Having discussed the rescue plan with the other prisoners, we concluded that since I was so talented, they would be better off staying inside; besides, no one who could have helped me could squeeze through the narrow gap in the bars. And those who could fit were too small.
So, picking up the blaster, I set out on my journey in proud solitude, hoping to reach those who would provide us with real help if I released them from their cages.
"I also need to deactivate the collars..."
I didn't really know where to go. I was alone, without armor, with a shitty pea-shooter in the middle of a crowd of enemies. Ideal conditions. So, with the most serious face my child's visage was capable of, I set off through the ship.
And do you know what the inside of a pirate tub looks like, inhabited by a crowd of armed scum who didn't give a damn about anything from laws to hygiene?
In a word, disgusting.
Accustomed to almost surgical cleanliness on Super Earth cruisers, I was in true horror at what was occasionally encountered here.
Rust and dirt were the least of the evils, for they only showed how the space brigands treated their property. Though it was also strange. A ship is, after all, the main argument, the primary source of income, and in general... they live here. Such an attitude toward a void raider was incomprehensible to me, to put it mildly...
With disgust, making a horrific face, I walk around a large pile of excrement, partially smeared on the wall. And they had used this "paint of the workers of the knife and axe" to smear over the Republic emblem, which peeked out lonely and sadly from under the strokes, clearly left by a palm.
"What kind of vile freaks are these?"
I even had to cover my nose just to walk past, and fortunately, I was looking carefully under my feet, otherwise, I would have tripped over a huge bug eating some rat. Recoiling to the side, I hit my shoulder against the opposite, clean wall, and at that moment, a net flew through the spot where I had been.
A large net, the kind you could use to catch a school of fish or snare a puma, not catch a child.
Glancing to the end of the corridor, I saw a pair of plump lizard-like aliens who were already quickly loading a new projectile, aiming at me in the rather spacious corridor.
"Eh, no luck..."
Taking a step forward, I slip on a piece of fruit peel and drop to a knee, lowering further and falling onto my stomach, letting a new projectile pass over my head.
My hand was used to the idea that it's better to immediately shoot back in the direction from which they are firing at you. So I discharged an entire burst at the attackers, though most of it hit the already neutralized enemies.
The first two shots went wide, and only on the third did I hit the target. Hitting one of the lizards in the leg, I forced him to drop to a knee, pulling the aim of the hunting gun toward the floor. The point-blank shot didn't allow the net to open properly, causing its weights to ricochet back, wrapping around both shorties.
Nimbly jumping to my feet, I walk up to my recent opponents with an important gait.
"Just as planned," I said, tapping the barrel of the blaster against my temple and winking at the knocked-out residents of the planet Trandosha, whom I was only able to recognize up close. Ugly beasts, whose reputation is rather negative throughout the galaxy. "Phew, and do they ever stink... Why do you need a net? With an aroma like that, you can knock out opponents just by passing by... Horrible."
My walks through the ship continued... I wouldn't say it was difficult. Drunk, satisfied with life, and relaxed, the pirates didn't give a damn about regulations, rules, or helping their fellow man.
Damn it, it got to the point where after knocking one out who was standing on a corner, I didn't notice that all this time he was hanging around in the company of drunk comrades... if such a word is even applicable to this trash.
So. Three alcohol-soaked bodies followed their falling drinking buddy with their eyes, after which one of them only pulled the fallen comrade's mug toward himself, and they continued to chat calmly...
But as you know, no good western can be without drama where a minor villain meets the main hero, so I found one for myself as well.
A sketchy big guy in a cowboy hat, he caught me at one of the intersections when I seemed to have finally found the right path.
Damn child's body, doesn't know how to react to threats at all. Barely trying to dodge away from the encroaching danger, I caught a cuff that nearly broke my neck.
Grabbing me by the scruff of the neck, the big man breathed his booze-breath into my face, after which he examined me carefully from head to toe. Horns protruded from his head—many small horns, upon which the hat rested. He himself was, apparently, a cross between different races. But I didn't have any more time for examining. Opening his maw, this parody of an ogre bared yellow teeth, showing me a semblance of a smile.
"What kind of bug are you supposed to be?"
An attempt to shoot him in the face was unsuccessful—quite the opposite. Jerking his head back, he only singed his thick, unkempt beard and was now looking at me displeasurably, promising pain and suffering.
The blaster was wrenched from my weak hands, and a new slap nearly sent me to the next world.
"Maybe I was over-optimistic trying to save all the slaves alone."
