Alpha Squad - Vecto: Voyage

Part 2.8

(Previously: Trip and Cutlass are defending themselves from pirates when Erich arrives to help.)

Erich slung the pirates attached to the wires into the park's trees as he landed and ducked a shot from the hidden pirate, then launched a pulse wire to the guy's face. With a click of a button, Erich sent an electric current down the wire to shock the guy. Erich yanked him toward him, let the pirate pass by, and kicked him in the back to speed the process. The pirate's body wrapped around the wire and spun through spewing fountain water nearby.

With another pirate taken care of, Erich heard Trip yell and emerged from the smoke to try to find him.

"Ah, so you know him," a pirate said, having Trip in a headlock with a gun pointed at his temple. "Even better."

Erich stopped, and then looked around to see Feit in the distance fighting pirates, and guards rushing to help. He watched a woman get shot and fall to her knees, yelling the name "Timmy." He watched her child scream, running to her side. It was the lost kid Feit found. He could see Feit kill the pirate as the father rushed the kid away from his mother to escape, and the kid held tight to a toy visor. Erich's attention then focused back at Trip, who was held hostage by a man who seemed to be another ranked officer.

"What do you want?!" Erich said.

"Just to toy with you, is all," the pirate, Ferrous, said. His suit was black with chrome detailing, as well as an insignia Erich didn't recognize. He wore a bulky helmet with a tinted visor to keep his eyes from being seen.

"I thought you're supposed to take over the ship?"

Trip struggled, but the pirate kept the gun steady. "Just to toy is all, per orders," he said. "To toy with you, of course, Erich Botland."

Erich was silent for a second, wondering how he knew his name. "Let him go!" he demanded.

"You won't kill me," the pirate said. "And thus, you're only killing yourself."

Erich raised his palm in the air.

"Uhn, uhn, uhn," Ferrous said, jabbing Trip in the head some more. "I have magnetism as well."

"Wou-would you qu-qu-quit that!" Trip yelled. "Is th-that thing even clean?"

"Oh, aren't you scared!" Ferrous said sarcastically. "What's it take to get a good hostage these days!"

"I said let him go!" Erich demanded again as his wrist panel raised to reveal five pulse-wire tips.

"You're pathetic," Ferrous said. "You know as well as I do that this bullet travels faster than those wires of yours."

"Yeah, I know," Erich said with a smirk. "So look to your left."

Ferrous looked over to see a fist coming at him. The fist shattered his tinted visor and pounded him in the face. The knuckles yanked back out, belonging to a one-armed, middle-aged man named Cutlass. Ferrous was knocked backward, firing randomly.

Erich's wire snatched the gun from Ferrous while another latched to his leg. When Ferrous hit the surface, Erich yanked the wire to drag him closer, then stepped on him and rolled him over for the wire to bind together.

"You should have taken the gun from him, first," Erich said to Cutlass. "Someone could've gotten shot."

"Arr, only got one arm, me lad!" Cutlass reminded him, waving his stub.

They could hear Trip grunt and fall to his knees.

Erich looked over to see Trip with blood running from his arm. "Am-am ... I OK?" Trip asked, panting, taking the pain.

(Will Trip be OK? Find out more in the next installment of Vecto: Voyage!)