Starsnatcher - Trapped In An Alien World [COMPLETE]

Chapter 7.10

It was an old-fashioned sniper duel like in war movies. Ay and Kira - hidden behind computer pillars - blasters ready, but no-one was willing to take the first step. With her singularity stone, Kira could have commanded the last remaining fighter to shoot. But she knew Ay had recharged his stone. Besides the fighter, Kira only had two knocked-out Seizers and me. I wondered if I should have helped. After all, Ay was still heavily injured from Crick's blast. He would have struggled with an additional enemy.

But I had a more important duty. I grabbed a lever with a "WALLS" label. I picked this one in particular due to its additional lower-case "reconstruction" caption. Most likely, it regulated the walls' self-healing capacity in case Ay decided wall robusticity was more important than patching holes. Once I pulled it down, I turned off the walls' self-healing capacity.

Then, I took my acid gun and poured hydrochloride over the bronze carbon-nanotube box before me. The main body foamed, although the plastic buttons did not. For them, I had saved bullets from my Gauss gun. I destroyed everything I could to make sure Ay couldn't use it against me.

Finally, I turned to Kira and Ay, both still hidden at their sniper positions.

"Kira!" I yelled. "Can I borrow the fighter?"

Without turning around, she gave me a thumbs up.

I focused and formed the words "Come to me" in my mind. The fighter responded and floated closer.

The moment it did, Ay jumped from his cover and forced Kira out. Instead of fleeing, Kira jumped as close to him as possible. Both stood before a pillar at punching range. Both tried to point their blasters at the enemy, but the moment one of them did, the other punched their arm and messed up their aim. It was a battle between Ay's precognition and Kira's better constitution.

As much as I wanted to help her, I couldn't let Göttersdämmerung emerge. I had to get out there and face it.

I jumped into the fighter.

This one didn't have a wall and was hardly customizable. Its interior bubble contained nothing other than a screen to show me the blueprints of Starsnatcher. I commanded it by thought alone. I thought of Starsnatcher's center; the part where it had its drives and the magnets and commanded it to fly there. Hopefully, me destroying his control panel meant Ay couldn't use the defenses he had there anymore.

We took off. Even without my commands, the fighter knew how to bomb its way through the thin wall to the magnet room. Computers the size of Tesla coils occupied it. In less than five seconds, my fighter gunned down all machinery in sight. Then, it flew me through a long and wide corridor with a distant end in sight. I considered closing my eyes and waiting for the autopilot to get me where I wanted. But I couldn't help but risk a little peek over my shoulder.

From hundreds of feet away, I watched Kira's battle as if I stood right next to her.

I shuddered before the unfolding sight.

Kira had knelt down, motionless. Ay towered over her.

He pulled a particle weapon, but he didn't aim it at her. He aimed it at me. Before he could shoot, Kira jumped at him. Diving faster than a falcon, she threw herself at his arm, pushed it away, and messed up his aim. The particle beams hit a wall instead, exploding in a muffled bang.

Ay didn't give up. He took another shot and this time, he aimed at Kira. She couldn't react to that anymore. The particle beams sliced through her head; just below the brain.

She could still regenerate from that, couldn't she?

She couldn't.

Her lifeless body jerked around before Kira fell off her knees. From my perspective, it took her ages until she hit the ground. If I could, I'd have jumped out of this fighter and ran over to her. But I could only watch her lie on the floor and rot. Ay pulled her helmet and glove off, touching her hand and head.