Private The Dark Below

[Elias Edo]

Location: DuroLabs Facility, Kenari | Soundtrack: Below the Asteroids

​

“Ready,” he said with a nod. He reached and gave Nathan a brotherly pat on the shoulder.

“We’ve got this. Together.”

After confirming the coast was still clear - and that the scientist was able to drag himself back to the ship - Elias stepped out into the corridor. There was an eerie discomfort in the Force, one he knew wouldn’t subside until their mission was complete. It was similar to the heightened awareness he experienced when facing a wild predator; They were being hunted, and he could feel it.

He stalked down the hallway with his lightsaber drawn, though it mostly served as a light source now that he knew the Drengir-spawn were resistant to its blade. Elias shuddered at the silence, stepping cautiously along as he listened for footsteps, screeches, or that dreaded insectoid buzzing.

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” Elias said lowly. He knew it was risky to chat idly this close to the epicenter of the outbreak, but something in the Force told him it wasn’t a matter of if they’d be found, but when the beasts would attack.

“We make a pretty damn good team. Assuming we make it out of here alive.”

---

Tags: Nathan Bloodscrawl ​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

"I am inclined to agree." Nathan replied to Elias Edo as they ventured into the dark. He felt the Drengir instinctively clawing at their minds, and it wasn't long before the first of the Abominations showed themselves.

Nathan was disgusted at the wrongness of it. The only person alive was the one person he would have been ready to allow to die.

He let loose a Pyrokinesis blast of flames that engulfed the ones directly to attacking them, blowing away some with his shotgun. Nathan stood out both in the RTL and the NJO for a willingness to use firearms for exceptionally deadly opponents. He never reacted to the accusations of being unsporting. The fact he had walked away from situations they wouldn't have because he used firearms was loud enough a refutation for his liking.

"Yeah, this whole place needs to get glassed hard and yesterday..." he muttered as more monsters came in. They were shockingly fast, and he had trouble catching them in the bursts of flames from his fingertips. Elias was the first person other than Syd Celsius to know he had Pyrokinesis. Nathan never advertised his abilities to other Jedi normally. They only knew what abilities he had due to seeing him use them next to them on assignments. And he was normally very careful about showing what he knew. But there was no choice except to cut loose today.

"Push forward!" He yelled as more and more enemies lurched their way towards them in the dozens.

"It's them or us!"

 

[Elias Edo]

Location: DuroLabs Facility, Kenari | Soundtrack: Below the Asteroids

​

Elias didn’t bat an eye at Nathan’s skill with the scattergun. He wasn’t particularly fond of firearms himself, preferring his lightsaber instead, and the Force even more. But anything that got them off Kenari alive was perfectly acceptable.

Even the flames were a welcome sight.

“Abominations!” he shouted, making vicious use of plant surge to rip the Drengir from their hosts.

It felt like going from perfectly rested to having completed a marathon, but the physical toll was worth it. He used his rare ability to pluck apart the Drengir in smaller numbers, but for bigger packs he lifted barrels, crates, and pipes to use as brutal projectiles to crush the mutants.

He felt they’d made good progress, but the corridor still winded ever onward. After the last group of Drengir lay at their feet, Elias let out a heavy sigh.

“There can’t be much more,” he said, referring both to the trek and the creatures. How many fething mutants were down here?

“We push on,” Elias said with confidence.

---

Tags: Nathan Bloodscrawl ​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan had expended most of his ammo in the surge. He was down to one plasma grenade, so he decided to save that for when it was needed.

He instead resorted to Pyrokinesis more, jets of flame spewing from his fingertips to destroy the infected.

He saw her watching, in the back of his head. Syd Celsius . Sith reprogrammed into a Jedi by a man he distrusted.

The Sith who had murdered his wife, then him.

And now he had developed some horrific, unwanted Force bond to her as a result of sparing her life after attempting to brutally kill her after he was resurrected, then saving her life after she lost a duel to the woman who murdered his parents.

He walled his mind to her. He disliked having to use Pyrokinesis. As it was Syd's chief ability.

They left a trail of destroyed infected behind them. The section beyond had lots of blood and gore splashed on the walls.

When Elias Edo mused that there couldn't be much more, Nathan shook his head.

"Just when you think there couldn't be that much more, that's when it turns into two to three times what you faced on the first round.

A cacophony of unholy screaming sounded beyond.

Nathan decided to use that last 40mm plasma grenade round. He loaded it into the launcher and as the wave of infected poured into the cracked open security door, he fired.

The wave was hit by a large blast wave of fiery plasma that consumed the First hoard.

