Foundation of All

“Are you sure I can’t go with you?” Sean asked, “Doesn’t this seem dangerous? What if you get into trouble?”

Emily shook her head as she inspected the forearm long weapon with a bulbous cone at the end of the barrel. Emily had explained as they took the shuttle back down to the surface that it was a nonlethal stun gun for anyone that got in her way. The shuttle had landed just out of sight of town where they weren’t likely to be seen, and Emily would take her speeder away to sneak inside. Emily had wanted to take him on the shuttle so he ‘wouldn’t be stuck in space if her ship got shot down’. She had seemed serious when she said that, but Sean was sure it must be some sort of joke. It was night time and only the soft lights of the shuttle lit up the speeder sitting on the ground outside.

Right now she was only dressed in the grayish mesh of the clothing band and it was… She was very attractive and Sean had some difficulty staying focused as she moved around with the tight material clinging closely to her body. Luckily it was far thicker covering than the one they had been wearing before so it wasn’t completely indecent, but Emily didn’t seem to even notice Sean’s troubles, too focused on preparing for the mission she was about to set out on.

“I’ll be fine…” Emily said, waving him off as she stepped onto the ramp to the outside, “Trust me, I’ve done things like this thousands of times. You being there would just slow me down. And I’ve got all sorts of goodies to work with.”

She tapped the shoulder of her gray suit and it shifted and extended so it covered her head in an elastic mask. It shimmered and she faded from sight, and a few seconds later her stun gun in her hands followed suit.

“See?” the empty air said, “I’ll be back soon. Just sit tight in the shuttle and wait for me to return. Then we can get you to a sector where you’re not actively being hunted by the government. Seeya.”

“Bye,” Sean said as he heard a series of footsteps walking down the metal ramp followed by foot shaped divots being pushed into the grassy soil. There was a clunk and the hover bike shook slightly as the invisible Emily mounted it and she drove off. Sean moved stealthily into the ship and started prepping the second bike to follow her. He knew he wasn’t as skilled as her, not nearly as trained. But he couldn’t just stand by and let her do all the work as he left.

“Sorry, Sean. It’s a no go,” Emily’s voice suddenly said from behind him, “Don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to be all secretive. This is for your own good.”

Suddenly she appeared in her suit and tossed a pair of large metallic bands that wrapped all the way around him and lit up. His arms were pinned to his sides and he floated into the air so his feet could only barely touch the floor of the ship. He wriggled, but just remained floating in place unable to do anything.

“Hey, hey! Emily, let me out, I just want to help you!”

“Sorry, Sean. I’ve told you, you’re not trained for this. You’ll just get in the way. I’ll be right back, I promise. See you soon.”

Emily slowed her bike to a crawl as she got closer to Sean’s town. It had been rather awkward for these last few days as she worked to set up Sean’s revenge with him only talking to her briefly in that time. She could see how tense he was back at the shuttle before his aborted attempt to follow and ruin the mission. She wondered if she shouldn’t have pushed him to get revenge.

Would he have been happier if she had never mentioned it at all and just whisked him away so he wouldn’t have to confront things? She knew how she had felt in the past when other people had done that to her, but maybe he would have felt differently given how much his life had changed recently. But no matter how invested he wasn’t ready for a mission like this in any capacity. And taking decades to train him to get there defeated the point of doing all of this right now.

She stopped the bike and hopped off, still keeping her invisibility field active. She had reluctantly learned how to operate on missions like this despite her usual policy of non violence. Even stunning innocent mortal people made her uncomfortable most of the time even if they would shake it off in a few hours anyway.

She stealthily crept forward through the defensive line of the trashy bottom of the barrel autoturrets. Given how old and rusted some of them looked, she was surprised Sean and his family had been able to keep them still running. She more than anyone knew how much machinery degraded over time no matter how many fixes or replacement parts you put into them.

She reached the barrier to the shield preventing entry inside. It was actually more advanced than she had been expecting based on the files she had managed to pull on the settlement, it must be a different model than the one in the plans they had registered with the planetary capital. She activated her heads up display causing a soft glow to shine where her head would be to outside observers. It scanned the shield with a high speed recording and slowed them down so she could see it visibly flicker as the generator sent out its pulses.

She nodded and put her stun gun to the maximum setting and took a step closer. Her display counted down the seconds for the best moment and when the moment was right she fired her weapon directly at the shield, causing it to flicker and waver in the area around where she stood. She quickly stepped forward through the weakened shield and it parted around her, unable to stop her from passing through.

