[CYA] Chapter 180: Hostage?(2) (Patreon)

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FXED_uu6yydBj26uMIsCLXW1uqZc4oC7iEcdRvT7ycI/edit?usp=sharing

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<Alex, Real - Dorgon Calls for Aid, Innominate Duty Station>

Moments after the pirate hail cut off, Juba’s voice came to them. “They’ve sealed off the bridge, and are projecting their voices out. They’ll kill the hostage if I attempt to breach.”

Grant sighed. “Well, good try, Alex. Beyond all expectations, that almost worked.”

Alex shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

Juba’s voice came again. “So… Are we considering the hostage lost? I’ve blinded them, so they have no idea what’s happening around them.”

John cut in there. “The Impressa is capturing the fighters. The first should be in their docks with the crew subdued soon.”

Alex checked and, yes, the Impressa was approaching out of the main arcs of fire, and doing something to apprehend the furthest active vessel.

Everyone turned to Alex, and Alex grimaced, rubbing his face. “I’m not in charge… Kaylee?”

Kaylee chuckled, a predatory grin spreading across her features. “So, you want me to pick?”

Alex nodded. “Yes please.”

She nodded. “Alright. John, suit up, you and Alex are breaching the command deck of that frigate.”

Alex blinked. “What now?”

<Alex, Real - Dorgon Calls for Aid, Innominate Airlock>

Alex grumbled to himself, but he really didn’t have a leg to stand on.

Beside him, John wore a reinforced helmet and some tactical looking gear that Alex quite wished he could have gotten as well.

They each had five restraint devices with integrated life support and one more that didn’t have the restraint features.

Kaylee’s logic had been unassailable.

Natasha couldn’t come because she was needed to monitor the star system and ensure no surprises snuck up on them.

Grant was needed on the ship because Natasha was not—and would not claim to be—perfect. So, while they’d contained all known threats, there could be other pirates in the area, or even already secreted aboard.

It wasn’t likely, but depriving the Innominate of the one primarily intended to defend it seemed like a foolish maneuver.

Lenka was similarly required aboard as a primary defender, if writ large.

Kaylee would weaken the Innominate significantly if she left, maybe to the point of freeing one of the currently held ships.

Pilar was keeping the weapons properly trained on the fighters, locking them down.

Audry and Bev were non-combatants.

That left only two.

John wasn’t needed on the ship at the moment. The Innominate hadn’t taken any damage.

Alex wasn’t really needed because they should hold position, and there were basic maneuvering commands if things went sideways.

His reason for being ‘free’ to go was the most suspect, but as he had the only space-walking experience in their group—and he wasn’t about to make John go alone—Alex didn’t fight it.

Juba was awaiting their arrival to coordinate the final assault.

I’m really bad at staying in my lane…

The lights flashed red, and John’s voice came to Alex through external speakers in the man’s helmet, the sound slowly diminishing as the chamber depressurized. “I gotta say, I really should have found an excuse to get out in zero-g before this.”

Alex nodded, then tapped his left bracelet, before sending a message, watching the device for John’s reply.

Alex: Sound communication won’t work until we’re back.

John fumbled with his own bracer as the airlock lights turned green.

John: You could just wear a helmet.

Alex grinned back, the doors locking fully open as he hit send.

Alex: And miss out on being a la carte in space? Never.

John laughed within his helmet, the sound unable to reach Alex, even though he saw the motion. It was funny, without John’s eyes containing obvious mirth, he might have thought that the other man was screaming…

Not helpful, Alex. He helped the other man make the transition to the hull of the Innominate, then coordinated their jump.

Alex was fully expecting to have to correct their flight path with Shaped Force Burst. As such, he spun up a set of spellforms that would give dispersed impact pressure on him, like being hit with a heavy pillow.

He could move the form to where he wanted it, and multiply if he needed more of a correction.

After a confirmation of what they’d discussed before, John tucked his arms in and crouched down.

Alex crouched as well, fitting in behind the other man as he tucked his arms under John’s armpits and locked them in place across the man’s chest.

Then, he tapped three times at a steady cadence.

On the third tap, they both jumped with all their strength.

It actually worked a lot better than Alex feared that it might, and the two shot off the hull of the Innominate, flying almost directly for the shield frigate. Even so, he instantly saw that they were off trajectory.

