Renegades (The Slingers Trilogy, Book 3)

Chapter 34

The ringing in Andress's ears was ironically the thing that woke her out of unconsciousness. The second thing was the fact that someone had their hands on her shoulders, and was turning her towards them. Andress found herself looking into Nolun's brown eyes, and the worried look on his face. "Hey! Look at me. You ok?" Andress nodded slowly, and managed to regain her bearings as Nolun helped her up. As she looked around at the cargo bay of the Renegade, her heart began to break. The entire ship seemed to have been shredded to pieces, and was just a shell of it's former self. The left wing had been torn off, and had opened up several large pieces in the fuselage. Looking back into the main cabin, she could see that the window had been broken, and the console had been damaged by shrapnel, and looked to be irreplaceable. Looking around the ship, everything seemed to be destroyed. "Andress! Over here! Quick!" She heard Bunker shouting from the medical bay, and she ran over to see a mass of tangled wires all over the floor. Andress then covered her mouth as she realized that the wires were actually from the interior of Dewey, whose upper half was currently lying a few feet away from his lower half. She walked over to him, and saw that he was still half-functional, but ultimately unrepairable. She knelt down next to the medical bot that she had managed to acquire from a black market on some random planet all those years ago, and she began to cry. "Dewey...I'm so sorry..." Dewey looked up at Andress, his blue LED lights flickering. "It is alright, Mistress Lovecraft. I have outlived my f-f-functionality. I...appear to be losing my energy. I would like to...re-re-request to shut down, please." Andress nodded and held Dewey's head. Shortly after, Dewey's eyes shut off permanently, his body going limp. Andress sat there, her friends looking at her, in the ruins of what was once her home.

Kovak had managed to navigate through the nightmare that was the mysterious storm that was surrounding the planet. Not every ship had managed to survive, but that was a loss he had to accept, and he knew that those soldiers would have given their lives for this mission either way. But now, he had other problems to worry about. Barton had betrayed him and the Resistance, and had made away with not only Metreo and Lovecraft, but also the two Dorado Pieces. So, whatever Nolun had known about this whole thing may have disappeared over the mountain. On top of that, he had seen the smoke-trails from where he assumed that the Renegade had gone down, sustaining it's own damages from the storm. He had sent a group of soldiers off to investigate, and if all of the prisoners were dead, they could at least recover the Dorado Pieces. He was just gathering up his troops and taking inventory on the hover vehicles that they would use to take to the dig site of the Tablet, seeing as how their shuttles had been somehow sapped by the storm. As he was about to tell the group to move out, he heard one of the Sergeants call out and point at the sky. "Incoming!" Kovak looked up at the strange storm, and widened his eyes when he saw several GDF fighters and gunships flying out of the maelstrom that was above them. He had expected their arrival, but not this quickly. But they still had the upper hand. Kovak turned to his soldiers and spoke so they could all hear. "Listen up! We're not outnumbered! They won't be able to follow us for long due to the storm! We need to move now, and make it to the Tablet before they do!" All of the soldiers nodded one by one and rushed to their vehicles. Kovak looked up at the  incoming forces, and cursed to himself. You better be right about this, Metreo...

Bunker managed to use the enhanced strength in his suit to pull out the jammed hover carrier from the cargo bay of the Renegade, and pulled it next to the runner that had come with it. "Alright, that's the last of the materials." He said, and flexed his muscles inside the suit. He had managed to gather all of their confiscated weapons, some tech, the Dorado Pieces, and the two vehicles that they would use to head towards the Tablet. Dante was scouting the desert with his binoculars, and could see the digging site that the GDF used to find the artifacts all the way from where the Renegade was. "It's a drive, but I think we can make it." He said. As he spoke, Elicia pulled something from a small box that Bunker had pulled from her quarters. As she held it in her hands, Dante saw that it was the shotgun that Edvard used to have back when he was alive. She slung it over her shoulder and looked at him. "I know, I'm not supposed to use guns..." Dante looked at her, and smiled, a sympathetic look in his eyes. "If it means something to you, then it's your choice." Elicia looked at him with a grateful stare, and then bolted forwards, hugging him tight. Surprised by the sudden act, Dante slowly returned the embrace, and heard Elicia mumble into his chest. "Thank you..." Nolun watched this from afar, and saw Andress sitting on a rock close to where the Renegade had crashed. He walked over to her, and looked down into her eyes. "You okay?" He asked, already knowing the answer. Andress sighed, and wiped a tear from her eyes. "I've had that stupid ship for 5 years...of course I had to crash it..." Nolun smiled, and chuckled a bit, then took both of her hands, looking into her eyes. "I know it's hard...but we're gonna make everything right, ok? Hell, with unlimited riches, you could buy all the ships you want." Andress laughed a little bit, then looked back at the wreckage. "Yeah...but there won't be any ones like her..." They both saw the hover vehicles being activated, and got up, Nolun squeezing Andress's real hand one last time. Koil, Trace, Bunker, Andress, Zero, and Elicia got in the large carrier, along with the two Dorado Pieces, and Nolun and Dante got into the runner. The hover engines roared, and the two vehicles sped off towards the dig site.