On the cameras it should be seen as nothing more than a quick flash and a short shield weakness. Nothing that couldn’t be caused by a power flux in the generator. She checked her weapon with her display and saw that the shot had drained ten percent of its battery, before shutting off the display again to stop the small light from leaving the invisibility field.

Grimacing, she turned her weapon back to the lowest setting. She would have brought another extra battery pack for the thing if she thought the shield was going to be that strong. She slunk forward through the night towards Intuli’s house first. She took out the access card that she had already coded with the proper credentials and swiped it slowly over the reader.

Hearing it click open, she carefully twisted the handle and opened the door. There was a door to the side into what must be the bedroom. She opened that door too and saw the splayed out form of the man himself on the bed, drooling onto his sheets. The room reeked of alcohol and Emily saw a spilled bottle of liquor that had fallen from his hand and spilled onto the floor. She stood over him and then with a deep breath fired her weapon with a deep ‘Whumpf’ of air. Intuli twitched for a moment before falling unconscious again.

She let out a sigh of relief… there, now there was no chance of him waking up.

It took her twenty minutes to find his stash of currency that he had put under his mattress of all places. She hadn’t wanted to move him, so she left checking there for last. She ended up poking him with the end of her stun gun until he flopped down onto the floor limply.

There was a large clear bag taped underneath the mattress once she flipped it up filled with the small metal disks of galactic credits. She removed the bag and inspected it for a moment. She didn’t really have a frame of reference on how many galactic credits was a lot out here, but this bag must represent at least half of the amount that Intuli had put in the digital bank. So maybe it was worth nearly a third of his net worth. Emily spent another hour fully searching the place and taking anything that was small and valuable, and smashing things that were larger as quietly as she could. Any electronics got a blast with the stun gun to fry them.

Maybe she should feel guilty being such a thug just trashing the place but… this guy definitely deserved it considering how he planned Sean and his parent’s deaths. He probably deserved even more than this, but that was up to Sean not to her.

Job done, she left the trashed home and started making her way to Intuli’s parents house. After she did the same to them she could get out of here.

She went through the streets but paused as something tickled her senses. It was quiet… no, there was… a buzzing sound. She brought up her display and quickly told it to quickly isolate and amplify the sound. As soon as she could hear it clearly though her amplified display her eyes widened and she turned around and took off at a full sprint.

With an electric crackle there was a flash of light behind Emily and she felt a spray of burning dirt impact her back. Her invisibility field flickered under the impact and the night was suddenly lit again as another impact struck just to her left, knocking her from her feet. She stumbled to the side as her invisibility flickered again on the border of failure. Soldiers emerged from the street in front of her and she heard more boots behind as well.

In a roar of gunfire Emily stumbled forward and felt them piercing holes in her top of the line suit. Despite how great and convenient they were there were only so many nanites in the thing to patch any holes.

She raised her gun and stunned the soldier in front of her who was firing a stream of bullets into her center mass. He went down limp to the ground and she jumped over him as the gunfire petered out as she ran within the crowd of gathered soldiers and the others couldn’t fire freely without hitting their allies.

Emily shook her head and her vision cut out for a moment as a bullet landed squarely into the back of her head with a wet crunch. She recovered awareness halfway to the ground and turned the limp fall into a combat roll and kept running as she recovered.

Breathing slightly harder, she stunned the last soldier blocking her way and saw the way to the shield was blocked by a man lit up by a series of blinding floodlights just over the raised shield. He was wearing a pitch black full body covering much like the one she wore to turn invisible. Patches of metal plating and various tubes and apparent weapons lined the rest of the suit in a patchwork. But instead of the tight featureless mask Emily wore, the man was wearing a distinctive mask that made her eyes widen. Two large glass windows exposed the eyes through the cloth like head covering. In the front near the mouth it pushed outwards into a circular hose that looped over his shoulder and attached to what Emily could see was a large metal tank strapped to his back. Surely not… No one would work with…

“Moooottttthhhheeerrrrr,”

The madman rasped, speakers in his mask enhancing his voice.

“Weeeee’veeee finally. Found you. After so long.”

She raised her weapon as she ran towards him only to pause as he reached up to his mask.

“Stooooop. Or I will… take offffff the mask… Mother… Another world, Another sector… Purged for… the cause. Leaving only the… worthy behind.”

Emily stopped on a dime even as she heard shouting behind her from the soldiers. She hesitated, knowing that her little stun gun would only make things worse if she shot the fanatic. She circled around eyeing the man as he stood there, each breath letting out a long drawn out rasp heard even through the mask.