With great difficulty, rising from the dirty floor, I watched the approaching heavy steps of the brute without taking my eyes off him. He stomped heavily, and with every meter traveled, his shortness of breath increased, showing that the man's lifestyle wasn't sweet.
Therefore, when he came close, I darted between his legs, striking a proven weak spot, but my fist hit a belly hanging below his groin, covered by a huge, untucked shirt.
"Little shit." Turning around, he managed to graze me with his fist. Pain pierced my back, and I fell to the floor again, but every cloud has a silver lining. Flying almost two meters, I plopped right onto the blaster, which I was now pinning under my left armpit.
Coming within point-blank range for my child's hands, the "ogre" reached for my leg, but at that moment I spun around sharply and unleashed a powerful stun charge into him...
Which, however, produced no effect. Good thing that, taught by bitter experience, I immediately began to crawl away, opening the distance from this carcass.
Swaying, the big guy spent a couple of seconds trying to get his eyes to focus, which he successfully did, after which, literally growling, he rushed at me.
"Holy shit!"
My squeaky voice rolled down the corridor.
Well, naturally...
Bolting from the spot, I nimbly turn the corner, running around some drunk pirate who a second later flew out after me, knocked off his feet.
Rushing like a rhino, knocking over everything and everyone in his path, the bearded man knocked down a couple of people who had peeked out at the noise. Scattering trash, boxes, and other junk, he chased me while I, improvising, retreated wherever my eyes led me. Yes, it was precisely a retreat!
Jumping over piles of trash, running around pirates popping up in my path, I realized that I had apparently screwed up big time by believing in myself so much. In some ways, it all resembled old games where the main hero must escape from an unkillable opponent—the run proceeded in roughly that spirit.
And it ended in a rather unpleasant place.
Bursting into a semblance of a captain's cabin, though it looked more like a cheap brothel, I immediately jumped onto the sofa where the captain of all this rabble was lounging. Pushing a slave girl onto him, simultaneously overturning a tray of drinks, I grab the nearest bottle and hit it with all my might against the pirate sitting nearby—perhaps the lieutenant or the right hand of this circus leader.
Breaking it into shards, I was already about to press it to the throat of the owner of this tub, but the bearded man who burst into the cabin ruined all my plans.
Breaking the flimsy door that was hanging there only by a thread, he immediately spotted me and, not listening to the shouts of the others or the captain's orders, rushed toward us, lunging with splayed fingers for my throat.
Right then, the fallen slave girl came to her senses and began to rise, leaning one hand on the captain's "assets," and he thought of nothing better than to jerk, saving his family jewels...
"So many men's... have become part of my life. I used to live in the barracks and there was nothing like this."
Lunging with his throat onto the "rose" of the bottle I held out, the man began to wheeze strainedly, clutching his throat and spraying blood everywhere.
Pandemonium reigned in the cabin.
The slave girl was screaming. I started screaming too, but now mostly from disappointment and resentment. The captain was turning red in every sense and waving his arms. His assistant was swaying in his seat, poking at a nearby computer with his thin, long fingers.
And then a fat boar flew into all this mush, burying most of the participants under him.
I don't know exactly what happened. We broke something or the captain's assistant poked somewhere, but suddenly the crimson emergency light flipped on in the cabin.
A siren began to wail, somewhere in the depths of the ship... probably the only surviving one on this entire tub.
And then, for no reason at all, the gravity cut out, tossing us into the air.
That was when all the cards were on my side. Clinging to everything I could get my hands on, I tried to fly off the bridge at full speed, but a strong grip on my legs jerked me back, throwing me into the opposite wall, right where the captain's escape pod was located.
Flying inside, thinking sluggishly and barely understanding what was happening, I was able to make out what was going on in the cabin, and I didn't like it.
The captain was already coming to his senses, sticking a patch with bacta—a miracle of local medicine—onto his neck. His assistant was frantically digging into the computer, having returned the gravity and gradually shaking off his alarm, but judging by the look of his worried face, something shitty had still managed to happen, and now the man was calling the captain to him, slowly yielding to panic.
But what worried me most was not that...
Pushing aside the still-screaming slave girl, the fat man with bloodshot eyes was crawling toward me. On all fours, frequently tripping, sometimes pulling his huge bulk with his hands, he was slowly but surely approaching...
Shit, it actually got a bit scary. So much madness and anger in his eyes were directed at me that I felt my ass pucker to the size of a needle's eye.
"To hell with this..."
The mission was a failure, and thinking of nothing better, I kicked the big red button next to the pod's hatch, closing it and cutting myself off from the captain's cabin.
