Chapter 4: Borderline

[Nohiki]

"I can help with that!" Ariaka yelled, summoning another drone that had Tal's fighter in tow. "Thought we might need it!" she explained, preparing to scuttle the Mech the second the crew is in the shuttle and move to pilot the drone to provide more cover for the shuttle.

[Midnightmoon]

"...endly fire, Tal'Set!!! ...Get to ... shuttle, NOW! ... cover you!" "...Ariakia is ...t you? ...alright then!" Lee rolled over and hit the alarm on the radio. "It's too early for a flight fire drill, Aree, go to sleep." He mumbled, trying to nod off again, but the small voice persisted, "I can help with that! ...Thought we might need it!" Flicking his ears Lee pushed himself up to glare tiredly at the data pad. "If you don't stop that I'll...I'll..." Lee looked around slowly, everything looked normal but it all felt strange now that he thought about it. As the situation trickled back. "Right, ship broken, crew dead, memories gone... right." Ears drooping back and he pushed the ear buds more firmly into his head, reajusting his goggles. Grabbing the data pad as he rolled out of bed he headed for the bridge.

[Awesomoman]

Lance headed to a nearby steak joint, something about it just called him. Unfortunately, he didn't have any money on him, and asking his friends for some would make him look even more pathetic than he already felt. Something on the menu however caught his eye, it was some sort of giant steak. According to the description, if you could eat all of it in one sitting it was free. Challenge accepted.

As soon as Lance swallowed the last piece of meat, he stood up and nodded to the now stunned waitress. "I take it no ones ever done that before." She slowly shook her head. Lance just flipped his helmet around then slipped it back on. Suddenly the ground shook violently, Lance instinctively drew his gun. "Everyone stay here." He commanded. He burst out of the place to find himself face to face with a mech. "Laaaaance? What is that?" Rucha called over the com. "Scanning now.." He replied, but stopped his scan when he saw shots at the mech and heard Ariaka yelling friendly fire. "Rodger. Rucha, Kiruza, get behind me we're moving out!" Tal had already made it to the shuttle, but that meant guards would be swarming if they didn't rush.

[Kauria]

Rucha ducked her head and dashed after Lance's lead.
"Why do all of our planetside trips end with running to the ship?" she shouted, unholstering her first pistol.

[Awesomoman]

With Rucha and Kiruza behind him, Lance charged through the facility. Smashing through everything in his path, nothing could stand in front of this train. It didn't take long before they reached the shuttle, "Quick, get on board. I need to get something." He ran over to the panel their weapons were under and ripped it off. He grabbed the bag and ran to the shuttle. "GET. US. OUT!"

[Zetherus]

Tal'set heard Lance's call making him turn to look at the crew in the back and saw everyone including the snake being. When he saw Lance run through, he closed the freighter's doors and activated the thrusters. "Alright here we go, fasten your safety harnesses everyone!?" He yelled out before he thrust the control stick forward making the shuttle plow into a group of solders wielding large weapons, crashing through a guard stand, then took off into the blue collared sky. "Woohoo that was fun! Man I haven't had this much fun since I was back on Atlantis doing covert missions with my ex-war buddies!" He screamed out in joy as they finely escaped into space. He began to look around but couldn't see the the Croatoan anywhere so he turned his head slightly, while still keeping an eye out for pursuers, and called out into the back, "Hey can anyone tell me where the Croatoan is? After all I wasn't the one that drove this down there..." His left arm still in the sling made it hard to activate the navigation system so he didn't bother to take his hand off the control stick.

[Nohiki]

A text blinked on the shuttle's control screen, telling Tal'Set to push the flashing yellow button to start approach sequence to the ship. This text costed Ariaka dearly as diverting any amount of her processing power away from the battle was difficult. In this case, another five drones simply collapsed and crashed to the ground. Now! She thought and ejected from the Mech, the capsule designed for human pilot flying away before the self destruct disintegrated the mech itself. A drone picked er up and she started evacuating as local air force could be seen already.

[Zetherus]

