Chapter 18: Chapter 18: Escape

When Athena found Corporal Kendrick, the ISC squad leader was running down one of the corridors close to the shuttle bay. Nearly a dozen people were behind him, most of the survivors in the research outpost. Six of them were ISC soldiers in Champion-class power armors. Others were troopers of the 432nd Company who 'miraculously' lived through the rebel betrayal and the zerg onslaught.

While Athena was attacking the rebels in the armory, Corporal Kendrick has rallied as many of his men as possible. When he realized the rebels never breached the lab, he knew it must have something to do with the xenomoprhs. Regardless of why the rebels were gone, this still presented the corporal with an opportunity he couldn't afford to let slip. He quickly met up with the doctor and the rest of his men and started moving toward the shuttle bay. 

When Athena first showed herself, she was almost gunned down by the Imperials. Thankfully, Corporal Kendrick recognized Athena. Given the limited amount of time they had, the corporal didn't question her about how she got out of her cell and simply allowed her to join their group as they tried to escape from this planet. 

As they kept on moving, Athena noticed Doctor Payton in the middle of the remaining Wolves. She was a short, feeble-looking young woman in a white lab coat. Athena could see spots of blood on the lab coat that looked more like the blood of local wildlife than human blood. Despite the doctor’s best attempts to remain stoic, Athena could still see the fear creeping through her mask. Dissecting dead xenomorphs or animals was one thing. Being hunted by dozens of xenomorphs was a whole different experience.

The small group came to a stop in front of the shuttle bay door. Before he scanned his keycard to open the door, Corporal Kendrick snapped to the men. 

“Prepare your weapons. There may be a fight inside.” 

The Wolves and the troopers complied and readied whatever weapons they had. The Wolves and their Inquisitor-class assault rifles. A few troopers had Defender-S rifles. One of the men only had an Arbiter-S handgun. Athena herself was still holding onto the Defender-S she recovered from the slain sentry at the detention center.

Almost all of them, veteran or not, were nervous at the impending fight. Athena was the only one who knew there would be no fight. In fact, the Imperials wouldn’t be able to find a single alive zergling in this entire outpost. Once the zerg had served their purpose and she was about to leave this planet, Athena recalled all her zerg units and returned them back into the game. 

Corporal Kendrick tapped his keycard on the shuttle bay and opened the blast door. He still remembered what he saw when he was here a few minutes ago. There were dozens of xenomorphs in the hangar. He and his men never ran into large groups of xenomorphs on their way here for reasons he couldn't understand, but Corporal Kendrick would be a fool if he thought the xenomorphs already in the hangar would be easy to take down. 

This was why he brought along every survivor he ran into without verifying their allegiance. If things got too dangerous, these survivors would be abandoned to the xenomorphs so Doctor Payton and his own men could get onto a shuttle and escape. Of course, if it came down to it, he and his men would be eager to give their own lives to get the doctor safely onto a shuttle. 

To his surprise, when the frightened survivors entered the shuttle bay, they didn't find a single xenomorph inside. Corporal Kendrick could still see the mauled human remains on the ground that told him he didn't go mad, but where were the xenomorphs? Where could they have gone?

A part of Corporal Kendrick wanted to investigate the source of the xenomorphs more closely. If he could find out where they came from and discover a way for the Imperium to control these xenomorphs…as vulnerable as these monsters would be against overwhelming firepower, there were still fields where they would excel.

For one thing, they would be deadly when used in boarding actions against enemy starships. Just imagining that made him excited. Boarding crafts piercing the armor of enemy ships and unloading hordes of xenomorphs into the tight corridors of the enemy ships against marines usually armed with limited heavy weapons…it would be a slaughter, and slaughters were just what the enemies of the Venya Imperium deserved.  

Yet in the end, he changed his mind. His main duty was the protection of Doctor Payton. As for the xenomorphs…he would report everything he saw and heard to his higher-ups and trust they would follow up on the leads. This planet still believed to the Imperium, after all. 

One by one, the survivors poured into one of the three Gazelle-class shuttles. Gazelle shuttles were one of the main ways the Imperium transported personnel and resources into locations deemed to be secured. Compared to the Sabertooth-class combat dropships, Gazelle-class shuttles traded armor and weaponry for additional cargo size. A Gazelle could carry 30 people in full power armor. 

In addition, unlike Sabertooth dropships, Gazelle transports could fly in space for extended periods of time. In addition to their conventional Class C sub-light engine, they were also equipped with a Class B FTL Callisto engine, allowing them to perform long-distance jumps to nearby Imperial worlds. 

Corporal Kendrick and another Wolf hopped into the cockpit of the transport. Every field operative of the Imperial Security Corps was well-trained in using almost every piece of Imperial and non-Imperial equipment, vehicle, and starship commonly seen in the galaxy. Piloting a shuttle was a piece of cake. 

In the back, the other six Wolves turned their attention to the survivors. As two Wolves continued to shield Doctor Payton, the others aimed their rifles in the direction of the troopers before giving an order. 

“Put your weapons in the weapons storage area.”

