Sigma/Star

Chapter 134: Humming

Porter hummed a little tune to himself as he felt the somewhat familiar bumps in the air. He was getting used to the constant dropships, the same ones Sigma had stolen some time ago, always flying them across a similar path. Turbulence was a part of life for these machines, like it or not. His eyes passed over the rest of the group, their own faces etched with apprehension and fear, eyes darting around, barely making contact with anyone else's. There was tension between them, a tension that evaporated in front of Porter and his constant humming.

"How can you do that right now?" Ardwen slumped forward in his seat, looking slightly sick. He suddenly gripped tightly to the straps that tightly packed him into his seat as the rumbling from more turbulence began.

"Don't have anything better to do right now I suppose. Not like worrying gets us any closer."

"To death you mean?" Ardwen tried to glance upwards, but he was clearly struggling with a combination of motion sickness and nervousness.

"Been there plenty of times before and we somehow came out alright," Porter responded with a cheery smile, one that appeared quite out of place compared to the atmosphere around him. "Could always talk about what we're going to do when we get there if you like."

"We all know the plan, Porter, you told it to us a million times," Nami cut in, rolling her eyes in the corner.

"Except," Ardwen continued, "you never discussed what Rex was going to be doing." The group all turned to stare at the quiet teen riding along with them, who was handling the motion sickness the worst out of any of them. "I'm assuming that you'll want to keep watch over him during combat, if you read the report on his previous battle."

Porter's eyes wandered across the ceiling of the dropship, his humming shifting into whistling briefly as he listened. "No, that doesn't really sound like it will work. You're all familiar with him, I'm sure he's best in your hands."

Ardwen's mouth was agape, slightly from shock and slightly from the nauseousness in his stomach. He tried to close it a few times, attempting to form words, but nothing ever came out. "Fine, we'll watch him, but then that leaves you on your own, you know." Nami folded her arms across her chest, not impressed with the fact that somebody would be fighting alone.

"That is correct." Porter ended the conversation with a giant smile, nothing left for him to add or for anyone else to counter with. His confident leadership, since arriving back on the island, had dictated the pace of everything that had happened since. "Besides, I'll never really be alone." Porter's eyes flicked down to his palm before returning to the rest of the group.

"Sigma won't always be around to save you, you know," Raul said, throwing his thumb over his shoulder to indicate where the android was thought to be flying along.

Porter's grin didn't waver for a second in the face of Raul's criticism. "I don't intend for him to ever have to." The entire dropship groaned and shook as it touched down on the ground, its descent as bumpy as the flight itself, making it impossible to distinguish between travelling and landing. A variety of sounds began to erupt, from the clicking of the locks on the seats, to the pneumatic hiss of the doors shifting to open. The blinding light from the sun outside burst through the first cracks in the ship's hull as the doors moved, forcing hands up from the students to keep themselves from being blinded. "We're as close as possible at this point, "Porter continued. "Obviously we can't fly straight into a warzone with our Goliaths, so it's on foot from here."

"Why didn't we just land there?" Rex's voice cut through the growing tension of the group as they braced to disembark. Everyone's necks nearly snapped collectively as they twisted to stare at his unassuming expression.