Chapter 176: One Hundred Sixty Three Part 1

Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 154 of 365. Sol standard year]

Days after of Crash landing/ 2

Uninhabited Island / Clearing of Escape Capsule # 405

Galactic Standard Time / After 1850

Duncan glared at Greg and tried to keep calm. The fact that this foolish Void sucker could even think of arguing that it wasn’t his fault infuriated him. He had seen and dealt with so many people like Greg over his life. Plus every one of them was a pain beyond measure! And now one more of those people had caused a problem for him. And what’s more, their actions had almost killed some of his people! Duncan put his head on the desk, trying to keep calm and not explode as he tried to think.

Unfortunately, Greg saw that as his time to speak.

“If that thing had the construction it was supposed to, nothing would have happened!” Greg tried to defend himself.

Duncan looked up, his eyes growing hard as he watched Greg keep talking.

“I know technology, and that should not have happened! If I had set it up, I would have checked! That was the real problem here sir! Bad workmanship! My little rage problem might have helped move the fall up. But the way that console station would have gone out anyway! It might not have been then, but it would have happened soon!” Greg stammered.

“Enough!” Duncan said hard. His eyes were set in a scowl and the look he sent Greg caused the man to swallow visibly. “I have heard a lot of people trying to get out of a just punishment but this takes the cake! And the worst thing is that you’re right!”

“What!?” Bob asked and Greg looked excited.

“Don’t get too excited, both of you! I’m not saying that he won’t be punished, and you will Greg!” Duncan snapped. He looked between the three people in his office and sighed, leaning back on his chair. “But we have to be honest here! There is no place to hold him, and we can’t kill him!”

“Because I am a valued member of the crew sir?” Greg asked with a hint of hope in his voice.

“No, that’s not it. The sad truth is that we need every gun pointing out that we can. Yours included!” Duncan said as he looked at Greg with a hard glare.

As Greg swallowed, Bob took a step forward.

“Sir, I understand. But someone was hurt, badly! They are being brought to the crater’s edge for a medic to look over!” Bob exclaimed.

Duncan saw the way Bob’s hands were squeezed and he sighed. “I know and I understand. But with the situation as it is, we can’t shoot our own right now. And in that spirit, I have a perfect idea!”

“And that is?” Greg asked with a hopeful tone.

Bob snarled as him as Duncan chuckled. “You say this shouldn’t have happened and did because of the condition of the tech? Well, in that case, you make sure that this doesn’t happen again! I order you to spend the next few days looking over each piece of the shield grid! I want a full report from you and your watcher over what you find! You’ll keep at it until all the tech is looked over. And unlit that that is done, you may not come back into the capsule.”

“Sir!” Greg said, a horrified tone to his voice. But he swallowed and tried to make himself small as Duncan glared at him. “That is perfectly reasonable sir, perfectly!”

“Good! You get started tomorrow. For now, go sleep it off!” Duncan said as he looked over the people before him. “And you, Bob is it? Stay here. I need a better report on what happened.”

“Sir!” Bob said as Greg was led away by the other deckhand.

Duncan sighed and leaned back, looking at Bob. “You don’t agree with what I did, do you?”

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“It’s not my place sir, but I understand why,” Bob said after a moment.

Duncan snorted and shook his head. “Do you?”

“I think so. We can’t spare the men, right?” Bob asked and Duncan snorted.

“We already got two volunteers, we could have lost him and been fine. But I won’t kill our own over a mistake! And he was right,” Duncan said and Bob blinked at him.

“Sir!? How was he right?” Bob asked shock in his voice.

Duncan sighed and shook his head. “Those shield emitters and the console. The specs say they are rated to work through earthquakes and other problems. The makers say that they can handle force behind slammed onto them. One of the cornerstones of that model and their best selling point from what I know. And it broke because of a slammed fist?”

Duncan watched as Bob blinked, and then he paled. It was all Duncan could do to keep from snorting and he only sighed as he shook his head. “Figured it out then?”

“Yes sir. If that one piece of tech was broken that easily, then what about the rest of it? What about the whole shield system?” Bob asked, looking faint.

Duncan nodded, releasing a sigh. That thought was his nightmare. What if the shield failed during an attack by a horde of those monsters out there? They would all die, and that was if they were lucky! He had heard a lot about what black boxes said happened to crews that crashed on an unknown world. “So the best thing is to look over the other pieces. And he needs to be punished, and I won’t trust him to go down. So we have a job that will take a while, and he makes sure what he did can’t happen again. Win, win.”

Bob looked at him and shook his head. “Criminal mastermind there sir. Genius-level stuff boss.”

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Dalila sighed and shook her head. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard from her spy drone. So there had been an attack from outside the shield and by some kind of planet animal hybrid thing? Wonderful, just wonderful. And to make matters worse, her target was still in no place she could take the data! “Not that I would be able to get away now.”

