Act 1: The Death of a God

Chapter 10 - Tobias

by Emmanuel Ordway

Chapter 9 here.

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Tobias

 

In the hull of the ship, Tobias was carefully removing broken metal panels from the side where the reckless Eonvym had broken through before. He hummed an old tune to himself; one he knew from back before Earth was destroyed. His speakers played the notes beautifully as he grabbed a new panel from the floor and placed it against the hole, his free hand morphing into his mechanical arm and the sounds of turning gears surrounded him for a second, drowning out the noise of the music. Soon his hand came back out as a welding device, quickly fixing the panel to the wall. The fix to the wall wasn’t pretty, but it was far better than a biological mind could do.

“Tobias!” A voice broke through the music and shut it off, the voice of his Shaikyn Captain.

“Yes Ahri?” Tobias answered back calmly as he placed another panel on the wall and started to weld it.

“Get the ship ready! We got company!” She yelled out as the sound of gunfire could be heard from her end of the call.

“I'll do that momentarily.” Tobias’ calm demeanor never broke as he closed the call and the music returned. He placed one more panel on the hole for good measure and welded it into place before turning around and beginning to walk back to the bridge of the ship, his hand morphing into his arm before returning to its standard five-fingered self.

The music kept playing as he got on his knees at the front of the bridge and let a metallic covering descend onto his head from above, locking into place as his sensors no longer only sent data from his body, but now informed him of how the whole ship felt. His vision was connected to the entire machine, and he could see into the dock, noticing the large number of guards outside the dock, seeming to set up a defensive perimeter around the ship.

The engines to the ship ignited but made no sounds as the engines were in the vacuum of space, only vibrating the ship roughly before smoothing out. The cameras showed bright lights inside the docking station, flashes of gunfire as the soldiers from the outside began to attack something out of the ship’s view.

“Ahri? Is that you all-” Tobias stopped talking as a strand of an electrical current shot across the dock and lifted one of the soldiers into the air before his body painted the surrounding area in his blood and body parts.

“Yup that’s us!” The woman shouted into her radio as the group was now visible to Tobias.

Fictillis and Kilegros towered over the normal soldiers, the two wielding magical weapons made of ice and flame to cut down the Shaikyns where they stood. Ahri was behind them at their waist, holding the sword of one of the fallen officers, its blade radiant as she jabbed it into the chest of a soldier, ripping her chest and stomach open to reveal the severed and burnt insides.

The ship’s cargo doors opened slowly, a ramp slamming against the ground and over a few of the cowering dock workers and showed the group their escape. Fictillis got up the ramp first and held his hand out to Ahri, small bits of fire connecting his fingertips to her and pulling her across the dock into the ship.

“Hey! Dead man walking! Time to go!” Fictillis paused, seeing if any of the bullets would take him out before he shouted over the gunfire at Kilegros who was busy fighting the uncloaked assassin without knowing who it was. 

Kilegros brought his silver sword down on the assassin but he quickly dodged out of the way, striking the Eonvym across the face to daze him before running for cover as he saw the ship ready to depart from the dock, understanding when to back off.

Kilegros growled before he looked over his shoulder at the other Eonvym and huffed as a static noise filled the dock, his body glowing a strange shade of blue and yellow before his being vanished entirely. After a moment of silent confusion from Fictillis and his Captain, the second Eonvym appeared with a small explosion of sound next to them on the ship.

Tobias noted the retrieval of his comrades and began to raise the ramp back up, the thudding of gunfire hitting the ramp as the left of soldiers attempted to hit the people inside the ship.

“Tobias get us out of here!” Ahri looked up at the ceiling and shouted out to the machine.

“Yes ma’am.” A robotic voice answered her as the rumbling of the ship’s engines grew louder.

Tobias looked through the outside camera again as the ship broke away from the dock, disabling the gravity protection of the dock, resulting in anything that wasn’t tied down getting violently ripped out from the station.

He watched through all the outer cameras as many of the soldiers flew out of the station before their suit’s jetpacks activated and they were set upright according to the station to resume their ranged assault on the fleeing ship. Tobias accessed some deeper data on the ship’s mind, looking through files dating back to pre-war technology. After searching through a few hundred thousand files in less than a second, the Hydra activated old programs.

The starship began to shake as Tobias’ crew ran to the bridge. On the outside of the vessel, the black plating began to move and shift into different places before they began to glow with a low hum, soon masking the ship into the blackness of the void.

“Where to Captain?” Tobias radioed to Ahri just before she walked onto the bridge.

Ahri looked back at Kilegros, the Eonvym examining his new suit and the toys that came along with it as he tossed the open crate onto the table before them.

“Where to Kilegros?” Ahri questioned, still wondering what the motives of this strange person was.

Kilegros looked at her, his visor blocking his face as Ahri’s did the same, but she had the feeling he was looking into her soul.

“Neptune. Take me to that abandoned colony.” He nodded to the Captain.

Tobias’ emotion inhibitor went off again, giving his mind a sense of anger.

“We’re not your taxi service.” His seemingly robotic voice growled through the speakers of the ship.

“I know Hydra. If things go south, just leave me there.” Kilegros sighed, his mind determined for something while his body cried for rest.

“I think we need to head to Mars.” Fictillis spoke up quickly as he sat at the table, trying to find some reason to convince Tobias to turn the ship around. 

“Mars? What’s gotten into you? Do you have a death wish?” Ahri and Kilegros both snapped their heads in his direction after Fictillis spoke. 

“If we go to Neptune and something happens, I have a feeling we’ll all die. But if we go to Mars, I bet the under-cities got a lot of work for us.” Fictillis shrugged, making that lie up on the spot. 

“Lets stop by Neptune first, if something goes wrong-” Kilegros was cut off by Ahri.

“If things do go wrong, know I will be leaving you for eternal death.” Ahri cut Kilegros off, stopping any arguing between the two Eonvym. “Now get off my bridge while I think.”

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Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.

Getting closer to the end of the first act.