Lab Clean-up

Two more guards ran into the room - fortunately one at a a time - before Defia finished retrieving mass from the Fractal in the vats. Standing up and sealing the last cannister, she turned to Dustin. “Statement. I have secured the material. We are clear to exfiltrate.”

Dustin nodded in reply, shouldering his carbine. “Let’s move then. Hopefully the others will be done as well.”

Their retreat down the passageways that led back to the storage room was far less swift than reaching the production facility had been. Dustin wasn’t sure if all the staff they ran into were guards or not given everyone seemed to be in variations of the same military uniform, but it didn’t really matter - the Durathisians all had their weapons drawn and had set up chokepoints that he and Defia had to break through.

“Down to my last clip,” he muttered as they paused after fighting through yet another blockade, giving him a moment to catch his breath and check their supplies. “If there’s another group of them, are you alright to handle it? I don’t want to run out before we get topside in case we need to fight our way back to the shuttle.”

Defia nodded, carefully unslinging the two cannisters from her shoulder and holding them out to him by the straps. “Statement. Carry these. I will deal with any remaining hostiles. Endeavor to keep them from being hit by gunfire.”

With that, the pair moved on, darting down corridors lit by the flashing red lights of the alert. One final junction remained before they reached their destination - and sure enough, two guards were waiting on the corner, weapons at the ready. On seeing them, Dustin ducked back out of sight before their foes could notice him. “Two of them, both with rifles of some kind…” he managed, before Defia moved.

The rogue Fractal dissolved in front of him, her body shimmering as it sank into a puddle of void on the floor. Dustin grimaced, the pool was obvious in the flashing light and made a pretty easy target… but his lover wasn’t done. As soon as she’d finished puddling, she moved, flowing up the wall and elongating herself to run along the edges of the ceiling.

Dark tendrils branched like roots towards their opponents. To their credit, the Durathisians’ military training was better than Dustin had expected even if it wasn’t good enough. They were watching the roof and walls as well as the floor and gunfire flashed down the corridor as the rogue Fractal advanced, but it was already too late. Some of the strands Defia had put out were hit, void-black debris raining down in the corridor, but enough remained to dart forward and bunch up above the guards’ heads. With a sudden sickening noise Defia reformed in mid air, her arms flattened to two thin blades that had neatly skewered her foes.

“Statement. It is clear. Please give me a moment to fully get myself together,” the rogue Fractal commented, withdrawing the blades and walking back towards Dustin as if nothing had happened, the parts of her the guards disconnected with their gunfire slowly merging back into her body with every footstep while behind her the two figures slumped lifelessly to the floor.

Aricia and Yril’k arrived from the opposite direction at the same time as Dustin and the Fractal rounded the last corner. “Any sign of Macch and Linth?” Dustin asked, glancing around.

As he spoke, the door to the storage room slid open to reveal the two spies with a thin Durathisian behind them. Macch grinned. “We got our friend and got back first. You all ready to go?”

At a nod from Dustin, the group filed over to the ventilation shaft. Macch glanced up it to check the way still looked to be clear, nodded, then scrambled in and clipped on to the line. “I’ll go up first, Linnie, you and Dustin hold here, everyone else get in and get up as quick as you can after me.” The wiry alien’s tone was tense, the potential danger of guards waiting on the surface pressing on all of them as he began to scramble upwards.

Glancing briefly at Linth to confirm the plan, Dustin turned and watched as the others made their way into the duct. Yril’k paused for a moment as she passed before wordlessly handing him a spare magazine for his carbine; with that done, she too began her escape from the facility. Linth, meanwhile, ignored the rest of the group entirely and instead grabbed hold of one of the large storage racks and grunted, the tendons tensing on his neck as he heaved. A moment later, the rack tumbled over over with a crash in front of the door, partially barricading the entrance.

Seeing the man’s plan, Dustin shouldered his carbine and moved to help with the second rack, ensuring that anyone accessing the storage room would have to climb through a mess of twisted metal and ruined supplies to get to their exit point. Once they were done, Linth gestured to the duct. Dustin shook his head and lifted his carbine by way of explanation. “You go first. If anyone manages to get their head into the ducts below us, I can light them up - you can’t swing your blades.”

“Smart thinking,” Linth turned as he replied, climbing into the vent ahead of Dustin and beginning to make his way up. With a last glance around, Dustin followed, the dim glow of the late afternoon sun above them periodically being blocked out by the larger man’s form as they moved to join their friends on the surface.

On reaching the surface exit to the vent and scrambling free, Dustin found the others all gathered nearby. Yril’k and Macch ignored his arrival in favour of keeping their eyes on a swivel as he emerged, the threat of discovery at the forefront of everyone’s minds. “Any sign of them moving topside?” Dustin asked as he dropped down beside them, readying his carbine as he shifted position.

“Nothing’k so far. Defia hasn’t detected’k anything yet either’k.” Yril’k’s tone was clipped and to the point as she continued “we should move’k. The sooner we’k are on Sola’k, the sooner’k we can finish this’k.”

With a nod, Dustin turned towards where they’d left the shuttle. “Alright, everyone - let’s get out of here.”

At his order, the group bolted for the grass. The shuttle was thankfully where they’d left it, Linth grabbing the corner of the netting and starting to rapidly yank it free while Dustin and Yril’k went inside to prepare the launch sequence. “We don’t have to run low power on the way out given Sola’s going to be hitting the facility with the main gun as soon as we get back on board. Dial everything back up - I don’t want to be dodging planetary defences without inertia dampening,” Dustin called to the Vex’ess warrior as he tapped the pilot’s controls and brought the craft back online.

Behind them, Aricia, Macch and the Durathisian rebel fastened their belts, the Lieviran pausing briefly to secure the two cannisters Defia had given her so that the rogue Fractal could help Linth remove their camouflage. Moments later, the void-black woman in question climbed through the airlock, the netting held between her and Linth as the big man sealed the way behind him.

Dustin glanced over his shoulder, waiting for the instant the two of them had taken their seats before gunning the throttle for take-off. Beneath the craft, the grass blackened as the engines jumped to full power, the dirt cracking from the heat of a shuttle taking off far more aggressively than he’d ever dare on a landing pad. Despite the dampeners being engaged once more, the force of their climb slammed everyone back in their seats, the sensors pinging a moment later as it detected the boom from them breaking the sound barrier on their ascent.

An alert flashed across the screen as they reached the upper atmosphere, warning that planet-based weapons were coming online. Dustin threw the shuttle into an erratic course, hitting the communicator as he did so. “Sola, we’re on the move! Come get us!”

Sammie’s voice replied a moment later. “On our way, Dusty. Point defence is hot, don’t worry about leading those missiles to us.” Her words were accompanied by the chime of the shuttle’s scanner; Dustin hadn’t been sure what form the lab’s planetary defence would take, but now he got an answer as the sensors were picking up multiple launches from the planet below.

The shuttle spun and danced as Dustin put them on as erratic a path as he dared towards the curve of the moon where the glint of Sola’s hull was coming into view. Behind them, the traces of the missiles glittered white in the atmosphere as they streaked on in pursuit… despite the power of the shuttle’s engines, in the end it was close - far closer than Dustin would like. Even pushing both his craft and Sola to their limit, the shockwave from the missiles being wiped out by the starship’s point defence sent the smaller craft skidding through the void, leading to a rough landing as Dustin’s group slammed down sideways in the shuttle bay.