She looked around the small bathroom, her dress exchanged for a crew jumpsuit. She had to admit, that this felt a lot more like herself. She had only dressed to the nines to get close to Bradford, and every time she had failed.

And now she was putting herself on the line to save everyone else. If she had been on a job for someone, she would have gone away and sent the data about all her attempts. But this was for herself. All she needed to do was shake his hand for half a minute. But with her past told, that window had closed. But then this was a case of life and death.

With a sigh, she stepped out, looking around. So far there was no one in the small corridor, and that was enough for her. She would be able to go and maybe get outside without anyone talking to her. She had seen some of the passengers eyeing her, and she wondered why. There was nothing about any of them that showed they were anti-military. And that was the only reason they would have to look at her now.

With a sigh, she walked out of the hallway and as soon as she did, a hand clamped down on her shoulder. She looked at Dalila who grinned at her, a grin that didn’t reach her eyes. Eyes that were as hard as stone. Dalila had changed into a copy of Vivian’s jumpsuit, and she looked more fit than Vivian thought the woman was.

“Dalila, how are you?” Vivian asked, a little shocked.

Dalila stayed silent and pushed Vivian back into the corridor. Once they were there she slammed her hand on the control panel and it flashed a strange series of numbers.

She looked at Dalila who only looked back at her.

“I thought that we should clear the air between us. You’re not a socialite, aren’t you?” Dalila said bluntly.

Vivian only reacted, shooting her right hand in a fist at Dalila. Dalila dodged and pushed Vivian’s fist aside with her right forearm.

Vivian jumped backwards and took a fighting stance. She couldn’t believe this, Dalila was actually holding her off. Her fast punch should have knocked this woman out! If she was confronting her, the others must know as well. She needed to escape and find a place to change her looks with her emergency cosmetic nanites. But first, she had to go through this woman!

Dalila only grinned and chuckled. “So you want to have fun before our talk, fine!”

Dalila shot forward and spun around to deliver a spin kick using her left leg. Vivian grabbed it and tried to twist it, but Dalila jumped and swung her right leg at Vivian’s head. Vivian ducked and grabbed Dalila’s left leg with her left arm. Not she was holding both of Dalila’s legs, and Dalila was in the air. She landed on her hands and pushed, forcing Vivian back.

Vivian dropped Dalila’s legs and moved backwards, hitting the wall. She only had one change, and that was this. She jumped into the air and used both legs to push off the door. She shot forward and spun, dodging the grasping hands of Dalila.

Moving over her, Vivian landed on her hands and backwards, throwing her body forward. Once she spun in the air and landed, she slammed her right fist onto the keyboard for the door. As her nanites went over the programing, she grinned at Dalila who only stayed staring at her.

“Don’t worry, most people….. wait, what? You’re a hunter like me!?” Vivian asked in shock.

Hunters were told not to fight each other if they could. And that battle just now was the reason why. They had to be united, that was the only way that they all would survive. When two Hunters met, they had the right to offer a Price to the other. A Price to end the job, neither of them fighting at all. The job would go onto their Guild Records as a ‘Special Cancel’. This was accepted by all Guild-Masters when it happened and was one of the core rules.

So Dalila was a Hunter on a job. That meant that she had to be here to protect Bradford! Well, if the Price was refused the Two Hunters would fight to the death. And that was something that Vivian would have to do and deal with. But what Vivian was about to say would destroy all her guesses about why Dalila was here.

“Yeah. Sorry about what you thought this was. I mean, when I realized who you were I knew we needed to talk!” Dalila said with a bit of cheer in her voice. She even laughed a little as she stretched. “And I got to say, that was amazing! I can see why you’re on this Guard trip!”

“Wait, what?!” Vivian said, blinking as she felt the floor drop away. The way that Dalila said that, the person she would have been protecting was here.

“Well, yeah! I have to give you props girl! How you’ve been protecting Bradford, great job! But with the way things are happening, I figured I tell you I’m not going after him anymore. I’ll find my target another way,” Dalila said with a shrug.

Vivian looked at her and then she almost threw up. She swallowed and looked at Dalila with a scowl. “Protecting him!? I was trying to data-mine him! Every time that I tried to get some data from his nanites, you were there! I gave up for now because of you always being there!”

“Oh,” Dalila said with a strange look on her face. She then started to chuckle and shake her head. “I was trying to data mine him too! He had some data on a target of mine! So we both kept the other from doing their mission!?”

“Looks like it!” Vivian said, her mouth slowly smiling against her will. For a second the two of them just stared there, and then they both started laughing. They both held their stomachs as they laughed harder, and they both fell to the floor. They kept laughing, both of them almost passing out. When they slowed down, they looked at each other and started laughing again.