No crying over spilled milk, i guess.

The other Valdari carry Van’hil while I direct them towards the entrance of the holding bay. Thankfully, it’s easy to find the way around here as you know the way is where the only light is coming from. There, Santángel is giving orders to the rest, and with a quick glance I make sure that we aren’t missing anyone.

The big guy notices me and my entourage and nods.

“The commander did her part, now let’s delta outta here!” He shouts, and only Dzhabrailov and another of our front gunners stay behind the cover, the rest get close and start rounding up the former prisoners in a circle. I only heard about this stuff moments before we got off the ship, so not even I know how this works.

“Go go go!” After we are forming a circle, Santángel shouts again at our two people providing cover, and both of them throw several gas grenades outside of the holding bay, which detonate instantly. Then they run towards us, and Luca turns on what looks like a clock, that ticks once and then we are all quickly enveloped by a blue light. We can hear the commotion outside, some gunshots still going on, but then, the sound vanishes, and I feel like my whole body is made out of jelly and I'm going through a sieve.

I was informed of a certain device that could teleport living beings and material objects closeby, but had the drawback of taking several seconds to activate, and you could only travel a short distance, and had to set up the ‘recall’ point beforehand. They called it the Rewinder.

The blue light then cracks and disappears, and we are suddenly in front of the Sleipnir, where Lai is directing the rest of the crew with orders with such a speed that not even my enhanced hearing could understand. They notice our sudden appearance, but as they already knew what was gonna happen, they just continue working. There’s a semitransparent shield around the whole area, which is the force field from the Sleipnir, set up as a mighty shield for our people.

“Commander! Good job, we are currently under attack but they seem to be only probing, we should take advantage and get out” She speaks as she gets close.

I nod “Direct these people to the ship, we’ve got the VIP with… only a minor contusion” I see to one side and there’s the pirates from the other ship that came with us, cooperating with the defense that out guys set up “I see that Deschamps has made himself useful”

“Yes, they’ve proven to be helpful, although i’m not about to trust my back to them”

“As you should… it’ll leave a bad taste in my mouth to kill them, just take them inside too and put them behind bars, we’ll figure out what to do with them then”

“Roger that… Alright, esteemed guests, I'm Corporal Lai Lian from the Stellar Union, please follow me, we’ll take you all to safety” She says with her customer service voice, but she also made a couple of signs to the pirates, and they also went with her. I guess she knew what was gonna happen and talked the details with them beforehand… fuck, why does one of my best officers have to be a mole.

Santángel touches my shoulder then “Mission accomplished Commander, let’s leave, now that we are here they are sure going to focus their firepower on us, the shield of the Sleipnir won’t hold on forever”

“Let’s go then” I tell him.

After the pirates and the hostages get inside the Sleipnir, the rest of our guys follow suit with a fast pace, as we don’t want to get caught by surprise by a railgun shot when the shield finally collapses. Deschamps’ ship will stay here, as the bomb we planted hidden inside it will be our insurance to get out of this big ass ship without being target practice for its gigantic weapons. It might be old tech but it’s still packing serious force behind it.

Santángel, Novak and Dzhabrailov stay with me as we make sure everyone is on board. There’s some wounded so Yvonne went in with the first group, and Luca rushed inside to make sure no other techrunner might interfere with our escape.

When the last one boards, we look at each other and then start running towards the ramp, but halfway through, i feel a chill on my neck, and then I stop on my tracks, as both my wrist blade and mantis elbow blade deploy while I turn around, ready to pounce.

There’s the figure of a man, standing right at the start of the ramp but without setting foot in it. But, I can only see his silhouette, as all I see is black, as if I'm watching a shadow. My senses scream for me to either run away as far as I can from him, or try to kill him as fast as I can before he kills me.

I sense myself reactivating Metaphysical sense and even Eye of Dominion turns on as well. My skin crackles by the effect of Discharge, and my muscles tense because of Physical Enhancement. All of this without me consciously activating any of them, just as a pure reflex.

Behind the darkness of the figure, I see a radiant white smile that creeps me out.

The others sense him a little bit slower, when they are almost about to board the ship, and they draw their weapons with blinding speed and shoot without asking. Two laser beams and a kinetic bullet aimed at the figure, but when they are about to touch him, they disappear, as if they never existed.

The man in black raises one hand, raises an index finger, and waves it from left to right.

Novak and Dzhabrailov then unload their weapons on him, but the effect is the same, and I see with the corner of my sight that Santángel is getting ready to deploy his heavy machine gun. But… I have to stop them.

They’ll die.

“GO BACK!” I shout at them as hard as I can. They recoil, stop shooting and look at me in disbelief. I’m telling professional soldiers to run from a single enemy while their commander is frozen in place.

They won’t listen. I have to make them listen.

“I said… GO BACK!” I shout again, as I wave my left hand towards them, and they are then lifted from the air, and flung across the ramp, inside the ship. No idea how that happened, and I think Hallie is saying something about a skill but all I hear is the sound of my own blood pumping like crazy.

The shadow claps, as if approving of my actions, and then instantly teleports right in front of me. I react trying to stab it with the still damaged wrist blade, but I'm too slow, and I get… embraced. The man cloaked in shadow is holding me in an embrace, one that feels like a mix of loneliness and insanity. I then hear words, whispered in my ear.

“Hello, mother”

Then all goes black.