A Misplacement of Fortunes (Part Three)

The pirate and the cyborg were standing at the weapons turret and rearranging wires in the barely controlled chaos. Nyal was standing beside the shuttle. “The council was in session, they were hearing cases and…” she whispered to Kata as she walked over, adjusting her armor.

“I know,” the tall, alien woman was standing beside her. Her endlessly black eyes searched Nyal’s soul. “Issy was down there, he was scheduled to testify today. He was alive when the pirates left, there’s hope for him in that. You’ve done everything that you could for him. The best thing that we can do for him is to take back the planet.”

Nyal nodded and tightened the final piece of armor around her chest and tucked her helmet under her arm, waiting to put the bothersome article of armor until the last minute. “Are you ready, Kata?” she asked, taking the EMP weapon from the closet.

“I bet that you never thought that you were going to have to lead pirates and elite warriors into battle on Alpha One against some alien zombies…” Isha said, shouldering her, playfully, trying to alleviate the tension in the room as he walked up behind her.

“No,” Nyal said listlessly and walked towards the shuttle. She stretched before walking in and sitting in the co-pilot chair.

Isha’s enormous, tri-jointed hand landed heavily on her shoulder and his semi mechanical voice said, “You need to focus down here or they’ll kill you and I don’t need to lose a partner now that I’ve finally found a good one. Now please, get your head into it.”

-

The first hour that they were on the shuttle was quiet and tense. It would be several hours before they reached the surface.

Nyal was lost in her memories, as she helped navigate the area surrounding Alpha 1 and before she knew it, she was circling the planet. Nyal and Isha were finishing getting their weapons together when Kata joined them. “The shuttle’s nav systems will guide it the rest of the way. It will keep circling the planet but you both know what that means.”

Nyal sighed softly. “You know that I hate doing this.”

“We know, but it’s the sneakiest way to get into the Capitol,” Kata remanded her.

-

Nyal, Kata, and Isha were standing near the open back hatch of the shuttle, waiting to jump. Nyal’s stomach was in knots, but she was blaming on the altitude instead of her nerves, although she knew that it was the latter.

“I hate doing this!” Nyal yelled to Kata over the deafening roar of air circulating through the bay. “There’s got to be another way to do this, Kata!”

“I can’t hear you!” Kata yelled back to her, although Nyal knew that Kata was perfectly able to hear her. “Shut up and jump!”

Nyal ran through the bay and jumped into the atmosphere of Alpha 1. The systems of her armor and filter the air as it passed, providing her with just enough air so that she wouldn’t pass out. She regulated her breathing, although she was nervous.

Nyal spun in the air and looked to check that Kata was falling closely behind her. The auto-camouflaging armor made it hard to see her tall, lanky frame. But Nyal picked her out from among the clouds. As she was watching, she saw something soaring through the sky that she knew was neither of her comrades.

The projectile collided with the shuttle that they had recently departed. Red and yellow flames were sent through the air, a hard concussion threw Nyal off course slightly. She immediately tried to right herself. Kata was doing the same, although Isha seemed to simply be falling.

Nyal knew that there was no way that she could get to him, but within seconds he seemed to be shaking himself awake. They were reaching their critical altitude and Nyal turned so she could navigate her landing.

The ground began coming towards her fast, she sailed to the ground, her armor absorbed most of the shock, but it still hurt like hell when they rolled onto the ground. It had killed a lot of people in training and even more in the field. Within seconds, Kata and Isha landed behind her. She looked to them.

-

Isha didn’t know what hit him, all he knew was that he was falling through the air and the ground was much closer than it was supposed to be. He corrected his course so that he would land close to Kata and Nyal. He took a hard landing, jarring his entire body, as he had not gone through as much of a tumble as usual. He lingered for a minute on the ground, breathing hard.

Nyal was running towards him. “Isha, are you okay?” she asked as she knelt behind him.

He nodded to her as he stood. “Come on, let’s go,” he said as he tried to get up. “We have a bunch of work to do here before the rest of them get here.” Kata and Nyal both grabbed an arm, his legs were shaking, but he kept running behind them.

-

Nyal listened very closely to Isha as he was running. Shock had to be taking hold of him since he very rarely ran behind her.

They were running through the wooded section of the planet, one of the last ones left, right on the edge of the capitol. She could smell the Plague victims before she could see them. She held her hand up to stop the rest of the team.

The spire of the IPA Parliament building rose from among the edge of the trees. The building was sprawling, over several square miles to accommodate and house all of the planets that were represented there. Nyal and Ovi had been once, representing Irdi during a huge debate shortly before their training had begun. It rarely changed, although the innards of the buildings were constantly being rearranged, depending on the representatives that were currently residing there.

The team of three looked to the streets seeing that there was no one on the street. They all exchanged a look, suddenly wondering where all the Plague victims and other residents were. Kata took point as they ran into the buildings. Kata pressed her hand to the pad on the door and they followed in behind her. Their footsteps echoed through the seemingly empty expanses of the building.

“Do you feel like something is wrong here?” Kata asked as she led them through the corridors.

Isha responded as he cleared a room, his weapon at the ready to defend them from any offender, “Yeah, this place should be overrun with the Plague.”

Every hair on Nyal’s neck was standing on end, as though something unseen was telling her that something was wrong. “Have you seen anyone? Any bodies?” she asked softly, although her voice bounced down the half mile hallway.

“No,” was the only answer that she got from either of them.

“Is there a fallout shelter or something here?” Nyal asked, clearing another empty room, the environmental factors felt familiar to her, and she knew that they were from a planet that she had visited before. “Somewhere that they might be able to hide while the worst of it was passing?”

“I’m not sure. We’ll split off. And see if we can find someone,” Kata said as she turned a corner into another endless beige corridor and Nyal sprinted up a staircase, hoping that someone had sought refuge above the enemy.

Something in the pit of Nyal’s stomach was telling her that something had happened. She could smell Isador in the room that she had been in moments before. She tapped the comm at her wrist. “Ahnoe,” she whispered.

“What is it, Zavvarrii?” he asked, heaving a sigh at her, whirring and clicking in the background. “I’m kinda busy.”

“Listen to me,” she whispered forcefully. “There isn’t anyone here, not a person, not a zombie, not a body. Keep a good eye on the pirate. I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t like it,” Nyal muttered to him as she ran up another flight of stairs, into the spire that overlooked most of the immediate area.

“I’ll be careful,” he said. “Your pirate is still here with me, though.”

Before Nyal ended the communication with the Cyborg orbiting the planet, she looked from the window and saw where the sea of people had gone.