Chapter 57: What Makes a Leader

Lusac shouted as the teeth grew closer to his face. This was not at all how he wanted to die, but it seemed his [Luck] had finally run dry.

Why hadn't he had enough sense to make [Beginner's Luck Soup] again before this mission? Hadn't he learned his lesson back on Aschir Alpha about assuming that easy-sounding missions were never as simple as they seemed?

The bear attacking him was the one with the third eye on its cheek, the yellow orb staring down at him with total insanity. His arms burned, and his hands were bleeding from the teeth as he shielded himself from the mutant trying to eat his head. There was nothing he could do…

Except [Dash]. He didn't know that it would do any good, but he figured he might as well try.

Grimacing as the bear thrust its head closer to chomping range, Lusac thought the magic words, activate [Dash].

[Activating Dash for 50 seconds]

Instantly the world slowed down.

There was still a giant, freakish polar bear sitting on top of him, crushing the air from his lungs and very nearly about to eat his face off, but Lusac now had the wonderful privilege of watching his own death in slow-motion.

[Dash]-enhanced squirming did nothing to free himself from the load of meat and fur pinning him to the ground, and the [Skill] did nothing to replenish his fading [Strength].

Time ticked by slowly as Lusac struggled against the animal, his will to live proving not to be enough to keep him alive this time, and just as he was about to give in and allow the beast to feast, something new appeared in the corner of his vision.

Turning his head slightly, Lusac caught sight of a new player in the game, a large Kremel with a fiery sword charging towards him and the bear.

Nippy.

Nippy had come back for him, and if Lusac could hold out just a little longer, he might not die after all. It was a miracle. Or maybe his [Luck] really was that good.

With his newly found second wind, Lus forced his tired arms to push harder against the bear, shoving its deadly face away from his. He locked his elbows and begged the Watcher for just a few more seconds of [Strength] as he waited for Nippy's approach.

It might have been an eternity of him waiting there, arms shaking against the foaming mouth they held at bay, until at last he got the glorious notification:

[Dash deactivating]

[Cooldown: 5 minutes]

The world returned to regular speed, and it was only a moment later that red blood sprayed down on Lus as the mutant bear's head split in half. The monster toppled over, and Nippy pulled Lusac out from under the mound of bubbling flesh and to his feet.

"Nippy, you saved me. Thank you," Lusac said.

"Save your gratitude until we're out of the ship," the Kremel growled. He turned, sword raised high, as two more bears converged on their location. "I'll blast myself before I lose another member of my team."

Lus smiled as new notifications filled his view.

[Quest Complete:What Makes a Leader]

The real Nippy was back. They were going to make it out of this alive. Probably.

The Kremel raced forward to meet the incoming bears, slicing both down with a set of fluid motions.

"Behind you!" Lus shouted as a third bear appeared behind him, but Nippy was already spinning to face the beast. Another swing later, and it too was a bloody heap on the ground.

"Come on, Lusac. They'll be coming back very soon. We have to get out of here," Nippy called to him.

Lus wasted no time jogging up to join the Kremel who then took off at a rather fast pace that he found difficult to replicate with his much smaller legs and tired body. The roar of the bears behind them encouraged him to ignore his exhaustion for a little longer.

Another bear appeared in their path, but Nippy leapt over it, his sword reaching below him to cut the monster down before it could strike. Lusac ran past the bubbling corpse, wishing he still had his [Dash] so he could try to do something helpful.

Nippy knew exactly where to go, or at least he pretended well, because he didn't hesitate at a single intersection, his steps sure in their path. Lus was a lot less confident that they were actually going towards the exit, but he was too busy trying to keep up with the Kremel to worry too much about it.

After a few minutes, Nippy did stop near a four way intersection, and Lusac gratefully took the chance to lean against the wall to catch his breath. The Kremel didn't like this apparently, and he raised his flaming sword towards him.

"S-s-sorry," Lus stammered. But Nippy's eyes were angry and distant.

"Duck," the Kremel hissed.

Immediately Lusac dove to the floor, his arms covered his head as Nippy jumped over him. Lus sat up and watched as the Kremel engaged with five of the mutant bears.

As powerful and [Skilled] as Nippy was, he was no match for all of the monsters at once, and Lus watched in horror as one of the animals cut long gashes along the Kremel's back.

"Nippy!" He took a step forward but realized he had nothing that could help. His blaster did almost nothing to the bears. Still, his hands found the weapons and pulled them from the holsters despite the pain from the bleeding holes in hands. Doing almost nothing was better than truly doing nothing and watching Nippy die before his own turn came.