The clanking hatch drew the attention of everyone on the bridge, and while the brute only howled resentfully, the captain, who had managed to familiarize himself with the data from the computer, was more terrified by the prospect of being left without an escape pod.
For a couple of seconds, nothing happened, but after that, I was jerked into the nearest seat with all my might, pinning my back against it.
Clicking my teeth and nearly biting my tongue, I watched spellbound as the retreating ship became smaller with every passing moment. Only, as the ship moved away, the reason for the captain's and his assistant's panic became visible.
A massive station, hanging in the orbit of a yellow planet, stood right in their path. An unpleasant feeling appeared in my chest. It was as if my heart sensed that something terrible was about to happen, and I was absolutely not mistaken in my conclusions.
The pirate ship continued to move forward, not swerving from its path. Its engines flared several times and it even managed to turn, but it didn't change the essence.
Even through the void of space, I felt the clang and the force of the explosion. In absolute silence, I watched the slaver ship ram the station. In the first second, bursts of flame erupted from it, but they immediately went out under the pressure of the endless space.
The station was falling to pieces. And from it, as from the compartments of the ship, dead bodies were flying out, scattering along the orbit of the yellow planet.
Placing a splayed palm against the viewport, I felt that I was to blame for this entire situation. How many slaves were on the ship? How many people worked on the station?
Slumping in the chair, feeling the taste of blood in my mouth, I felt my lips themselves whispering the words of the Helldivers' oath. Reciting it aloud, I felt the bitterness and grief fading, but in exchange settling firmly in my heart. They wouldn't leave me, but now I could think and act, and I could grieve later.
"...To protect Super Earth and all of humanity."
Swallowing thick saliva, I cast a final glance at the destroyed station, which was slowly dissolving into the blackness of space as I approached the planet. Small fragments of the station and ship floated around me, thrown off by powerful explosions...
And a simple automatic pod, without any frills, was carrying me toward the nearest place where I could make a landing and not die from an aggressive environment.
I only understood the full irony of the situation later, when I learned the name of the planet I had been deployed on.
***
The escape pod, encased in a fiery cloud, hurtled toward the surface of an unknown planet. Inside, amidst the flickering voice of alarm systems and dull thuds, the boy huddled in his seat. His heart pounded as if it were trying to tear open his chest, each beat echoing in his ears, drowning out the sound of the emergency signals. Outside, deafening explosions and the crunch of metal rang out—the remnants of his spaceship continued to burn, leaving behind a trail of sparks.
The pod pierced the cloud of dust, breaking free from the fiery prison, and for a moment the boy thought it was all over. Но the reality turned out to be quite different. The fall continued, and through the viewport cracking before his eyes, he noticed a lifeless desert stretching out beneath him, shimmering under the scorching rays of the sun.
Two hot suns, one larger and brighter than the other, scorched the surface with flame, and the sand around them sparkled like red-hot coals. The wind, carrying fine sand, wailed, creating ear-piercing sounds as if the world itself were protesting against the uselessness of this pod here. And yet the fall continued—the pod descended inexorably, its metal body shuddering from the turbulence.
When only a few meters remained until landing, the pod jerked sharply, throwing a cloud of sand into the air and creating the illusion that it was remembering its majestic purpose one last time. But the expectation of a hard landing turned into a true hell: the cabin filled with the suffocating sound of cracking, and a strong impact occurred suddenly. The metal hull of the pod radically changed direction, and the internal mechanisms flared with rage and breakdowns.
The desert met the boy cruelly—with an unforgettable symphony of blows and shaking that resonated in his body. His first thought was that he had broken something important, but other feelings quickly filled him: fear, determination, incomprehension, until gradually they evolved into confidence. When the pod finally stopped, overturned on its side and frozen motionless amidst a series of dunes, he felt a sharp rush of adrenaline. And only one thought spun in his head while his parched lips repeated a strange chant.
He would survive, despite everything.
A quiet click accompanied the exit from the pod and opened the way into a world full of unseen dangers. Outside, two scorching suns awaited him, shining mercilessly in a monotonous sky. The sand seemed to stretch to the very horizon, creating a feeling of infinity and hopelessness. The battered boy encountered a stationary silence, broken only by the rustle of debris under his feet.
He climbed out of the pod, believing he had just survived the end of the world. However, only then did he realize: this was only the beginning of his new life. Looking around, he saw the sands shimmering in the hot wind, and although he found himself in absolute emptiness, a flame of hope and determination ignited within him.