“We know how much you care for their little lives, Mother,” the man continued, “Come to us, and none need to be hurt. ”

The man turned in place following her with his intense gaze while not moving from his spot. The soldiers circled around them even as Emily kept edging towards the barrier while turning the settings of her stunner to the maximum.

“Hold your fire, lower your weapons” the masked man said to the soldiers, holding up his hand imperiously as they raised their weapons at her as she drew close to the shield. On his orders many of the soldiers lowered their weapons again to point at the ground. But a few did not, not hearing the command or disobeying orders intentionally, too caught up in the chase.

One of the soldiers let out a shot that impacted Emily’s shoulder and let out a small spurt of blood onto the ground before her wound healed itself.

The man in the mask’s head snapped to the soldier that fired the shot.

“LOATHSOME INSECT, YOU DARE DEFY MY ORDERS! DISRESPECT MOTHER?!”

He raised his arm towards the offending man who looked terrified. The masked man launched a stream of purplish sludge from a tube on his arm that merged with the rest of the patchwork suit. It washed over the soldier and he screamed as it clung to him and burned like acid. After a few seconds the screaming stopped and the fanatic cut off the flow of sludge. The fanatic was practically shaking in anger as he stared at the corpse and his hands twitched a few times before he seemed to come to a decision.

“My orders are LAW! Remember that next time you DARE defy me.”

The men around them shifted uneasily and several went to raise their weapons. The Plaguebringer shifted in place as he saw their actions, his whole body displaying his displeasure.

One man that appeared to be the leader of the armed men stepped forward. “You remember who is in charge. This is my operation. You are here as nothing more than a courier to take the Immortals far away from my planet.”

“You! You are ants beneath my feet. If I killed you all on a whim your government wouldn’t bat an eye. Why should I not, now you have insulted me?”

The men raised their weapons, now not pointing them at Emily but at the Plaguebringer.

“Then maybe we should call the Immortal Council instead?” The leader said, “They won’t pay, but at least they’ll get the job done without betraying us and killing our men. Maybe they’ll end up paying some top dollar for a genuine Plaguebringer like yourself rather than any old Immortal.”

The Plaguebringer hesitated, but then took a step forward towards the leader of the men.

“My deal with your government was…”

Another one of the men shot at the Plaguebringer, the bullet slightly denting his chestplate. Everyone froze for a second before the Plaguebringer exploded in anger.

“I KNEW IT! TRAITOROUS SCUM! YOU…” The rest of the squad opened fire as the Immortal took a step forward angrily. The Plaguebringer stumbled backwards under the blows of the weapons fire striking him. His armor dented and pitted in places as the men fired on him.

Emily’s eyes widened as she heard a hydraulic hiss and saw the man reach to the seam between his neck and the hood that had appeared as he tried to recover from the sudden barrage of gunfire. He removed the helmet and after taking a deep breath took a single sharp breath out towards the squad of soldiers in front of him.

Emily quickly fired her weapon into the shield and dove through, steeling herself as she briefly saw the looks of utter terror on the faces of the soldiers as their eyes turned red and their skin began swelling red in seconds. She started running as fast as she could towards the speeder hoping that she had been fast enough to escape the fallout of what the man had just done.

“Mother!” The no longer masked man shouted desperately behind her, having finally noticed Emily’s escape in the chaos of the sudden betrayal. His face was oddly plain despite the fanaticism blazing in his eyes. Even as Emily risked a glance back she saw the soldiers clutching their throats and falling to the ground writhing as the infection began to fully set in, “No, Mother come back! We need you! Your vision!” he shouted as he sprayed the shield with his sludge in a futile attempt to break through.

“I’m not your fucking mother. None of you,” Emily muttered to herself as the defensive turrets caught sight of her and started hitting her with several shots through her center mass that left holes she could have put her fist through before they healed back up. But she managed to keep her balance and stumbled to her hoverbike and got on. She roared off as fast as she could to the shuttle as she heard the electric crackle and screech of the town shield going down.

Emily urged the bike to go faster as she ducked and weaved through the trees, going nearly twice as fast as she had gone on the trip out. She had to get the shuttle to take off before the fanatic made it to a ship of his own and blew it to bits. And Sean… Oh, shit. How was she going to explain all this to him?

She shoved down the thought as her thoughts began spiraling. She had to escape now, think of other things later. She reached the shuttle with the ramp still lowered and saw a nervous Sean still floating inside the ship. He spotted her but his eyes widened paused as she showed no sign of slowing her approach and he saw her disheveled look.

