Hunted: Chapter 4

The Jungle Moon

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The Firethorn crashed through the tree tops and slammed into the ground only to bounce off a cliff and fall a further hundred feet into a ravine. Padoan released the iron grip he had on his seat cushion, 'Damage report?'

'Engines offline, shields offline, main power is faulty, landing gear non-operative, water recycler is leaking, and a dozen minor systems report problems. One of the few working systems is weapons,' Mae clicked through the screens of auto-generated reports.

'Let's hope we don't need them. Any injuries?'

'Negative,' Shogun stood as he had before. Trent curled up in a ball by his feet.

'All good back here,' Raun yawned over the comms.

'Took a tumble but nothing broken,' Sasha added. 'Guessing I have a list of jobs.'

'A long one,' Padoan replied.

'Wonderful. I better get a bonus for this.'

Trent uncoiled himself and found his feet, 'You can have my cut if you fix it properly.'

'We crash landed, not like I could have prevented the damage,' Sasha hissed.

'Knock it off, both of you. Where are we? Did we get a good look at Duln on the way down?'

'Seems so, Captain. Looks like we're in the northern hemisphere. There were some structures the sensors picked up, not much detail though, could be nothing,' Mae said.

'How far?'

'A couple miles. No sign of any ion cannons though.'

'You can't see them from orbit, built into the moon. Emerge when needed, jungle will have grown over them by now,' Trent held a hand to his stomach. He winced as he stood straighter.

'Alright, Sasha and Mae will stay with the ship, repair the engines and shields first and anything to do with life support. Keep the weapons online just in case. Raun, Trent, Shogun you're with me,' Padoan headed for the armoury.

The four of them descended the ramp to the croaking of pond dwelling lifeforms, the buzzing of overly large insects, and a humidity that drenched their clothing and would corrode Shogun given enough time. Padoan felt the warm air stick in his throat. He checked his lasrifle was primed and felt his boot squish into something. Padoan recoiled as the smell hit his nose, 'Marlaks.' Wiping his boot on a long leafed plant he opened a comms channel to the cockpit, 'Marlaks. Double check all the wiring and anything loose.'

'Is there no where those pests don't infest,' Sasha hissed, her voice heavy with static.

'Connection is poor and I'm barely outside. You sure that uplink with Shogun will hold?' Padoan wiped the last of faeces off his boot.

'I assure you, Captain, my wireless antennae are military-grade, better in fact,' Shogun chimed.

'The droid says it will hold, I believe it,' Sasha said. The comms link went silent.

'Alright, will communicate through Shogun from now on, keep an eye on his photo-receptor feed if you can.' Padoan gazed up at the canopy a hundred or more foot above his head. Patches of pale yellow sky could be glimpsed through the flat leaves as wide as the Firethorn that formed the canopy. Huge numbers of trunks emerged from the ground like stilts and wound themselves together to form a single tree. The largest ones had space enough to walk underneath. Few trees made up the jungle it seemed and between each stilted trunk were hundreds of smaller bushes, vine trees, knotted weeds, and ivy of iridescent colours. Likely the fauna were just as extravagant, excusing the marlaks.

'They ain't gonna be watching, gotta ship to repair,' Trent said. He swatted his neck and crushed something blue and green. He grimaced and wiped his hands on his trousers. 'Let's be quick about this and hope it doesn't rain, don't want the calculator short-circuiting.'

'I am waterproof and my parts water resistant for hours.'

'Not with all the holes and corrosion,' Trent sniggered.

Shogun refused to reply.

Squawks, hollers, whooping, and screeches echoed through the jungle. Branches bounced, leaves rustled but Padoan could never catch sight of the bird or animal, or enemy, that moved. He kept his lasrifle ready, assuming the jungle was rife with danger. Even the vines would kill them given the opportunity. Padoan was uncertain how far they'd travelled twisting through the jungle, there were no paths save for slightly wider gaps between bushes in parts and clear groves beneath the stilted trees but other than that there were no signs of roads or walkways.

'How close are we to those structures the Firethorn spotted?' Trent said. He slapped something yellow on his arm, adding another smudge of bug guts to his skin.

'Not far,' Shogun warbled. 'Head east-south-east and we'll be there in no time, or we could continue to plod around aimlessly, tiring ourselves and giving our enemies time to prepare.'

'You get tired?' Trent sniffed.

'Negative, I was merely imitating concern for you meatbags.'

'Then how come you were powered down in our workshop?'

Shogun imitated an exacerbated sigh, 'How do you think you'd function if you'd been tampered with, altered against your will, and left to corrode in a storage locker?'

'Poorly,' Padoan interjected. 'Directions, Shogun. Trent, stop winding up the droid.'

'I'll try, Captain,' Trent crushed a black shelled beetle on his trouser leg.

'Thirty-three degrees to your right you should see a blast door buried in the ground,' Shogun strode up to join Padoan at the head.

'I'll take the rear then,' Raun groaned.

