Bend Around the Wind by Scyllaya

Chapter 38: Escape from Aakar [2]

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Escape from Aakar Part II

Fornax Galaxy

Tayo System

Moon Aakar

Things went smoothly, almost too smoothly, so Tony was twitchy and waited for the other shoe to drop. For something to go wrong, the way things always seemed to go wrong. Loki was incredibly good at the whole deceive and infiltrate gig and it definitely wasn't just because of the shapeshifting. When he changed he changed a lot, the look in his eyes, his gestures, the way he spoke all shifted along with his appearance. Juyu could be like him too if she took time to perfect the skill of deception, because shifting her shape was not enough. Tony knew that was the reason Loki made her the sentinel/back-up instead of taking her along. It worked out very well so far.

Tony listened as Loki, Drongo and Bee successfully made their way into the depths of the base towards the children, but it didn't actually make him relax. Tony hated to be the one to wait, but he knew how important it was to secure their escape route, and it's not like anyone had enough firepower to hold the transporter against any possible attack. It had to be Tony or Loki, because they couldn't trust Drongo that much just yet, it would've made them both uneasy to leave him here alone. So Tony listened and waited. He hated it.

The Imperial was tied up and silenced again. He was now sitting in a corner where Tony could keep an eye on him. They agreed with Loki that they would hand over any possible hostages to the Shadow People, it was only fair. It was Tony of course who wanted to keep the body count to a minimum and he was pretty damn pleased with himself when Loki shrugged and agreed. He killed two out of six, which meant that about 66.67% survived, pretty awesome when it came to Loki. It also cemented his belief that Loki did not enjoy killing, he merely had no qualms about killing those who stood in his way or attacked him. It wasn't much, it was still a moral slippery slope, but it was a big difference, huge difference. It was the difference between ruthless and downright evil. He knew Loki was not "evil", but it was still great to see some evidence once in a while.

Then he noticed some sort of guard approaching the transporter. He disconnected his mic from the network to not disturb the others, but he still listened in. His helmet shifted into place as he headed outside, it was important to hide his face. He also switched one of his gauntlets to electric mode. He noticed a while back that the crystals were perfectly capable of storing electricity when he was experimenting on them. It turned the normal "energy bullets" - as he tended to call filled up cylinders - less lethal. Energy blasts burnt and were pretty damn deadly, literally capable of taking chunks out of people, burning flesh and bone so viciously that it left a giant smoking hole in the body. Filling the cylinders with electricity on the other hand made for a pretty damn impressive stun shot. He couldn't use electric crystals to power his suit, they drained too quickly, but storing one or two in his gauntlets gave him an extra non-lethal weapon. He was pretty sure he could modify or rebuild some of the energy guns to include a stun mode in them, but right now he only had his repulsors compatible to the electric crystals. He was still a tad uneasy about working on weapons again, and the guns were only one project on the long line of things he planned to do. But at least he was thinking about making non-lethal weapons. That had to count for something.

The guard was already standing by the door by the time Tony got here.

'Spacecraft number?' he asked right away.

'CEN-54RU,' Tony answered.

'Cargo?'

'I'm not authorized to say,' Tony replied.

'Aakar Security is authorized to know,' the guard answered.

'Captain Eman is not on board, until he returns I have to follow his orders. He's the only one who can decide who's authorized.'