Tal'set continued to fly straight toward a nearby asteroid belt until he heard a "beep" on the monitor. It told him to press the yellow blinking button when he got close. He was confused because he couldn't see the ship anywhere. "What, press yellow blinking button when I get close. I don't even know where the damn ship is!" He yelled in frustration until he saw a sudden outline of the Croatoan in the asteroid belt. "Oh very nice, natural ECM I see. Well played android!" He remarked quietly as he hit full thrusters to the ship. When he passed the first asteroid, he took his hand off the stick for an instant to press the yellow button. He saw the results as the docking lights lit up the inner walls of the Croatoan as he neared ever closer. As he felt a sign of relief, a shot from an enemy air craft hit the shuttle's back thruster making the ship almost slump into an asteroid. Tal'set caught hold of the freighter just before impact and continued toward the shuttle bay. As he was almost there, feeling the shuttle being lit up by the fighter, he saw a sudden twelve foot shadow appear around the corner in the bay holding a huge cannon that look very familiar. "WHAT, you guys didn't kill that thing?" He stopped yelling as he saw a purple light erupt from Keilumtol's cannon and a devastating large beam was projected over the shuttle then collided into the fighter behind. From the way that beam hit the fighter, it made the ship implode into itself then turn into a singularity that exploded into a violent force of energy that boosted the shuttle out of it's regular speed and shattered all the nearby asteroids into dust. "Whoa hang on!" Called out the Anero'nolmi as he activated the front thrusters to slow down the craft. He shot into the Croatoan at high speeds almost running over the huge being but he was able to slow it down enough to land it safely. The commando dodged the shuttle by mere seconds by throwing his left side out of the way as the ship blasted through. He was wearing a face mask he found somewhere in the Croatoan so he could breath. He swung around rearming his cannon as he aimed it back into the void waiting for the android to make it back. He could see the drone carrying her in the distance so he stood his ground ready for another fighter to attack.

[Nohiki]

Ariaka sent majority of the drones ahead to land. It would be really bad if they had to leave even more behind. Another fighter was converging on her position, but she was ready. Climbing out of the cockpit on her magboots, a two massive rotating things the pilot couldn't recognize before it was too late on her shoulders. She reached out with her arm, her shoulder guard opening and revealing a laser guidance system. It took her a fraction of a second to acquire lock, and then she let the fighter have a missile. She didn't know the exact yield of the warhead, and was quite surprised when the shockwave almost torn her off the drone. "Get out of the hangar everyone, things might get crashy on my end! And Tal'Set, try not to kill the other anero'Nolmi right away, ok?" she said as she piloted the drone back in.

[Zetherus]

Keilumtol used the hanger controls to close the doors as Ariaka landed on the metal floor. "I wish that you told me of your plan captain before you left, just so I was ready!" He spoke as he made his D.M.E cannon vanish back into it's memory banks. Tal'set opened the shuttle doors and walked out angrily as he pulled out his handgun and aimed it at the giant standing before him. "You stay the hell away from me or I'll blow your head off!" He threatened the ancient Anero'nolmi as he walked by Ariaka snarling at her then disappeared through the corridor doors. The mercenary made his way to engineering so he could fix his armour.

[Nohiki]

The ship automatically jumped the second Ariaka was on board. However, she did not hear anything either of the Anero'Nolmi said. In fact, even her vision was blurry at best. It took her entire minute to crawl out of the drone wreck. On the light of the hangar, the reason was apparent. She looked like she was dragged by something on a gravel road. The armor managed to stop everything, but it was beyond repair. Several bullets were still stuck in the plating. Ariaka barely reached out for a red lever ad pulled it. The armor fell apart, dropping the white-blue android on the floor. She landed on all four. There was a large gash spanning her entire right "cheek". She looked up, seeing double the people she normally should. Several warnings were popping in her system, but she couldn't bring herself to do anything about it, even if she wanted to. "Damage... Recharge required... Bridge... Chair..." after that, she went offline.

[Kauria]

Rucha stumbled out of the shuttle, grabbed her companions' arms, and dashed out of the hangar moments before Ariaka's drone came crashing in. The ship lurched, and they were home free.
"That was awesome!" Rucha's hands shot into the air. "We should flee civilized planets more often!"
Ariaka crumpled to the hangar floor in the background.
Wincing at the sound, Rucha turned. "Oh. Great." She sighed, walked over to the unconscious android, and carefully scooped her into her arms. "Oof. You know, she's lighter than I expected. Could someone give Lee a shout on the comm while my hands are full?"
Upon reaching the bridge, Rucha deposited Ariaka in the chair and stepped back. "Do I need to, like, plug her in or something?" she called back down the hall.

[Nohiki]

The chair automatically accepted the android. The blue lines on her body started to pulse, indicating recharge and data transfer. The chair rearranged into a table shape and several tools deployed from the ceiling. They started to whirl all around for several minutes, until Ariaka finally restarted. Her eyes flashed and the blue glow returned to them. "System restored from backup. Memory banks intact. Construct integrity: 69%. Right leg servos destroyed. Processing capacity: 92% of normal." she reported before waking up and sitting on the table that rearranged back into the chair. She said only one word: "Out!"

[Kauria]

"Hey now, you might have saved our sorry butts back there—or maybe just set the Federation on our tails again—but I hauled you back up here." Rucha sat in a different chair and faced the android. "What's up with the sudden hostility?"

[Nohiki]

The crippled android limped to the window. She wanted to hide it, but she just curled down on the floor, legitimately crying, except for the tears. After few seconds of sobbing she managed to stammer out something intelligible. "I was THIS CLOSE to dying. When the drone hit the floor, the dampeners gave way, i almost got crushed." she explained, continuing in much more furious tone, "And every time i have to get you out of the fire, it is your equivalent of aging 5 years for my brain!" she said, regarding her damage estimate.