Thankfully, the shields of the enemy ship were already fully down, so Alex simply had to choose where to land and aim for that.

He wanted to land right on the command center, but it had been pointed out that doing so would make at least some noise, likely a lot. As such, he aimed lower down on the ship.

The gravity defenses of the frigate were disabled. Otherwise, they’d have had no hope of performing such an unaided insertion.

Alex took a moment to actually enjoy the feeling of breathing with the aid of his ring. There was a quality to each lungful that normal breathing—even the magically processed air of the Innominate—lacked.

Funnily enough, Alex thought that the ring likely did something similar to what his Create Rations spell was starting to. It gave him exactly what he needed to be breathing, and in that, he thought he saw a path for improvement… but not now, and likely not until after he’d improved it as much as he easily could through the combination of System granted items.

As he considered this, Alex moved his Shaped Force Burst into place, and replicated it enough that he thought he’d be able to correct their flight path.

He was about to trigger the spell when he had a thought.

With a smile, he copied the spellform once more but moved this final copy away from the others. Then, with an effort of Mana Manipulation—and leaning heavily on his Magical Agility—he activated all but the newest spellform, whoomping himself and John sideways and back onto a better course.

Alex whooped and laughed silently into the void.

It had worked, he’d been able to keep a spellform ready.

He copied it again, firing off the copies to fine-tune his and John’s trajectory while maintaining the dormant spellform off to the side.

As he did so, he noticed that it became harder to hold it in isolation, and he began to get something akin to a headache, but it was manageable. Even if it grew radically worse, he felt like he could maintain it until they arrived.

John was going to handle the landing, and he had already pulled two large magnetic clamps from his Inventory, holding them ready in the direction they were flying.

They were magically ‘magnetic’ in that they’d cling to the hull no matter the material. So, simply using non-ferrous hull material wasn’t a good defense against this sort of thing.

Alex’s head was pounding as he tried to hold the spellform in place in Shaped Force Burst, while he did the other things he needed to do.

He twisted, leaning on his Advanced Kinesthetics to reorient himself. Interestingly, as he moved, his Stress-Interoception showed him how pulling John along for the movement would drag at him and stress his otherwise smooth reorientation.

The result was that—while his Advanced Kinesthetics couldn’t extend to another at the moment, and his Stress-Interoception was entirely focused within himself—he was all but guided on exactly how to execute the maneuver he’d been attempting to achieve.

Finally, his 4D Spatial Motorskills put the final polish, enabling him to actually follow that guide and accomplish what he needed. 

There was something in that, but his continually growing headache made it hard to focus, and he was distracted by a metaphor.

The guide was like Guitar Hero prompts. I could probably have followed them, but that didn’t happen automatically. The motorskills addition gives me the dexterity to put that within reach, and that simply leaves using the ability and following the guide.

The synchronicity of the skills all working together was a joy, and he could feel them harmonizing, almost begging for him to combine them.

All it would take is some dedicated meditation and practice.

…So, he’d get to that in a year or two… After he got rid of this headache…

Yup. That sounds like a plan. He was looking forward to the tutorial ending in just less than a year’s time. He was sure that being back on Earth wouldn’t be simple, but he hoped it would be simpler than this.

He groaned in spiking pain.

Alex had been sure he could hold the Shaped Force Burst form until they landed, but it was getting harder.

On a whim, he tried to pull the ready spellshape into his Inventory, and he was surprised that it wasn’t rejected out of hand. Make no mistake, it didn’t work, but it didn’t feel like something that was categorically impossible to store.

Instead, it felt like there wasn’t room for it?

The feedback he received was similar to when he tried to take in an item that was simply too big, but the sensation wasn’t the same.

There’s nowhere for it to go… what does it need? He’d have to ask someone… at some point…

But until then, he needed a better distraction.

He looked around, taking in the vastness of space, the beauty of the stars and their he-would-not-acknowledge-any-part-of-them constellations.

If things lined up, Alex thought he’d like to find a way back into space once more… in the future… far in the future.

He chuckled at that.

Let me check my bookings… Ah, yes. I imagine it will be my ninth or tenth booking, assuming nothing else comes up. He scoffed at that even as he smiled.

His list grew ever larger.