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The voice of the ISC soldier was cold and emotionless. All Athena could tell from the voice was that the soldier was female. Her facial expression was completely hidden by her helmet, and the speaker attached to her armor made her sound more mechanical than anything else. 

Athena raised her eyebrows. It seemed like her suspicions were correct. After the rebellion where half of the unit turned out to be traitors, the Wolves had zero trust for the Imperial soldiers. As far as they knew, every single one of these men could be a rebel who told lies to hitch a ride to safety. The fact that the Wolves didn't shoot the troopers just in case was generous on their part. There was no way they could allow the troopers to keep their weapons and pose a threat to them, no matter how small the threat was.

And this was even before they got to safety. Athena knew once they reached to an Imperial world, all the remaining troopers in the company would be thoroughly interrogated for their participation in the mutiny. Anyone who couldn’t one hundred percent be verified as a loyalist would likely be executed, just in case.

Hopefully, Corporal Kendrick would be able to prove her loyalty. If not…well, it would suck for the Imperials in the base where she was detained. She already destroyed Research Outpost Delta from the inside with just zerglings and queens. Now that she had real infantry and mechanized units at her disposal…hopefully, that wouldn’t be necessary. She wasn’t nearly ready to go to war with the Venya Imperium just yet, and if they ended up on a major Imperial planet, she didn't have remotely sufficient forces to secure her own escape. 

As her mind turned, Athena quietly obeyed with the instructions, laying down the Defender-S rifle in the storage area. The others soon did the same as well. What choices did they have? Refuse, and the Wolves would gun them down in an instant. Even if they didn't want to use firearms within the shuttle, they could still easily take the troopers in melee. Resisting would be suicide. 

Under the control of Corporal Kendrick, the shuttle quickly lifted itself into the air and continued to increase in altitude until it left the planet's atmosphere. Athena didn't pay attention to what was going on outside. If something went wrong and the shuttle suddenly exploded, she would be dead. There was no doubt about that. In that case, she might as well sit back and let the professionals do the job. As much as she might question the ideology of the Wolves, she respected their skills. 

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“Sir, I am making the preparations for a warp jump to 9A2-C-8. It will take a while.” 

In the cockpit, the co-pilot said to Corporal Kendrick as he tapped a few keys on the monitor. Achieving FTL travel usually took some preparation. This was especially true for capital ships like carriers or battlecruisers. In this case, the shuttle’s Callisto FTL engine needed some time to warm up before a jump could be made.

“Make the jump as soon as it is safe.” Corporal Kendrick ordered. The rebels were likely still trapped on the planet, but he knew they weren’t out of the woods just yet. The Gazelle shuttles were equipped with Class B Callisto Engines. These engines were fast and could take the shuttles to nearby Imperial planets quickly, but they weren’t designed to travel any distance further than that in one jump. To do so, larger and more expensive Callisto FTL Engines were required. The shuttles also didn't have enough fuel to jump all the way to the territories of the Salin Empire or the United Republic of Dorn.

Either the rebels were planning to jump to a secret staging ground within the Imperial Sector to refuel, or they were waiting for a ride on a capital ship equipped with better Callisto Engines that could escape the territories of the Venya Imperium in one single jump. Something told Corporal Kendrick it might be the latter. If so, there could be…issues. 

A few minutes went by as the corporal waited anxiously for the engines to be ready. Even so, he never told his co-pilot to rush the preparations. He knew the risks of unsuccessful jumps. He had no intention of going through all the trouble of saving Doctor Payton, only for a faulty warp jump to throw the entire ship into a star or a planet. That would be the ultimate irony and an unfitting death to him and his men. 

Unfortunately, it seemed like evading the xenomorphs in the research outpost had exhausted all of the corporal’s luck. An alert appeared from the scanner, and when Corporal Kendrick looked, he quickly saw a warp jump signature on the scanner. A ship was about to jump in over the orbit of Morgo IV, right above Research Outpost Delta.

Was it friend or foe? That was impossible to tell until the ship exited warp space. Corporal Kendrick hoped it was the Imperial reinforcements he called for, but it might not necessarily be the case. Despite all that has happened, it had only been twenty or so minutes since he sent out the message to call for help. It would take time for an Imperial ship to be rerouted to Morgo IV. An emergency request like this from the ISC wouldn’t be delayed too much by bureaucracy, but the basic procedures still had to be done.

At the same time, a ship from the Republic of Dorn or the Salin Empire might need to travel further, but if they had a head start, they could arrive much sooner than Imperial ships. 

Corporal Kendrick didn't sit around and wait to find out. He immediately turned the Class C sub-light engine to maximum power and started directing the shuttle as far away from the jump signature as possible. If it turned out to be friendly, then no losses on their part. If the ship turned out to be an enemy ship, this might buy them the precious time they needed to escape.

Five minutes after the signature was detected, a ship around 400 meters long jumped into the orbit of Morgo IV. The scanner attached to the shuttle immediately returned some basic information about the ship to Corporal Kendrick. Its ship type. Its length and width. Its location. Most importantly, its allegiance.

It was a Lancer-class light cruiser of the Republic of Dorn. 

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