"It looks like the further we go, the older things get. I believe we're heading to the older part of the station, so there shouldn't be as many guards down here."
"That's good to hear. I'm getting tired of hearing these idiots...it's lowering my IQ, I swear..." he hissed. He began to slide on after Garland.
Garland came to a intersection and looked around, heading right. The vents began to get rusty as they progressed on until finally it began to whine under their weight. "This doesn't sound good, DS..." Garland said. Suddenly the vent broke and dumped them inside some shutdown engine room. Rubbing his head, Garland pulled himself up and glanced at Death Star. "Well, at least we're away from the Mavericks."
"But no closer to a computer room..." pointed out Death Star as he walked around the huge area, brushing some dust along as he did. "At least thing cannot get any worse..." Suddenly the lights went out in the area and there was slight sounds of movement.
"Uh...what was that?!" asked Garland nervously. Suddenly two monster-like aliens leaped out and jumped on them both, knocking the two onto the floor. "GAH!" He fired a kiama blast right into the alien's face, sending it flying backwards and over the edge of the platform into the old engine core. Death Star struggled a bit with his, pulling his saber and slashing the alien's stomach wide open, barely missing getting plastered with guts. The alien died beside him. "What the hell is that?!"
"I don't know, but as long as it doesn't bleed acid for blood, I'm fine...." Death Star said as he stood up, opening the door to the room. "Now lets scram before MORE of those things show up." The two worked their way through the halls of the older section, occasionally hearing the scrapping sound of the alien creatures in the section with them, but soon they arrived in the newer part of the station. Death Star closed the door behind him with a sigh of relief. "Now, lets find that computer room....I don't know how much longer before we're caught."
Garland led the way and the two worked their way through the corridors, occasionally running into a group of Mavericks which were quietly and quickly silenced. Finally Garland found the control room and entered, sitting down at a computer and bringing up the information on it. Death Star leaned against it, keeping an eye out for trouble. "Hmmm...there's absolutely no record of Sharlena on here. None! But I did find Iceheart...she's in the main throne room, where she runs the station at."
"Then we head there. She'll know where Sharlena is," Death Star told him.
Garland slammed his fist onto the keyboard, shattering it. "She better..."
"I think the map said there was two ways there. One takes us through heavy Maverick activity...the other one takes us through the older section of the station, again. Of course those things are there..." Garland told him.
"Hmmm...fight off hundreds of stupid idiots or go against a few clever alien killing machines...." Death Star pretended to ponder.
"I say go through the old section. It'll be safer. Besides, we dealt with the last ones rather easily..." Garland pointed out to him. Death Star thought it over for a moment and nodded, satisfied.
"Alright, lead the way..." he said. Garland began to run through the corridors, closely followed behind by Death Star, who kept glancing up at the cameras lining the walls, watching them probably. That meant they would know where they were...Their only hope was that the old section's cameras weren't linked up to the mainframe anymore....
Garland arrived at the door and grabbed it, struggling to force the rusted metal block to open. Death Star reached out and struggled with him, both pulling with all their might, finally forcing the door to open with a terrible screech that echoed through the hallways. Frowning, they both stepped into the dark room, a thick musty air hitting them in the faces. Garland coughed on it seeing as it was hard to breathe in. "Caff! Caff! This place hasn't been used in awhile..."
Death Star stepped over some fresh marks on the floor. "Oh, I wouldn't say that...looks like our little alien wannabies were here. Charming, isn't it?" he muttered. That's when the first wave of the attack came. The tail lashed out and wrapped itself around Death Star, cutting into his metal rather easily and efficiently. Not even managing a silent cry, he could feel himself being tugged at an angle that caused him to the hit the ground hard, possibly damaging some weaponry in his arms. Garland, at the same time, was jumped by two bigger aliens than the one attacking Death Star, both pinning him to the ground as if waiting on something.