But the pirate ship was also growing ever larger, approaching fast.

Alex sighed in relief at the finally-close end. He duplicated the held-ready spellform, maintaining the separate one for use in the last minute at need.

Then, when they were barely a dozen feet from impact, he directed his mana into the waiting spellforms.

Alex and John drastically slowed down as the rippling bursts stole their velocity until they all but stopped just far enough away that John was able to lower the magnets into place and engage them.

Then, Alex’s control slipped, and his mana reached the reserved form… punching Alex in the forehead like a pillow traveling at highway speeds.

The hit was just wrong, and Alex’s head jerked back, his neck popping in a very not-great way.

He lost a hundred health and a notification pinged in his mind.

Notice:Due to Skeletal Structural Remodeling [Fast, Enhanced], the Infirmity: Post-traumatic arthritis has been downgraded to Wound: Cracked Vertebra

Wound:Cracked Vertebra x1 [3,000 HP]

He stared, slack jawed at the message.

He’d just broken his own neck?

By the ninth planet, what the gut punch.

It would only take about forty-five seconds to fully heal, but legos in the dark!

Alex only then noticed his bracelets flashing with messages.

John was looking back and up at him, causing Alex to blink and refocus, closing his own mouth.

He created some water reflexively and swallowed, then looked at the messages.

The crew of the Innominate was checking in and informing them that the fighters had all been subdued. The Impressa was currently going after the one that had been disabled early on, aiming to recover it before its orbit could decay.

They would then return.

There was a lot of noise about the Impressa checking in on Jessica, their crewmate who had somehow been captured, and Kaylee wanted to make sure that John and Alex prioritized the woman.

Alex agreed, and not only because this felt like a central point to this mission.

They hadn’t gotten a quest for it though… which was a bit odd, but Alex was the only one of them who’d gotten a personal quest in this scenario, so no one else seemed to think so.

Then, there were messages from John.

John: Woohoo! This is a rush!

John: Alex? Do you need any help aligning?

John: Alex! Why aren’t you responding? Are you okay? Do we need to call an audible?

John: Alex, man. This isn’t funny. We’re spacewalking over a planet, here. If you’re not in control of our flight… Please respond? I’m starting to panic, here.

John: Oh… Your wrists are in front of me… You can’t see them… I guess I’ll just sit here….

Throughout, John had remained entirely still, to his credit.

Alex quickly responded, even as he felt the pain in his neck fade.

Alex: Apologies, John! Yeah, I couldn’t see my bracelets. I really should find a workaround for that.

John: …Yeah, your lack of a HUD is really hurting you.

Alex: Hmmm… That’s an idea. I bet Bev will have some ideas.

John: Or you could just find an item or wear a helmet like a normal person. Not everything has to be a modification to your body.

Alex: That… Yeah. That’s fair. I’ll still ask.

John: Whatever floats your boat. Magnets set. Ready for a walk along the hull.

Alex: Isn’t that going to make a racket on the inside?

John: Well… yes?

Alex: That’s less than ideal.

John: Well, the pirates aren’t about to authorize us for a gravity walk on the hull. We’re lucky Juba disabled the repulsion effect. If it were anyone else, I’d have expected disabling that to trigger all sorts of warning sirens, also making our approach all too obvious.

Alex patted the other man on the shoulder even as he held onto John’s upper arm with his other hand.

After a moment, Alex nodded to himself.

Alex: I think I can get us to the right place. It won’t prevent the last loud clang when you attach before we breach, but that should be better than a bunch of loud noises leading up to that one.

John: Agreed.

Juba: My friends, are you almost in position? I do not know how much longer I can stall. They know their systems are down, and they are demanding that I arrange various things for them for the safety of their hostage.

Alex: Five minutes?

Juba: Too long.

Alex grimaced. 

Alex: I can do it in two… maybe as quick as one, but it will be less stealthy.

Juba: Speed is the priority.

John: Understood.

Alex: Understood.

Alex hooked under John’s arms again, and he pushed off at an angle, John releasing the magnets at the last instant.

Alex was already spinning up a simple Shaped Force Burst, the act irritating his headache that had been fading.

Then, the clear panels on the command center up ahead began to flash with the telltale light of gunfire, magic, or both.

Well… banana stand…

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