She shot up the ramp only breaking just in time to stop the bike from crashing into the back wall.

“Ship, close the doors! Now!” She shouted as she leapt off the bike as fast as she could after fiddling with her pocket and pressing the button to release Sean from his binds. They powered down and released, falling onto the floor and Sean was left standing there looking confused. The ramp to the outside began retracting painfully slowly as the bay doors began to close as the ship registered her command.

“After me!” Emily shouted urgently to Sean, “To the cockpit!”

Sensing her tone, Sean ran after her and they both strapped themselves in quickly in the control station of the shuttle. She began frantically flipping switches and the shuttle began to rumble.

The sensor pinged as they were pressed into their chairs and began takeoff. Incoming aircraft.

“What’s… What’s happening…” Sean managed to grunt through gritted teeth as the G-forces pressed them both into their chairs with full force, Emily pushing the shuttle to the max to get them to her main ship where she had some actual defenses and the hyperspace drive to get them out of this star system. This little shuttle was defenseless besides a thick enough hull to take a few potshots if need be.

“No time,” Emily said tensely to respond to Sean, “There’s a ship after us, after me. Their guns are hot, he probably wants to shoot us down and collect us once we’re stranded in space unable to escape him.”

She looked at the vectors and after a deep breath activated the AI pilot and ordered it to get to the ship at maximum speed. Despite her distrust of AI, she still had a backup installed for emergencies. Most ships were not limited in speed by the machinery, but the fleshy people inside that had to survive the resulting G-forces from the thrust. Something that wouldn’t be a problem to either of them as long as something else was driving for them.

The thrusters increased force by ten times in an instant as the AI finished its quick diagnostic and then the controls were out of Emily’s control. Her vision flickered and she felt her bones crunch and slide against each other, and eyes pop under the tremendous forces the AI put them through. Her chest was held firmly down and her ribs continually cracked and her chest caved inwards only to regenerate back to where it should be only to restart the process. She should have started off with this, but maybe she had still wanted to subconsciously protect Sean from another horrible experience like this so soon after his escape from the beetle swarm… They would just have to bear through with it. For ten tortuous minutes there was only the pressure of mountains pressed onto them as the AI pilot pushed the shuttle to the very limits of its hardware.

They were weightless for a moment as the side thrusters flipped the shuttle around and pointed the thrusters the other way. Now, they had to slow down to counteract all the speed they had just built up relative to the main ship.

“Emily,” Sean managed to say before the thrusters fired again and they were both slammed back into their chairs again with brutal force and he was silenced.

All they could hear over the strain and gurgles of their own bodies was the roar of the thrusters.

Thirty minutes later, they finally arrived and floated carefully into the bay of the main ship under the controls of the AI pilot. As soon as they were docked, Emily unstrapped and stood from her seat slightly unsteadily. Sean just sat there breathing heavily, seeming a little out of it. She rushed over and began assisting his fumbling efforts to release himself.

He stood once they managed it, but instead of moving to follow as Emily rushed off just stood there staring blankly into the distance. With an annoyed huff, she turned back and grabbed his hand and began dragging him after her which seemed to wake him up from his stupor.

Seeing that he was keeping up now, she let go and continued running to the command station of the main ship. She pointed to the right as they entered the room and Sean followed her finger. She quickly went to the comms console and typed out a quick message that she sent to the planetary government. Hopefully they could act in time if she told them of the threat to their world.

“Listen, this guy is a fanatic,” She said to Sean after she finished, “Hail the approaching ship and just make something up to keep him talking. Oh, but definitely don’t give him any information on you. Just keep things as vague as you can, definitely don’t tell him you're an immortal. If you get him really going I’m sure he won’t be able to shut up if he tries. It’s pretty disturbing shit, but try not to react when he starts going off on his rant because the more he’s talking the less he’s focusing on piloting his ship. And trust me, there’s no way this guy has a second person there to help run things. AIs can only be so good for complex maneuvers or firing patterns that you see in combat.”

Who knows how helpful Sean distracting the other man would be, but it definitely couldn’t hurt their chances. Hopefully they could escape before the Plaguebringer destroyed the ship or even worse had enough time to bring in some friends that could block their escape with some hyperspace jammers. Performing a hyperspace from within a star system, let alone right near a planet, was hard enough as it was. She had to have absolute focus to pull this off and not have their atoms strewn across a dozen star systems before they even knew what happened.