Heritage (Under Revision)

Chapter 27 - Ethan

“Alright, here’s the plan: we’ll first head to the gym lockers to get you two more suitable clothing. Then, we’ll make a run for this quadrant here,” I say pointing to the northeast quadrant of the map.

“Why there, Dad? That place is swarming with Sekrid,” Leon asks puzzled. I give a smirk

“Exactly. That’s where Damien is going to make his move, the path of most resistance. When he makes an entrance, he makes a damn entrance. My guess is he’s going to mount the docking ship up against the damaged exterior of the wall, here, then he’s going to place some explosives, and take the rest of the wall off,” I say finishing my explanation.

“So, does that mean we’re going straight into a kill zone?” Stella asks.

“I know it sounds bad, but we just have to time it right, and make sure we don’t get caught. When we get there Damien should be blasting through at any second, we’ll be alright.”

“Dad, that plan is nuts, you’re going to get us killed with that type of stunt.”

“Actually...not exactly, there is a way we could get there without them seeing us,” Elena says, adding her two sense into the conversation.

“What do you mean?” Stella asks.

“Well, there’s maintenance shafts that run under the floors all throughout the ship. If we move through them, then we should go completely undetected if we’re quiet enough,” Elena explains.

“Hm, I completely forgot about that. That’s a great plan babe,” I say giving a bit of a smile at the idea.

“Alright, so do we have the plan settled then?” Leon asks.

“Yeah. Get to the gym, do what we need to do there, and then head to the northeast quadrant of the ship though the maintenance shafts.”

Everyone nods in agreement and Leon stands up, slowly cracking the door and peeking out of it, making sure there are no threats in sight. He gives the thumbs up and we all slowly move out of the darkened room, sticking close to the wall like holographic decorations that are projected on to the wall.

We slink around corner after corner until we reach the gym. We treat it as a haven, moving inside of it as quick as possible. Leon and I watch the door as Stella and Elena rush behind the lockers, changing quickly.

After a few rustling noises and a couple bangs of the locker door Elena and Stella return to us, ready to go. I look at Elena, running my eyes up and down, staring at Stella’s shorts and t-shirt that Elena is currently wearing.

“We have seriously got to change the cadet dress code for the gym, because that is way too short,” I say shaking my head.

“Hahaha! Well, at least it gets the boy Cadets to go to gym on time,” Elena responds trying to lighten the mood. We all manage to crack a smile and lightly laugh before getting back to business and opening the door slowly. Elena immediately takes the lead and quickly walks in front of us, scanning the floor.

“There you are,” she says with a satisfied grin.

Grabbing a concealed handle mounted on the floor, Elena pulls up, opening the hidden door, and revealing the maintenance shaft.

“Quickly, get in,” Elena says with a quiet but hurried voice.

Stella and Leon enter first, Then myself, and then Elena. Elena takes the lead once more, taking us to the northeast quadrant.

After crawling for nearly thirty minutes, we finally reach our destination, looking up through the small vents as Sekrid soldiers pass over us. My heart begins to pound in suspense and I quiet my breathing, trying everything to make sure the Sekrid soldiers don’t find us. With as confined as the space is in the shaft, we’d be torn to pieces by the gunfire, it was priority to not be caught in this situation.

“Whoa, whoa, stop! Look, it’s Marshall. He’s just walking right up to the Sekrid. Something’s not right here,” Leon says, halting our advance.

We all watch as best we can through the vent in the floor. Marshall salutes a higher ranking Sekrid soldier, then smiles an ugly grin. He presses a button on a device mounted on his hand, and we watch his flesh melt away to nothing as I see an infuriating sight. I grit my teeth, trying to prevent myself from hitting the wall of the maintenance tunnel.

“Son of a bitch it’s Rin’Gal,” I say through my teeth.

“Who’s Rin’Gal?” Leon asks me.

“I’ll tell you later,” I respond.

“Wait...” Rin’Gal says holding a hand up. He begins to sniff the air, searching for that which he is looking for.

“Don’t...breathe...don’t...move,” I say holding my breath.

Leon, Stella, and Elena all do the same. I watch Rin’Gal scan his eyes around, and lock them at the vent, as if he’s staring in my eyes.

“There,” he points. The Sekrid soldiers aim directly at the vent with their weapons and click the safety off.

“Move!” I scream as they open fire on the maintenance shaft. We move as fast as possible but the rounds quickly catch up, causing us to curl up as tight as possible and just hope that no bullets hit us directly.

I can feel the searing projectiles cut through my skin as they glance through my flesh. I wince in pain trying to hold back yells so that I don’t give away my precise position. Just when all of us think we’re done for, the gunfire stops.

We all lie there, breathing heavily, feeling the pain of the bullets making their marks on us. The hatches swing open and the Sekrid drags us out of the maintenance shaft, tossing us in front of Rin’Gal.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite friend, Ethan, and his pretty little trophy wife,” Rin’Gal says mocking me.

“Fuck you Rin’Gal,” I respond as I spit on his shoes. He growls at me, then plants a knee in my face.

“Gah!” I exclaim as I fall backward. I slowly work myself back up to a kneeling position while shaking my head.

“Ha, that the best you got Rin’Gal? I remember you hitting a lot less like a bitch back in the old days. You getting soft?” I say in sarcasm.

“Always the smartass, Ethan. Well guess what, you’re the one who failed and let your ship be infiltrated by a cheap trick. Who’s really the dumbass here?” Rin’Gal retaliates.

“Doesn’t matter what you did, you’re going to be dead soon anyway.”

“Then what? Are you going to make another grand escape just like last time, on the Zeus?”

“No asshole, this time, we’re going to shoot every...fucking...one of the bastards on MY ship.”