"Over here," Lusac called out, gaining the attention of one of the bears. He raised both pistols and unleashed as many bolts as he could into it and those around it, taking only enough aim to be sure he wasn't going to hit Nippy by mistake.

As before, the bolts burned the flesh, but the mutant bears quickly recovered. The others that had been hit also turned their attention to Lusac, and soon three of the beasts were stalking towards him as an injured Nippy attempted to fight off the other two.

He continued to shoot at the animals, but the shots didn't even slow the animals as they approached him.

"Watcher protect me," he whispered as he stared into three sets of hungry, murderous eyes.

Hope resurfaced inside him when Nippy's bleeding form appeared behind the three monsters. Heaving his sword with a pained look, the Kremel slaughtered the bears before leaning against the nearest wall with a gasp.

Lusac ran to him and grabbed his arm, pulling him up.

"We gotta keep going, Nippy. They're already reforming." He nodded to the bubbling carcases surrounding them.

"Too… many," he muttered. "Use your [Dash], Lusac. Get out of here. I'll hold them off."

"No," Lus said fiercely. "We're making it out together." He tugged Nippy harder. "Let's go."

The two started to run again, but slower than before. There was no chance they'd survive this unless they made it to the crater before the bears caught up again. Whether it was his [Luck] or Nippy's previous navigation, he would never know for sure, but they did reach the end of the wreckage before the mutated beasts caught them.

Plowing into the snow, Lus continually glanced back to see Nippy trailing behind. Now that they were in the field of white, he cringed at the black stains his friend was leaving behind.

"Come on," he encouraged the Kremel as he caught sight of the mutant bears coming down the hallway. "We're so close, Nippy. We just have to make it up the wall of the crater."

"I can't fight them again, Lus," Nippy admitted. "Not in this condition."

"Then run faster," he replied as he looped Nippy's arm around his shoulders, taking on as much of the Kremel's weight as he could. He forced his feet to churn in the snow as they ran towards the silver line waiting against the snowy wall of the impact site. There was no way they were going to make it. Those bears were fast.

"Oh, come on. Can't we catch a break?" Lusac complained as he noticed the non-mutant bears coming from the other side of the wreckage towards them. Those ones would stay dead at least, but stopping to fight them would allow their twisted friends to catch up and kill them anyway.

"No… Chance," Nippy breathed.

"Don't say that. We're almost there," Lus lied as he continued to drag the second-in-command forward. Another glance over his shoulder showed that both sets of bears were due to converge on them at any moment. Grimacing, he threw Nippy off of himself and pulled the large sword from the Kremel's hands. It was huge and heavy, making it far too unwieldy for Lus to properly use, but he held it up anyway, pressing the button to activate the power of the Valer chip.

Orange flames leapt up along the sides of the sword as Lus turned to face their enemies, dedicating himself to one last stand in a battle he knew he would lose.

He took a deep breath through his mouth as his arms shook from the effort of holding the sword.

A few more seconds, and all the bears would arrive. He moved the sword into position, but before the animals reached Lus, both packs veered in a different direction to face each other.

Releasing a shocked sigh, he turned the sword off and lowered it to the ground as he watched the mutant bears begin attacking the non-mutated ones, an all out battle starting up between the two sides. It seems that in their eagerness to kill each other, they'd both forgotten about their original target.

Dragging the sword in the snow behind him, Lusac returned to where Nippy knelt in the snow. He sheathed the sword on the Kremel's back and then helped him to his feet again.

"Something is looking out for us," Lus informed him as they staggered towards the rope that represented their safety.

"Or it's that 12 [Luck] you have. I've never seen someone with such high [Luck] at such a low level," Nippy confessed.

"Whatever it is, I'm not going to complain." They reached the alunitanium rope, and Lus set Nippy up to go first. Once the Kremel was at the top of the crater, he dropped the rope so Lusac could hook it to his own harness. The line tugged him upwards, and he craned his neck back to watch the last of the fight between the bears. Both sides took heavy losses, but in an strange turn of the events, Lus saw no sign that the mutant bears were coming back to life. The remnants of both sides staggered away to their respective homes, leaving a field of red gore and torn corpses behind.

"Maybe they need to be close to the radiation to recover," Lus said to himself. He never got to see if any of the dead bears revived. As he soon reached the top of the crater, he and Nippy strode towards the shuttle, neither one wanting to look back at the wreck that had nearly been their grave.

It was only a short trek later that they arrived at the shuttle where Zer-Dasht and Hwnlr both waited. Hwnlr was lying on the floor while Zer-Dasht sat with his injured leg elevated. It wasn't nearly as warm in the shuttle as he expected, and both the Kremel and Nemarian were still wearing their coats.