That's when the second wave of the attack hit. Three more aliens jumped out, two on Death Star and the other one went for Garland. The one holding Death Star tightened it's grip, causing battery fluid to rush up to Death Star's mouth. Grabbing his saber, he slashed at the tail, slicing it off in one quick motion as the other two aliens were upon him. Raising the saber, he already began to calculate their angles of attack and the most efficient way to cut them off. Which simply didn't exist. Swinging, he caught the first of the two in the chest, slicing it down to it's groin area as the second one rammed Death Star, causing him to hit the wounded body of the first alien, flipping him over it and onto the ground, which happened to be on the edge of a stairway. Hitting hard, he rolled down to the bottom as the second two aliens leaped at him. Raising his saber, he caught the one he cut earlier in the head, driving it in deep and killing the monster as the second one batted him in face, sending him flying back into a metal bar. Coughing up more battery fluid, Death Star watched his vision begin to blur as it moved in for the kill. But he already knew how this monster moved and ducked the swing and brought his saber up, slashing off it's arm. The alien howled in pain and jerked back, as Death Star swung his saber and sliced it in half. But before he could rest, the tailless alien was on it's feet again and leaped at him, ramming him back further from Garland. He could feel the back of his head hit a metal bar, causing a bombardment of pain to go off back there. Firing his blaster into the chest of the alien, he could feel it shift back a good few centimeters and then he brought his saber down upon it, finishing the alien off.
Garland, meanwhile, struggled against the two aliens holding him as the third one came flying down. Knowing he had only moments before they gutted him, he charged his anger at the loss of Sharlena and fired a super kiama at all three, scattering them. One luckily went over the edge due to the force of the blast, but the other two seemed rather unfazed by it. They began to charge him, so Garland flipped over their shoulders and landed behind them, firing off another blast at the floor, causing a gaping hole in the platform. The alien tripped and fell down it to it's death while the remaining one turned itself around and charged Garland, ramming him into the metal bars surrounding the platform. The bars whined in protest, bending under their weight, and snapped promptly. Garland grabbed the edge as the two went over, barely holding as the alien continued to fall...and grabbed his foot. The alien growled and hissed, slashing at Garland's leg. Crying out in pain, Garland raised his hand and fired a kiama blast right into the alien's eyes, blinding it briefly and causing it to let go. The alien fell to it's death below. Pulling himself up, he saw Death Star entering the room from the hallway they had just left.
"Good, Garland, you're still alive. Come on, this way is too dangerous. Lets take the halls back here..." Death Star told him.
"I agree..." Garland said, holding his side in pain. The two walked off by the time Death Star arrived from his fight with the aliens, scanning the area for Garland. But he was missing and panic began to fill him. Was Garland dead? If anything happened to him.....But then he saw that the doors were left open to the hall...and he knew that they had shut it behind themselves. Guessing Garland went that way, Death Star started off after him.
"Well there's not much to say about him... he wasn't the best father, but I want to be better to Sharlena then he was to me."
The clone snorted. "I would say he wasn't much of a father, but you really didn't get to hate him like the rest of us did. The guy was the world's utter most asshole. We were wishing death upon him, so it wasn't really a big shock when he upped and died at the hands of Crucifixtion. You know, the Hunters and I were taking bets on how many missions we thought he would survive. I won the bet," he said with a shark grin.
Garland shot a stare, that without words showed Garland's hatred for what DS just said. "He may not have been the best of people, but you never knew who he was. Di'Mantha... before she became corrupt and my father took me from Parnel, she told me he was a good man once... never speak of my father like that ever again." Garland then punched DS in the jaw for saying what he said, but the Hunter surprisingly didn't seemed that phased by it. But it was a blow that would have caused Death Star to stagger back in shock and pain. Garland was one of the toughest Hunters there was, but when it came down to a slug fight between him and Death Star, both sides would end up pretty banged up.
The clone let out a low chuckle. "You hit like him too, you know that Garland? You were both pathetically weak. That's why your father's dead and that's why your daughter is in the hands of a madman. Because you're too damned weak to stop it. And you know what? I looked up your father's background. He was a drunk and a murderer, hunting down people and killing them for money. He was bounty hunter scum and the only reason he joined the Hunters was to get the bounty on my head. Your father never cared for ANYthing good. He only looked out for himself!" he snarled.
Garland's eyes glew white with rage. "Death Star, you kin'janan!!!" Garland attacked on impulse alone, punching DS in the gut and kicking him in the face. After doing every thing he could, without killing Death Star, he fell to one knee and went into a deep depression over his father, who is dead, and his daughter, who may already be killed any minute.
The clone sat back up almost instantly and smirked coldly at Garland. "Just what I thought. While a punch like that might have rendered Death Star in a world of pain, consider no such HONOR from me," he said and pulled a gun out on Garland. "Now, if you don't do as you say and follow me to Iceheart's throne room, as my prisoner, I won't send in the order that will save your daughter's life. However, if you do as I say, when we arrive, I'll call in to spare her life...at least for a little bit longer," he told Garland.