“Oh really? And when is this supposed great rebellion supposed to happen?”

“Ethan, this is Damien, we’re right outside your position, we have you on thermals,” I give a smirk and look directly in Rin’Gal’s eyes.

“Do it,” I say through my com unit.

Three muffled beeps sound in the background and Leon, Stella, Elena and myself duck down and cover our heads as the wall shatters off the rest of the foundation, hurling chunks of concrete and metal in every direction, blinding everyone with a cloud of dust.

The sound of the blast is deafening even through my covered ears. A few of the Sekrid commandos are killed by the initial shrapnel, and before the remaining soldiers can shake off their shellshock, bullets fly through the dust and begin tearing the Sekrid to shreds.

I can feel the hot luminescent blood splatter on me from every direction, burning my skin somewhat due to the fact that Sekrid have a higher body temperature than humans.

I catch a quick glance of Rin’Gal running in the distance. I don’t bother to give chase because I figured it’d be easier to face him outside of the chaos. In the midst of me covering my face and ducking down, I feel an arm grab me and pull me up, dragging me into an unknown direction. I feel a shove and see a shade of black, and a sudden switch to light through my disorientation.

I shake the blurriness from my eyes and look around, seeing five newcomers in our presence wearing all black and masks with thermal goggles.

“Well, I haven’t had a good time like that in a long damn while, how bout’ you Ethan?” Damien says removing his mask with a grin.

“Hell of an entrance Damien, typical. I told you to make it low profile.”

“Ah, what’d be the fun in that?”

“Yeah, I guess you have a point,” I say rolling my eyes. Damien scans over the rest of us and locks his vision on Leon.

“Well would you look at this, my little nephew all grown up,” Damien says smiling and hugging Leon unexpectedly.

“He...hey Uncle Damien,” Leon says, shocked at the hug. Damien releases Leon and moves on to Stella.

“Well who’s this pretty thing? Your girlfriend Leon?”

“Uh, actually yeah, she is. This is Stella, Uncle Damien.”

“Well fantastic, welcome to the family Stella, treat my nephew right.”

“Um...thank you, and will do,” Stella says confused. Damien then finally turns to Elena, grinning the widest when his vision stops at her.

“Elena, how’re you doing? Been a while, I’ve hardly seen you without that big belly, man where do the years go?”

“I’m...good in sorts Damien,” Elena says, in her own confused tone.

Damien and I had seen battle so much, more so him, that we tend to lose our perception that there’s an actual war. It’s all routine for Damien, that can explain the happy demeanor. Damien is fully aware of the situation though; he simply tries to lighten the mood. After we got back on track with each other, and we got off that God-forsaken station, Damien became the brother I knew him as. Cocky, but able to back it up, somewhat optimistic, and always trying to lighten the mood.

Before we went into the military, him and I were the class clowns in high school. That’s one thing I envy about Damien, he seemed to have gained his positive demeanor back, even after everything that happened to him, and I lost mine.

“By the way, I think you guys will be needing these,” Damien says, handing my rifle to me while his team hands back Leon’s, Stella’s, and Elena’s weaponry.

“Thanks for getting this back for me Damien, you know how much it means to me.”

“Yeah, I know, that war rifle is your baby.”

“So how are we getting out of here?” Leon says in the background.

“Well, the plan is to move to the control center and send our signal from there, and from that point our rescue will be on the way, it’ll be able to reach in ten minutes once we send it. We’ll just have to head to the docking bay as fast as possible.”

“Then why not just send it from the docking bay then?” I ask.

“Because our radio signal won’t make it to them. The Sekrid set up a jamming barrier so no allied signals could get in unless they were already in the field, in which case they’d be attacked. Our ship however was small enough to not be detected. The only signal strong enough is one sent directly from the main communications platform in the control center.”

“Yeah, well I don’t think we’ll be able to make it into the control center,” Elena states.

“Why is that?” Damien asks.

“That’s the main hub for them, who knows how many Sekrid will be watching that place. Not to mention all of the Sekrid that are inside,” Elena explains.

“Hm...you do have a point, even I’m not that crazy,” Damien says second guessing his decision.

“Let’s do it...” I say in serious tone.

Elena looks at me with a stupefied expression.

“Are you nuts Ethan? We can’t do that; we’ll be torn to shreds by them! They’re stronger and faster than us, and they can take much more damage, there is no fair fight with them,” Elena says, trying to persuade me.

“That’s why Damien and I are going to handle it. We were taught specifically how to get around their tactics, we can do this, what do you say Damien, feel like getting Hunter squad back together?” I ask Damien.

“Hell yeah, I’m all for that,” Damien responds with our family’s trademark smirk.

“Then I’m goi—”

“No, you’re not. Not this time Elena. We’re doing this ourselves.”

“No, I won’t have that, I’m not letting you go by yourself; I’m going and that’s final.”

“No, it’s not final Elena, I’m going with Damien, without you. You are going to stay here for once, and be safe.”

“Don’t worry Elena, I’ll take care of him. I can’t say that he won’t get hurt, but he’s not gonna die, I guarantee that,” Damien says placing a hand on Elena’s shoulder and reassuring her.

I see a tear drop from Elena’s eye and she looks up at Damien with a look I haven’t seen her give since we were on the Zeus.

“He better come back, or I’m sending you after him,” she says in the most serious tone I’ve ever heard from her.

“I promise,” Damien responds in a similar tone.

He turns to me and nods his head. I jack a round into the chamber of my rifle, and we open the door. I look back over my shoulder as the door, watching Elena’s face become more concerned the further the door closes.

And as it shuts, I take a deep breath for what is to come...complete...carnage.