✅ Project SETI Trilogy

Chapter Three - Part XXI: Escape Phase Two

          "Temet?" Gabriel called out when he opened the pod's hatch and saw the Daxut slumped over against the wall and the floor. "Temet!"

          Nova grabbed the other bags and tossed them inside while Gabriel tried to rouse Temet. He took out his earbud and turned it off as he moved it to his pocket. "She was still talking to me up until not even a minute ago... this must have just happened—"

          "Temet!" Gabriel shouted and shook her by the shoulders. He registered when Nova had said and hoped it meant she could still be woken up. "Wake up! Time to go!"

          She woke with a strained groan as he continued to shake her. "Huuh... ahh... Gabe..."

          "Yes—it's me," he shifted to pick her up and Nova immediately moved to assist him. "You just gotta hold onto these metal rods for a few seconds, okay? That's it..."

          Temet shivered hard as the pair heaved her up and supported her between them. She couldn't really move her legs anymore, and she felt helpless and useless that the humans had to do it for her right now. She looked up into the pod as she absorbed what Gabriel had said and saw the metal fixtures he was referring to—they were blurry, but she could see them nonetheless.

          "Here you go," Gabriel positioned her in front of it, and both he and Nova helped her grip it correctly. "Just hold on."

          Nova and Gabriel dashed to their own metal fixtures, and as soon as they made contact, Julia activated the transport pod. As the four of them were rapidly deconstructed and reconstructed, she silently, desperately hoped that Sam hadn't disabled the new internal pod system yet.

          Gabriel drew his small pistol just before he opened the hatch. He anticipated that they were likely tracking Temet's location, and his suspicions were confirmed when he saw four armed security staff in the emergency room. They immediately turned on him when they heard the pod open.

          "Stay back," Gabriel called out to the people behind him. He shot off several streams of energy and had a few shot at him as well, but he pulled himself back into cover before he could be hit. He could hear them gaining on the pod, and he silently wished that Nova still had that little disc thing he'd used earlier. He popped back out when there was a break in the fire, and managed to hit one in the face, and another in his chest before he once again recoiled into cover.

          "Nova, if you've got another one of those things now would be the time—" Gabriel said intensely over the weapons fire.

          Nova urgently fumbled to get another, larger flat disc from his pocket. "Okay... get ready to close the door—"

          "Do it!" Gabriel yelled.

          Nova threw the prototype model of Temet's electrical weapon down at the ground where the remaining staff would be standing in a moment. Temet had explained to him that it was significantly stronger than the other one she'd made and also had a rather unpredictable radius of effect. Gabriel immediately swung the hatch shut right after he did so, and not a moment later, there was an eruption of loud painful yelling and groaning from beyond the door.

          "Shit, shit," Julia cursed when Temet went slack against the wall, where she'd dragged her into cover. She reached down and felt for a pulse in her wrist; it was there, but very fast and weak. "She passed out again!"

          "Here," Gabriel tossed Nova the energy pistol. "I'll carry her."

          Nova caught it and picked up the rucksack to pull it onto his back. When he opened the transport pod again, the electrical weapon had stopped, and two of the men were attempting to recover and stand up. He promptly shot each of them and then the other two, just for good measure. He sprinted toward and over them when he saw what looked like the path forward—a waystation built into the wall. When he approached it, he saw that there was no one manning the security console on the other side, so he smashed the glass of the window using the butt of the weapon. He wasn't sure if it was the adrenaline and urgency of it all or what, but he was startling even himself with how well he was handling it. It almost felt like autopilot as he reached over into the hole he just made and found the release for the featureless security door ahead. He swiftly stepped over to it when it clicked open and looked back to see where the rest of the group was, and was relieved to see that they'd managed to wake Temet again by some miracle. Julia was running over to him as fast as she could with a huge bag on her back and one in each hand; she looked relieved that the door was already open.

          "You gotta stay awake until we're in the ship," Gabriel said to Temet. Even though she'd regained consciousness, he continued to carry her bridal style—it was faster than trying to assist her greatly hindered movements. "We're almost there. Just stay with me."

          "... I'm not worth all of this," Temet slurred in her native language. "Just... stop..."

          "Keep talking," Gabriel cooed. "It's okay. I've got you."

          Julia and Nova briskly looked around the large private hangar once they were inside, but it had been evacuated already as per the lockdown protocol. At the same time, there was a loud, urgent shuffling of footsteps from the direction of the transport pods, and the group began to move again once Julia showed them the way.

          "It's—there," she pointed with her head.

          "I see it," Nova said after a brief pause. It was positioned in a particularly dimly lit section of the hangar, but it still stood out with its clearly alien design. He stopped and turned around when he heard the footsteps echoing in the large room and saw that the reinforcements had arrived. Gabriel whizzed by him, Temet still cradled in his arms, and he squeezed off several shots at the growing number of security staff trying to stop their exit. Many hit their marks, but more armed personnel poured into the area at the same time. He kept shooting at them, but also began to move backwards while using the surrounding vessels as cover.

          "Come on, Nova! The ramp's open now!" Julia called out. She'd thrown the bags inside as soon as she physically could and had climbed up to help get Temet inside. She pulled Gabriel in after that, and they anxiously waited for Nova to join them.

          Nova grunted, then took off in a very fast sprint for the still-opening entry ramp on the Daxut vessel. As he approached it, he estimated it was currently about chest height and threw himself onto the metal surface. Gabriel scrambled to pull him inside while Julia helped Temet get over to the internal console that would close the ramp again.

          "Ahhh...!" Nova loudly cried out when a stream of plasma grazed the outside of his calf. It ate through his pantleg and burned the skin beneath, so badly that Nova couldn't help but recoil into himself in pain. He grasped down at it, and gasped when he saw the small area of deep red skin on his leg. "Holy fuck—!"

          "It's okay, it's okay," Gabriel said soothingly. He briefly touched his hand to Nova's cheek while the entry ramp closed. "I just need to find a proper mending laser—hold on."

          While Gabriel frantically fished through one of the pieces of luggage he'd brought, Julia tried to help Temet to the piloting console so she could get the ship in autopilot. She braced her on her shoulders, but Temet herself was barely standing and hardly able to move at this point.

          "We're so close, sweetheart—so close," she said encouragingly as the pilot's chair came into view. "Can you get the ship in autopilot?"

          "... uughh... if—if your exit hatch is... automated..." she slurred even worse than before and wheezed between words.

          "Yes," Julia assured her gently. She urgently walked her over to the chair and helped her sit down. "Yes, it's automated."

          Temet shakily touched two buttons on the end of each arm, which caused the ship to power up. She clicked her beak together in a relieved sigh when it did. "Initiate—autopilot."

          "Autopilot online," the ship's A.I chirped back at her as the gyroscopic engine above them began to spin. "Set destination."

          Temet struggled to remember where they were supposed to go in that moment, but after a beat, it came to her. "Destination... Satyrs—high orbit..."

          The system beeped affirmatively. "Destination locked. Navigating to Satyrs."

          "Did—did you do it?" Julia asked nervously.

          Temet turned her head to look at her in an awkward and dramatic movement that made her lean back in surprise. She was seeing double in addition to everything being blurry now, and her head was spinning at a dizzying pace. She wanted to answer in the affirmative, but everything went black before she could.

          "Temet!" Julia yelled. "Stay with me! Temet!"