"Suns, Loser. Why does everyone around you get hurt?" Dasht bit at him when he noticed the black blood dripping off Nippy.

"It didn't exactly make it out uninjured myself," Lus replied bitterly as he held up his bleeding hands. "Get Nippy taken care of while I see about installing the parts."

"Let me wrap your hands first. Last thing we need is them getting infected," Dasht said flatly. The Nemarian limped to the open medical kit and motioned Lusac over. He efficiently wrapped the bleeding gashes before turning his attention to Nippy's much more serious injury while Lusac went over to the maintenance closet to begin his work.

With the bulky bandages on his hands, doing something as intensive as replacing entire components was difficult, time consuming work. More often than he would have liked, Lusac had to take breaks to let the pain in his hands die down. First he replaced the antenna which proved the simplest of the tasks, and then he moved on to dealing with the four fretrics. They were small, delicate chips, and each wire had to be connected in a very specific manner for them to work, which was hard to do right with his injuries.

Lusac got through two of the fretrics replacements before he finally gave in to his inclination to take a real break. He stepped out of the closet and collapsed in the nearest seat, finding his entire body sore.

"Finished?" Dasht asked eagerly from the pilot's chair.

Lus shook his head. "Not yet. I'm getting close."

"Come on, Lus. We're running low on power. We're going to freeze death at this rate," the Nemarian said.

He held up his bandaged hands. "I'm doing the best I can, Dasht. It's not my fault I had to hold off a bear as it tried to gnaw my face off."

"It kind of is. You're the idiot who took off into the hallway in some stupid plan."

"It worked, didn't it? We're all alive and safe with the artifact and the parts we need."

"That won't matter if we die before you fix the system," Dasht snapped.

Lusac frowned as he stood back up. "I'll get it fixed in time. Suns, you're annoying."

"And see if you can fix the heating at all while you're back there," Dasht added.

Grumbling as many curses as he could think of towards the Nemarian, Lus returned to the closet and resumed his task. That small break, even with the ever-irksome Zer-Dasht complaining, had done a lot for his hands, and he found it easier to replace the other two fretrics. Within half an hour he was finished, and he had enough momentum going that he did see about tuning the life support system to boost the heater's power.

Exiting the closet, Lus happily closed the door and turned to Zer-Dasht.

"Now I'm finished. See? That didn't take too long."

"Good thing too. Hwnlr doesn't look too good," Dasht said, nodding to where the Kremel lay with his pale skin.

"Let's not waste any more time," Nippy jumped in, sitting up from where he'd been sleeping. He winced as he moved. "Contact the Argo, Dasht. Let's see how soon they can send help.

The Nemarian nodded and swiveled his chair to face the controls. His gloved hands danced across one of the panels and the familiar clicking of the long distance radio filled the room.

"Argo, come in. This is Shuttle Two," Dasht said. "Our shuttle crashed in the storm during our descent, and we are in need of immediate assistance."

They all waited for a moment before Cewi-Bano's voice sounded.

"Shuttle Two, this is Argo. We read you. You've had us worried for a while. We already have another shuttle prepped. Dasy-Jonil believes that a heavier shuttle will withstand the cold better. Give us five minutes to triangulate your signal, and then we'll send rescue," she said.

Lus sighed in relief as he sat back down in his chair to await the next shuttle. He used the time to pull up his system screen and officially finish the [What Makes a Leader Quest], receiving enough [XP] to level up and a new [Recipe] called [Power Burger]. With the level up, he was now a [Level 6] with another 5 points add to his stats which now read:

[Stamina: 8]

[Intelligence: 9]

[Strength: 8]

[Charm: 7]

[Health: 10]

[Speed: 9]

[Common Sense: 1]

[Luck: 13]

[Luck], [Stamina], [Intelligence], [Strength], and [Speed] all increased by 1. Nippy would hopefully be happy with the [8 Strength] he now possessed, and ideally, the Kremel would stop trying to make him gain anymore. He was a bit disappointed that his [Common Sense] remained at 1, but he supposed he should just be grateful it wasn't -1 anymore.

He swiped the screen away and leaned back, enjoying the true break from his labors for a while.

An hour later, Yrqw radioed them to inform them that the other shuttle had landed only half a mile away. Soon the rescue crew reached the crashed shuttle, and Yrqw and one of the other Kremel helped Nippy and Hwnlr up and outside while Lus assisted Zer-Dasht in limping along to the next shuttle.

"It's good to see you in one piece," Yrqw said from over his shoulder as he held Nippy's arm around his shoulder.

"It's good to be in one piece," Lusac replied with a grin.

Soon they were all comfortably in the other shuttle and lifting off to the Argo. Lus was more than ready to go home and warm up.