Garland raised his arms and the clone smiled triumphantly. He grabbed his comm. "Iceheart? This is DS. I have one of the prisoners. My otherself should be heading there shortly, since that was their battle plan." He flicked the comm. off and waved Garland down the hall to the throne room. Even he didn't know what Iceheart had in store when Death Star arrived. But it wouldn't be pleasant.
Looking out across at the building, Jared could barely see six feet in front of him due to the blinding rain. Hurricane type winds were blowing around the city, keeping the sane indoors, where he should have been with his fiancé. But instead he was out here, frozen to the bone, blind as a bat, and having to take a shot that had exactly zero odds stacked on it. It was impossible and no one in the entire universe would place a bet on his making the shot. Except Dominator and Slash.
The comm. link Dominator gave him beeped. He flipped it on. "Blackjack? Are you in position?" came Dom's voice.
"Yeah...if you could call it that. Look, Dominator, I can barely see my HAND in front of my face. I would only be jeopardizing lives if I tried to take a shot in this rain," he told him.
Dominator was silent for a minute, as if calculating every possible way to take Code down. Finally he sighed. "No, Jared, this is the only way. There's no way I could get any Hunters near him without his security system, in which HE's in control of. I can't teleport anyone in there due to the fact that there is a teleportation blockade around the entire building. Our only option is you making this snipe shot," Dominator finally spoke up. The comm. link whizzed for a few seconds, cutting off some more of his sentence from Jared. That was how bad this storm was....
"What was that Dominator? You're breaking up..." Jared said, his arm shivering from the cold.
"I said do what you have to, but we only have eight more minutes left before he starts blowing the hostages away!" Dominator answered him frantically. Jared sighed and threw the comm. onto the ground so he could hear it in faint whispers, since the roar of the rain was pretty much drowning everything else out. Searching for his suitcase in the blinding rain, he finally bumped it and began to unload his sniper rifle.
Once he finished, he positioned the rifle's stand on the slippery roof, quickly drilling it into the roof as best he could. He pivoted the sniper rifle around to make sure it would still move, and it it did. Smiling, if you could call it that, Jared pulled his hat over his eyes as best he could to block out the rain. The only thing he knew was the roar of the pounding rain everywhere. It threatened to overtake him, but he mentally forced it out of his mind and focused on the sniper scope only. He even lost consciousness to the comm., which was a low hiss, drowned out by the rain.
The scope showed him the same thing his eyes did. Absolutely zero visibility. Jared couldn't even make out the window to the building through this. He raised his arm and glanced at the chronometer and saw six minutes had passed. He had only two minutes to find a target and to fire before Code went trigger happy...starting with Mirri. Shaking the thought out of his head, Jared adjusted the scope to the infrared heat and picked up seven heat signals, one constantly moving around. That was his target, alright. The heat blur moved over to the phone area it seemed like and stopped, getting ready to call the Hunters for one final taunt before he executed his prisoners.
Glancing up, Jared checked the angle of the rain and wind and knew immediately his shot would never make it to Code in time. The rain and wind would have it so off course it would probably hit one of the prisoners, and that was something he didn't want to live the rest of his life with. Sighing, Jared mentally had counted another minute passing by and knew that his options were almost gone. His finger went up to the trigger as his other hand adjusted what he thought were the necessary requirements to guide the shot through the wind and rain, which shrilly blew and pounded all around him. Never before in his entire career had Jared ever known this much pressure before. He was cold, wet, tired, and hungry, feeling his performance level slowly drop. The rain was sapping his strength quickly.
Another forty second had passed and Code was on the phone now. The head signature seemed to angrily slam something down and turned to the other heat signatures. Here it comes...he's going to start shooting them all dead... he thought to himself and his finger went one hundred percent ridged on the trigger, his rifle shifting over to make the necessary adjustments in the rain and wind, which howled and pounded, threatening to over take him in it's loud symphony. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, even though they should have been plastered to his skin due to the rain. The timing was now. The shot was now. He fired and immediately knew the shot was going to miss. He cursed himself for his mistake as he watched the shot fly from his visibility, his infrared beginning to short out. But he saw enough through the scope to know that the blast hit Code in the arm, spinning him around. And he also knew Code knew he was the one making the shot. In the next few seconds, Jared strained whatever eyepower he had through the rain and saw the faint form, all disformed in the pouring rain, begin to get back up.
