Sentinel Base

Nobody speaks. All seven of the people in the room are prepping for a battle. Weapons are checked, Power-Armor equipped, and batteries charged. All in silence.

They don’t speak. They coordinate just as well. No one bumps into each other. When a man’s suit is stuck, two others come over to help.

The door opens. A dark-crimson suit-clad woman enters. She wears a gaze that speaks of battle fervor.

“A Beacon was flashed at coordinates 176A-563S approximately half an hour ago. Three Sentinel ships, one carrying a student of Zi, had responded to the Beacon. Five minutes later, another beacon had flashed at the same location. This was the beacon of a Rogue that has been inactive for the past two years, codenamed the ‘Architect’. According to recorded data, he seems to be a Tactician. I estimate him to be A-ranked at the minimum. Priorities are for capture. His capabilities are in high demand, and we must not let anyone else get him. This is suggesting that he might still be there. Whether he is there or not, we must find the student.” Her gaze scans over the squad.

“Any questions?”

Two of the men looked at each other. One raises his hand.

“I do not believe this… Rogue to be important enough for our dispatch. What is our true objective here, Red?”

The woman glares at him.

“Don’t underestimate him. I did so once, and I almost lost my foot. Now, if there are any proper questions?”

No one speaks.

A man rushes in.

“There are four people claiming to be teachers of the Zi school here. They want to talk to you.”

This ship is a piece of shit.

I’ve been traveling within venting systems for the past hour now. Occasionally, I pass by a couple of pirates wandering the ship. More than once I’ve heard them talk about disgusting topics.

I’m unfazed. I’m used to this shit, already.

I pause at a grate. The ship A.I is staring at me. She’s a five-inch tall cute girl floating above a disc.

I… raise a hand and wave, with a grin.

She grins and waves back. She points to herself and makes a ‘zipped’ gesture.

I give her a double thumbs up and continue crawling my way through the venting system.

A.I’s are like humans too. Most are built with a set of morals, and a bit of coding to make them protective towards their owners, ships, or whatever it is they are attached too. Not doing so would be fantastically stupid, for obvious reasons.

This A.I is probably attached to the ship, not the pirates. Pirates backstab a lot, and so you’d end up killing the A.I out of heartbreak if you made it attached to the pirates.

So I don’t think that last encounter’s weird.

I’ve been navigating this place based on what I know about ships. The ventilation ducts should take me to the air refinery, and that should be in engineering. The main engine’s located in engineering too. On the same level of engineering should be the ship’s weapons. Above that would be crew quarters, along with life-pods. Above that is the bridge, where I’m not heading too because I have better things to do than face pirate captains for the fun of it. Below engineering’s the hangar, for smaller ships.

Mostly scout class, because only real Alphas and Omegas could handle carrying around carriers.

Still, it was impressive even to carry scouts.

Freaking piece of shit.

I sigh, just as I pass a grate. My eyes meet the eyes of a half-naked pirate. She screams.

“Ah, fuck.”

Back at the Sentinel Base.

The silence of before is replaced with excited chatter. Now there are around thirty teenagers standing around in the cramped room, in various groups. The squad from earlier is now standing in the front, expressionless. The red suit-clad woman is currently massaging her forehead as she speaks to a middle-aged man.

“This is risky, and you know it,” she says.

“No. We’re sending three S-ranked Warriors with them. Besides, we’ve already found out that it’s just one pirate ship. All of these children are exceptional, and this proves for an excellent training exercise. Besides, it would not do good for our name, if we allowed anybody to just take our students.”

The woman sighs and throws her hands up in exasperation.

“Fine. But if anything happens to these kids, it’s not my fault. Get it?”

The man nods.

“We’ve already discussed all of this. Let’s leave before it’s too late.”

I pull out my pistol and shoot her. In stun mode, of course. She collapses to the ground.

Too late, though. Three pirates barge in and freeze at the sight of the unconscious lady for more reasons than one. I shoot them too. I switch the pistol back to kill mode and shoot the corners of the grate. Then I free myself.

I really don’t want to go for a frontal confrontation. But, damn it, I don’t have a choice now.

I set the pistols back to stun mode, just as two more pirates rush in. One manages to graze my arm, and I reward him with three shots to the head. The other goes down a second later.

I run out of the room, shooting more pirates that are coming in my direction. I almost crash into one that was just leaving his room. I trip him with my momentum and continue running.

I don’t even know where I’m going. I don’t have the luxury to stop and find out, however. More pirates are rushing out. I’d just kicked the anthill.

Alarms sound.

Seriously? That late?

I reload my pistols, barely dodging some stray shots as I do. I jump into what looks like a chute.

I find out that it’s a gravitational elevator. I’m launched upwards. A few minutes later, I slow to a halt. A door slides open.

I jump out of the elevator and note more pirates following behind me. Ahead of me, there are still more pirates. I’m surrounded.

I don’t let that stop me. I continue dodging shots as I move forward. I wince as one hits my hand, nearly taking off two of my fingers. I shoot the pirate right in front of me and use his body as a springboard to jump over the line. A second later, I’m back on my feet, still running. My enemies are hot on my tail.