Padoan ducked beneath a woven thread of tree roots and batted a series of verdant foliage bustling with scarlet flowers. He parted another wide flat leaf and found himself in front of a blast door, eight foot tall and twelve foot wide with steel so thick and corroded it appeared more like stone. He reached out. It felt like stone too.

'Tracks, Captain,' Shogun chimed and tapped a spot with his foot. Not just tracks but dug up roots and cut leaves, whoever had been through had cleared the space directly in front of the blast door that from any other direction looked like a low mound covered in vines and flowering bushes.

'There isn't enough explosive on the ship to open that,' Raun grunted. He knelt under the tree surveying the way they'd came.

'Good job it's open,' Shogun pressed a button on the rusted keypad.

'Wait...' Padoan spat, but it was too late. The door shuddered to life and began to slide its way into the ground, creaking and groaning and grinding every inch of the way. A wave of cool, dry air breathed out of whatever facility had been buried beneath the jungle. The door thudded open, the sound echoing for miles.

'Captain, lead the way,' Shogun said.

Who programmes a droid to be cantankerous? Padoan descended into the facility. At least he hoped this was what he was looking for, otherwise he was doing work without any hope of payment.

As Raun brought up the rear the blast door thundered back to life and slid closed, grinding and screeching the whole time. A faint yellow light emanated from the walls, flickering and flashing, all the way down the rusted metal staircase. Roots burst through the ceiling and the hardiest of the flora had sprouted leaves, minute compared to those on the surface. It wasn't long until they reached the first floor of the base. A small room with an ancient security checkpoint and a service lift.

Padoan walked through the scanner. It buzzed and flashed red. 'Is that connected to somewhere?' Trent and Raun both shrugged as Shogun leapt over the desk to avoid the scanner. 'Let's get down into the base before someone shows up.'

'Excellent plan, deliver ourselves into the arms of our enemies,' Shogun chimed.

'We'll surprise them,' Padoan said.

'Very well, you are the Captain,' the droid took position beside Padoan, lasrifle ready to fire.

Trent sealed the lift and pressed the only button they could see. The lift rocked a few feet down then began to sink at a steady pace.

'Can't remember a time we had so little information to go on,' Raun muttered.

'That job out on Verex. Our employer gave us a city to search for a single man,' Padoan said.

'A city is a lot smaller than a moon,' Raun said.

'Yeah, but at least a control room, power station, or whatever we have to destroy doesn't move. That guy had us chasing him for weeks,' Trent said.

Raun shrugged, 'I guess.'

Padoan, Raun, and Trent stumbled as the lift came to a sudden halt. Shogun remained balanced and hurried for cover behind a stack of weapons boxes, 'I hear voices,' he whispered. Padoan slunk into the corridor. It led a short distance before splitting left and right, a well-lit room lay ahead. Lasrifles lay on a table, energy cells stacked to one side. Padoan knelt behind two crates one labelled in a language he didn't know with logos and shipping instructions he was unfamiliar with and a second that said – HEAVY ORDNANCE – above three mountain peaks and a deep valley, logo of Varis Peak Interstellar Consortium. Footsteps sounded from far down the hallway.

'That old security scanners malfunctioning again,' a gruff voice echoed.

'Check it out anyway, this moon's crawling with military. Sergeant would throw us in the brig for ignoring it,' a nasal voice responded.

'Yeah, you're right.' The two men, wearing body armour with their tattooed arms exposed appeared from the hallway. The gruff voiced man turned to the lift while the other headed into the well-lit room.

Shogun stood up, photo-receptors shining red, with his lasrifle pointed at the mercenary's head, 'Don't move, organic.'

The merc flinched, his brow furrowing, 'Aren't you...' his eyes flashed with recognition but he was cut short. Shogun fried the mercenary's head and arms to cinders with three quick shots.

Padoan leapt out of cover, 'Raun! Grab the other one!' He sprinted towards the other man before Shogun got a chance to shoot. The nasal voiced man, short and stocky, turned in time for Padoan's lasrifle to smash into his nose. The merc collapsed in a heap.

'Why are we taking captives?' Shogun marched up to Padoan.

'To learn something. We aren't here to kill indiscriminately but to neutralise a specific threat.'

'And the easiest way to do that is...'

'We're surgeons, Shogun, not butchers,' Padoan dragged the unconscious man into the well-lit room. 'Get inside and close the door.' Padoan and Raun hoisted the man onto a chair. Raun slapped a pair of restraints on the stocky man's wrists and ankles.

The merc coughed blood and pink spit dribbled down his chin. His nose was a flattened mess only the best aesthetician could fix. 'Who are you?' his voice sounded like it was being forced through a wet straw.

'Mercenaries, like you,' Raun slapped his shoulder. He sat on the edge of the table, lasrifle trained at the guy's knees.

'And we have some questions.' Padoan pulled up a chair and sat on it reverse, leaning over the backrest.

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