The comm. buzzed behind him. "Warning, shot missed. Send the team up there now before he begins to blow all the hostages away," came Dominator's shrill, angry voice at what had happened. They had lost. Jared had failed to make the shot.
Feeling the rifle in his hands, Jared glanced one more time and saw that the spot he thought he had saw Code was now blocked by rain. He raised the rifle from it's stand on the ledge and held it in his arms, glancing through the scope and fired blindly. Time seemed to slow down around him as the shot sailed through the sky, unadjusted and unprepared, at the mercy of the wind and rain to end up ANYwhere. But it continued straight and crashed into the glass beside the second shot. Jared heard a loud shrill cry of pain coming from inside. It sounded like one of the hostages. Omigod...I shot one of them.... thought Jared, his stomach turning to ice.
The comm. link beeped beside him. "This is Dominator, target is down. Repeat, Jared nailed Code. Team, move in and free those hostages," came Dominator's relieved voice. They had survived...this time.
Hugging Mirri tightly, Jared nodded at Dominator. "Hey, I am the best, after all."
"Oh boy, ego alert. That's suppose to be my job..." Slasher told him.
Dominator glanced down at the chronometer and sighed. He would have liked to talk to Jared some more but he had to get the team out. He had Darien and Ace contact the HQ and send some more ships their way, which should be in the system by the time Dominator arrived on the Claw's Revenge, which was currently being renamed. "Well, Blackjack, I hope the rest of your trip goes well. But we need to move out. We came here to finish a mission and we best well do it."
The Hunters began to walk away and Jared stood there, thinking hard. They were almost out of hearing when he shouted, "WAIT!" Dominator turned around.
"What? Are you okay?"
Jared nodded. "I want to rejoin the Hunters, Dominator. That's my place, I know. It may have taken me awhile to realize that, but no matter what, the Hunters are my home. Let me come along with you guys."
Dominator smiled. "Welcome back, Jared. Our shuttle is outside the casino. We're leaving in five minutes. Grab your stuff and we'll head out." Jared nodded and reached down, picking up his supplies and weapons. Smiling at Mirri, he began to tell her about how much fun they would have.
Mirri smiled. "From what I heard, the Hunters are all laughs."
"There was a time you would believe that...lets hope not much has changed since I've left."
Flipping to the ground, Death Star spied another computer room and kicked the door down. The startled technicians looked up but Death Star was already done slicing them up before they could react. So far the only challenges this place was really throwing out were those creepy aliens and his clone. Sitting down, he accessed a map of the building and brought it up on a hologram form. The image flipped around and around until it finally stopped and a spot lit up, where he was. Then another spot lit and blinked, showing him where he wanted to go.
Flipping out of the chair, Death Star bounced off the side of the wall and went through the broken door way, sliding on the floor and coming to a stop for a split second. Then he took off in another run through the hallways, running past squads of Mavericks every now and then. They really didn't notice him, which suited Death Star. He wasn't in the mood to battle his way through the entire station to find his fiancé.
Arriving in the throne room, his first impression was that of leading to separate ways. In the middle sat a chair and behind that was a path somewhere into a deep cavern like hallway. To the right was a hallway that formed into a catwalk that led into the engine core area. That was a dangerous area, Death Star noted. But his train of thought was interrupted by a voice he dreamed about at nights. "Welcome, Death Star." Turning around, he saw Iceheart standing to his right, near the chair and to his left he saw that his clone walked out, throwing Garland at DS's feet.
"We found this wandering around," the clone said.
"You!" Death Star hissed as Garland stood up, looking pissed himself.
"Calm calm, Death Star," Iceheart spoke up. "No need to go fighting it out...yet. Welcome to my humble home. I've been hoping you would come, we have much to talk about."
"And you have much to answer for," Death Star said, even though it caused his heart to ache.
"I see. But enough chit chat. I'm afraid they'll want a test, Death Star."
"Over what?"
"We'll come to that. But first, let me introduce you to your clone," she said with a smile, pointing at him. "I'm sure you two have met."
Death Star rubbed the back of his head. "Quite a few times, unfortunately. But I haven't caught the copy cat's name yet."
"Death Star, meet Dark Strider."