Scorpion Slayers

"Holy mackerel!" Jesse breathed.

"Fuck mackerel. Holy Shit!" Jeremy whistled.

"Are they dead?" Alekai asked.

"Technically no. If we turned on all the life supports, they will come back. They're like cockroaches. They survive everything short of a huge blast."

He turned back to his monitors. "You people seeing this? Don't turn on life supports for the Krystabella. I repeat. DO NOT TURN ON LIFE SUPPORTS!!!"

He turned back to Alekai and Jesse. "Come on. I'm going to need your help to break through this mess of scorpions and get to the Gears behind them."

"Wait. Jeremy. How did Percy Lewis get his gear out of this mess of scorpions?" Alekai interrupted Jeremy's rambling.

Jeremy stared at him for a moment. Then he turned back to his monitors.

"Captain. You need to stop Percy Lewis from entering the Helene. There's an infestation of scorpions on the Krystabella. Stop him before he gets onboard the ship!"

"I hear you son. No need to shout." Tom's calm voice came on the line. "You kids do what you need to do and I'll take care of things on this end. We saw the scorpions nest too."

Jeremy exhaled with some relief and turned back to Alekai. "I like that Captain. Is he your friend?"

"Nope. He's my dad."

"For real? Hey man, that's super cool. I thought your dad was Emperor Kai Vartis." Jeremy chatted as he sliced through the frozen scorpions' bodies with a laser beam to get to the platform where the Gears were stowed.

The scorpions were human-sized and it took awhile to cut through their chitin.

Alekai rolled his eyes with disgust. "Emperor Kai Vartis is my father. Captain Tom Duncan is my foster dad. He raised me."

He followed Jeremy's lead, using the sharp laser beams to cut a swath through the scorpions' bodies as Jesse kicked them aside with the Gear's feet.

"I gotcha. I think we're all similar in that aspect since I'm adopted too." Jeremy nodded.

"What are you?" Alekai cut through another scorpion.

"I'm a gecko."

"Do what?" Jesse gasped. "You're a gecko???"

"Yeah, so? You're not gonna tell me you're not a reptile."

"Of course we are but, man! A gecko! That's super cool!"

Jeremy grinned and shot an appreciative glance at Jesse. "You're super cool yourself, Jessica."

"Pay attention to the work, you idiot." Robbie, Shielder of Team Niles called out.

"Chill, Rob. I'm just being nice to the Lady." Jeremy threw back.

Alekai said nothing. Truth be told, had Robbie not spoken up, he would have said something.

This was dark, dangerous work. One wrong slice and someone could get hurt. He couldn't have Jeremy flirting around with Jesse and getting them killed.

As they continued cutting through the nest of scorpions that had somehow covered the entire floor of the Engineering Deck, Alekai was surprised to find himself more and more irate at Jeremy. He was not sure why he was that annoyed, but it rankled him nevertheless.

He threw his frustration out on the frozen scorpion bodies and sliced them up in short order. Dozens and dozens of sliced scorpions later, they managed to work their way up towards the Gear Stations.

Alekai shined his lights onto the Gear Platform and there, in perfect rows were eighty Scout Gears and twenty Elite Gears, all folded up in perfect cubes, awaiting their commands to unfurl.

"Oh man. They actually got their hands on Elite Gears! Let's take those back with us." Jeremy hooted.

"Okay Alekai. We're going to daisy chain them together and then we can haul them back to the Anastasia."

"Start with the Elite Gears first, Jeremy." Alekai said as they began attaching the magnets to the fronts of the Gears.

Once the magnets were in place, Jeremy activated the tractor beams and the Gears moved, in unison, from their small cubes.

"Okay, Jesse." Robbie called out. "I'm gonna need your help on the other end so the tractor beams have two points of support. You know how to do this?"

"Yep. Let's do it." Jesse gave a thumbs up signal. The two Gears stood side-by-side like draft horses, attaching the tractor beams to themselves.

"Ready? Go!" Jeremy shouted as both Jesse and Robbie began pulling their huge cargo load.

The Gears stretched out behind them like square balloon boxes, guided only by the tenuous link of the traction beams that were being controlled by Alekai and Jeremy.

They had to move slowly and with care so that the individual Gears did not bump into each other.

"Jeremy, you just lost one on the right." Alekai called out.

"Oops. I got it back online. Thanks for the catch!" Jeremy replied.

"Two on the left are bumping into each other." Jeremy alerted.

"Damn." Alekai gasped. "Slow down Jesse. Let me clear that one scorpion corpse."

He shot a pulse weapon at the offending scorpion, causing it to scatter to the side.

"Sorry guys. That one didn't get kicked out far enough. Both Gears are cleared. We can move again."

With Alekai and Jeremy adjusting and readjusting the traction beams, they managed to pull out the Gears from the maw of the dead ship.

Since they took so long getting the Gears, they were the last ones out of the Khrystabella, the other Gears having gone in, done their scout work and returned to base.

By this time, many video feeds were fixated on the video feeds coming from the two Gears that were hauling out the cubed Gears behind them.

As the Vartis and Niles Gears exited the maw, everyone who was watching the live feeds gasped in awe.

It was an amazing sight to behold, with the two dark draft-horses, pulling on the hundred Gears, still in their hexahedron postion.

The video feeds clearly showed the faces of the four Striker/Shielder members.

Never one to miss the heartbeat of the action, the real-time show 'Reality Space-time' hooked onto the video feeds and began blasting their images out to the rest of the galaxy's entertainment-starved community.

Beside the video feeds of Alekai's and Jesse's faces were replays of the double explosions that had occurred only a single day-cycle before.

The words Scorpion Slayers were emblazoned across their names in blinking golden lights.