Waiting Shapeless

Chapter 27. Gnumus

Hud: Pardos

Hud wiped the sweat out of his eyes as he gazed at the distant ship, half buried in the dust and badly damaged. He looked down at the wreck from a large nearby dune.

This is where his target would be, or at least this is where the scanner said the stolen Rhaa technology was.

Somewhere in there.

He had finally made it to the little planet Gnumus. His newly acquired Rapiki cargo ship had dealt with some odd difficulties as he approached this destination, but he had made it here alive regardless.

Hud sighed and wiped his brow again. Sadly he couldn't just blow the whole rust bucket up. He would have to search the ship to find and kill his target, the Circuit, then return the undamaged technology to the Rhaa. It was a large ship. This was bound to take several hot and sweaty hours.

Natilliea hummed in anticipation as he held her. Hud shuffled his feet slightly in the thick dust and mentally prepared for his decent on the wreck.

Suddenly a movement near the ship caught his eye. He squinted in the relentless sunlight.

Yes, there was something there. A being. No, multiple beings. Three. All of them staggered out of the ship. At this distance they were nothing more than three little black dots.

Hud quickly dropped to the sandy ground, laying flat.

Thankfully, he was far enough away that they hadn't seen him, or the plume of dust he sent up when he hit the ground. He pulled Natilliea off of his shoulder and she unfolded into a sniper rifle-like weapon, equipped with both a scope and silencer. She always knew exactly what he needed.

Once the dust had mostly settled, he studied the beings though the scope. Their attire was unmistakable: matching uniforms and badges.

Officers.

Hud was very familiar with that look. It was the PPF, the Pentaverse Police force.

Can't have them poking around Hud thought. He waited until they were a little closer together. They were marching through the dust slowly and it wasn't hard for Hud to get a good aim on them.

He pulled the trigger.

Natilliea shot off with a quiet pff and the third officer in the line went down. Hud quickly switched aim to the second and pulled the trigger again.

Second officer fell to the dust like a ragdoll.

The last one noticed his dead comrades behind him. The officer panicked and started racing back towards the broken ship for cover.

He didn't get too far. Hud took aim and shot him down only after a couple of steps.

He waited to see if there would be any other PPF agents leaving the wreck and wondered if it had been a mistake to shoot the first three down so quickly. The last thing he wanted to do was fight his way though the wreckage. He looked up from his scope at the half buried ship.

Then he saw another group of beings leave the wreck.  Three again. Damn it, were they officers too? They staggered out just like the first group, and were followed by two larger beings that also appeared from the wreckage. The two in the back seemed to be carrying something heavy. Five targets in total.

He watched the black dots as the three in front quickly saw the dead PPF agents and called for the two in back. Those two dropped the bulky object they were carrying and ran over to examine the dead bodies with the first three.

They couldn't be officers.

Hud frowned and looked through Natilliea's scope at them. Just as he suspected, they weren't Police Force agents like the first three. If they were from the PPF, they wouldn't have been so stupid as to run out to inspect the bodies. They would have ran the other way.