarks.

"Oh, you said it, man. Good luck with whatever you need that Raritanium for."

"Same to you." Cooper replies, as he ends the call. He sincerely hopes that this would be the last time he would step foot on Corson V, at least for a long while.

————————————————————

As the Commando prepares with BT to rendezvous with his Crow and leave the planet, Phantom is escorting the last of the prisoners off of the train and towards a large cargo ship, piloted by none other than Clatchky. After the final prisoners quickly walk up the ramp leading into rear of the ship, he gives the one-eyed Rebel a thumbs up through the canopy window, who quickly returns the gesture, and the ramp subsequently retracts and the rear door closes. The engines spark to life as the ship takes off and flies away to the outskirts of the city, putting some distance between them and any of Nefarious' forces before leaving the planet entirely.

Phantom pulls out his communicator again, and as he's about to dial Carl Quantum's frequency to inform him that the prisoners are on their way off-world, he sees a familiar Lombax jump down from the top of the parked train in the corner of his eye, and begin making her way over to him, prompting him to instead pocket his communicator for now.

Wielding her Warmonger, Rivet's job had been to keep watch for and deal with any arriving Nefarious forces. Thankfully, not even a single Trooper had appeared, and evacuating the prisoners had gone off without a hitch.

"It looks like you and Obsidian had loads of fun today..." Rivet remarks in a familiar tone of annoyed dissatisfaction that makes Phantom groan, as he braces himself internally.

"Rivet—"

"If I had done something like this the day after a mission, you and Quantum would've chewed my ears off for it!" Rivet complains in frustration, gesturing an arm to the parked train nearby. She wasn't wrong, far from it in fact, and Phantom had to agree.

"... Are you upset that I didn't ask you to come?"

"Yeah! The least you could've done is ask me for help, instead of asking a Commando you barely know..." Rivet admits, as she sulks at the idea of missing out on a mission as fun as raiding a cargo train.

"Hey, Obsidian asked me for help, not the other way 'round!"

"Huh? He asked you for help?" Rivet questions, her ears perking up in curiosity.

"Yeah, he said he needed Raritanium as soon as possible. Told me that it would help us out in the long run."

Rivet scoffs as she dematerialises her Warmonger back into her Holo-Manager and crosses her arms. The Lombax and the Rilgarian stand together in an awkward silence for a few moments, as Phantom sees the Lombax's eyebrows furrow in thought. She clearly wanted to ask him something, judging from the expression on her face.

"Did you happen to notice anything... strange about Obsidian on the train?"

"Where's all this coming from?" Phantom suddenly questions. "Look, I know you're not exactly trusting towards strangers, but come on, Rivet! He helped us out at the factory, didn't he?"

"Will you just answer the question... Please?"

Phantom sighs. "Fine. A few things, actually. I found out he has this dope invisibility tech, and he also has this knife that somehow was able to hack through the train's security protocols when I couldn't."

"...Anything else?" Rivet asks in a hopefully after a brief pause, rubbing her right arm as the tip of her tail twitches in anticipation for his answer.

Phantom thinks in silence for a few seconds, until he remembers a crucial moment when the Commando saved them from that pair of Trooper Heads that ambushed them.

"There was a point where he moved crazy fast to take out two Troopers that ambushed us, why do you ask?"

"A-hah! I knew I wasn't going crazy!" Rivet suddenly exclaims, clenching her fists in gratification. "Did you see a glowing thing on his left hand?" The Lombax asks with a strange amount of enthusiasm, briefly throwing Phantom for a loop.

"Now that you mention it, I think I did see something glowing on his hand— Wait, how did you know about that?"

Rivet almost appears shocked at her own words for a few moments, as her eyes widen. Unbeknownst to Phantom, she'd realised that she'd just revealed a little too much information, information that she didn't quite want the Resistance to know yet. At least, not until she's able to confirm whether or not Obsidian was involved with the EMP that happened the other day.

"Uhm... Lucky guess?" She answers with an awkward smile and a shrug of her shoulders.

Phantom had known her long enough to know that she was clearly hiding something. Whatever it was, it could wait, as the odds of Nefarious' forces showing up got greater and greater the longer they waited around.

"Alright, we should get out of here before any Troopers show up." Phantom says, breaking the awkward silence that had now befallen them.

Rivet immediately takes this as the cue to make her escape, running off into an alley, presumably towards her ship.

As Phantom too takes off into the city, taking out his communicator again and dials Quantum's frequency, his eyes widen as he realises the magnitude of what Obsidian did. The Commando killed a Seekerpede, something no-one in the Resistance, hell in the entire galaxy, has ever managed to do to date. If Quantum didn't want him to join the Resistance before, he absolutely will now.

The unofficial Resistance leader soon picks up with a click.

"Carl, the prisoners on their way off Corson V as we speak. And you're not gonna believe what Obsidian just pulled off..."

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A/N: I didn't realise that this chapter would end up being this long! And I'll admit that it was at least partially inspired by chapter four of 'Adrift', by Sir Pleio. If you happen to be reading this Sir Pleio, I hope you find it in yourself to return to it someday!

And here's a little teaser for the next chapter: Daniel will meet a certain someone, who's counterpart may or may not be a famous pop star in another dimension.

Until then, see you all next time, and thanks for reading!