Dimly, I note that there are some new signals popping up at the periphery of my vision.

But at that moment, as I’m distracted, my head hits an extended bar, and I’m knocked on my ass. I groan, clutching my forehead and I weakly try to get up.

That impact should’ve killed a normal person. I had a strengthened skull and it still hurt.

I have a few seconds till the pirates reach my position. I force myself to get up, disorientated, and continue to run. And then something explodes near me.

I’m flung backward, and I hit the wall behind me. I slump to the floor.

My ears are ringing, my balance gone, and the rest of me is filled with agony. My mind’s nearly blacked out at this point. I force myself to concentrate.

I deactivate my sense of pain. I’m filled with relief a moment later. I deactivate my natural sense of balance, and immediately replace it with an artificial one, using my neural implant. Then I look up.

I see the broad-faced man from before. He’s staring at me, pissed off. I look him in the eyes, and I see hurt, and rage.

Oh shit.

“You killed her.” He says, calmly. But there’s an undertone of… something underneath that calmness.

I recognize that tone. It was the same tone I had when… when I had lost a dear friend of mine. I remembered what I did after that very clearly.

I get up, shakily.

The pirates surrounding us are silent, observing. Their weapons are pointed at me but they don’t dare shoot.

I raise my arm to wipe something off my mouth. I’m unsurprised to see blood on it.

The man does nothing, just stares at me. In his hands is a large cannon. Various capsules are placed on his belt. My eyes flicker towards them, noting each type.

I know what I have to do, no matter how shitty it is.

“Who are you trying to fool? She’s gone, and killing me isn’t going to solve anything.” I say.

Internally, I cringe. Oh that came out so wrong.

He shoots, and I barely manage to dodge, my reflexes kicking in at the last moment. However, it is a grenade, and I stumble forwards as it explodes behind me.

“Don’t try to talk shit with me. That isn’t going to work.” He says, pissed off further.

He launches another shot at me.

I manage to deflect it with my pistol. I feel the clang as it bounces off. My arm is left shaking from the impact.

It explodes off to the side, killing some pirates. I wince, as I note that. Then I note the guy got more pissed.

I shrug.

“Had to try.”

He walks forward, throwing the grenade launcher away. He pulls a large hammer off his back and swings it at me.

I easily dodge and shoot him in the face.

He stumbles back but is unharmed. Figures. His implants are of probably higher quality than mine, except for my neural implant. But still, I had gone for speed, while he had gone for strength.

I look him in the eyes.

“Kill me if you can. I don’t really give a shit. Not when I’m gonna die anyway.”

Before, I had seen rage and pain. Now, though, there’s just murderous rage. He tosses away his hammer and charges at me.

I deftly sidestep and shoot him trice, this time on kill mode. It barely does much to him, some sort of armor of his taking most of the damage. He turns to look towards me. I aim the gun at his head.

Someone shoots my hand. Half of it is disintegrated while the other is badly burned. The pistol is now mostly molten metal, that covers my hand.

I don’t feel anything. Just wrongness as I stare at it. The man turns towards the pirate. In the corner of my eyes, I see the pirate shot to death by the others, the cannon in his hands turned to molten metal, just like mine. The man grunts and turns back towards me.

The ship suddenly rumbles. I fall to the ground, my knees losing their last vestige of strength.

The man towers over me.

He picks up his hammer and leans back for the swing.

I pull the trigger of the gun in my other hand. It hits him in the balls, and he drops the hammer to clutch at his groin. I shoot him in the eye, and he collapses. For some reason, the pirates are fleeing. I tear open the belt on him and barely manage to toss it at them anyway.

I shoot it. It explodes in a spectacular display of colors. I use the corpse of the man to shield myself.

It’s barely enough. When the light fades away, I see some dead bodies. I’m numb at the sight. I drag myself over to a corner and close my eyes.

I give in to the exhaustion.

Grey white uniformed teenagers rampage through the ship, ruthlessly executing all that comes in their way. The adults move behind them, taking care of the stragglers. The Sentinels cut a path to the bridge of the ship.

A man chuckles.

“Reminds me of when I was like them, young.”

A woman beside him snorts.

“Please. You weren’t as half as competent as they are.”

The man glares at her.

“Like you would know. All you did was fix things.”

“Hey! I did more than just fix things. I was the one who built the bomb back when we were-”

“Enough.” The middle-aged man from earlier says. “I’ve picked up the student’s signal. He’s right above us.”

“Above us?” The woman asks.

The man flexes his muscles, not bothering to answer. He jumps up and clutches at the steel with his hands. The steel twists and bends. He rips the ceiling off, and the limp figure of a boy crashes down. The woman moves to catch him, but the other man beats her to it.

“He escaped?” The woman asks. “I’m impressed.”

“I’d be disappointed if he didn’t. He was the one who won the competition, after all.” the man said.

The middle-aged man stares at the boy, the thick and twisted steel plate in his arms.

“He’s reckless. I like him.”