Then Nathan controlled the flames that resulted, for it was easier to control flames which already existed, and used them to make a sweeping funnel, but even with that, hoards and hoards of infected were still pushing through the flames towards him and Elias Edo , and he was approaching the current limits of his skill with Pyrokinesis...

 

[Elias Edo]

Location: DuroLabs Facility, Kenari | Soundtrack: Below the Asteroids

​

The Jedi Master was known for his calm demeanor in situations like this, but all he could muster at the sight of the hoard was “Shit!”

The universe must have found humor in his previous statement, and this was the cruel joke it manifested in return.

Nathan’s plasma launcher melted through a huge wad of infected, but the Drengir kept coming. He watched the flames contort and consume, but he could tell his friend was scraping the bottom. Nathan wouldn’t last much longer exerting himself like that. Elias was growing weary himself, but he pushed through ahead of Nathan and out both hands forward toward the herd.

What started as a low growl grew into a sustained shout, then reached a painful scream as Elias manipulated the Drengir with the Force. In a spectacular eruption of flesh, blood, and slime, the next wave of infected were separated from their parasitic heads. The sudden burst of power sent Elias to his knees.

He struggled to keep his eyes open.

---

Tags: Nathan Bloodscrawl ​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan, let me help. He heard Syd call out to him through their bond.

Nathan saw only the flames he whirled around the burning Infected.

Let me help.

Nathan saw Elias Edo go to his knees. He felt himself starting to weaken.

Alright. he said back, opening the horrid bind up, felt his essence merge with hers and the cells in his body surge with power. Both forced to look at each other's damaged minds, the places where the mindscape started to fracture.

Nathan stopped creating flames because something else shot out heavy bolts of Green Lightning, generated by the Light Side.

The streams slammed into the hoard, the bolts arcing between them, reacting to and destroying the Drengir tissue. Whole piles of the infected exploded.

Nathan dropped to his knees, hands almost numb. He could barely work them. But he heard no more howls. For now.

Nathan fell unconscious, completely weakened and exhausted.

He welcomed the black because it meant he no longer had to actively channel his connection to Syd.

The Padawan and the Witch were literally at each other's throats, trying to strangle the life out of each other even as they were bounced around in the turbolift as it raced to the bottom.

The emergency hatch was thrown open as they both slammed into it.

The Padawan jammed his thumbs into both her eyes out of desperation and she screamed as white blood leaked out in gobs from her eyes as they were crushed by his thumbs. He kicked her away as she blindly fired a bolt of lightning in the elevator, and dived out of the emergency hatch just in time to avoid getting electrocuted, teleporting to an open turbolift door, barely gaining his balance.

He heard the abomination screaming all the way down as the elevator slammed into the bottom and exploded. He felt the beast's life cease but took no satisfaction. He knew better than anyone that he had gotten lucky.

He limped away , finding himself in a now unfamiliar section that looked like security barracks. Hopeful he might find some weapons, he began to explore, still seeking away out and wondering if he was infected or not. His sightless eyes eventually spied a rusted, inactive electrostaff and picked it up.

That was when he felt the presence of the Dark Jedi who had been chasing him and he broke into a run, hearing the grinding of a lightsaber down an empty turbolift shaft. The hooded Jedi Hunter rebounded off the shaft and onto the floor the Padawan was on.

"You dropped this..." he called out cruelly, holding up the boy's rope dart lightsaber before giving chase...

 

[Elias Edo]

Location: DuroLabs Facility, Kenari | Soundtrack: Below the Asteroids

​

“N-Nathan,” Elias muttered. He watched his friend take a stand against the hoard. Through drifting eyes, he saw the lightning… electric judgement, Elias thought. The same power that Vulpesen had taught them on Coruscant.

“Nathan- we’ve got to- keep moving-“

The exhaustion was brutal. Every muscle in Elias’ body beckoned him to fall from his knees to the floor, to accept whatever came while he lay unconscious, but Nathan beat him to it. His friend hit the metal floor beside him, along with the charred, lightning-scorched Drengir. For a moment, the halls were quiet again. Elias took the respite to inch closer to his fallen friend.

“Nathan?” the Jedi called, patting the man with the back of his hand. He saw Nate’s eyes darting behind his eyelids.

“Nathan!” Elias shouted, this time grabbing him by the collar and shaking him.

“Wake up, my friend! We have work to do.”

Still, he didn’t move.

“I need you, brother. Wake up!”

---

Tags: Nathan Bloodscrawl ​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

"Ly-san-dra..." Nathan muttered in his unconscious state. The murder of his wife at the hands of Darth Phyre would haunt him to the day he died.

"Lysandra..." He whispered before he bolted up, still heavily weakened.

"You're alive. Good." Nathan said calmly, suppressing his distress at seeing the murder in his sleep again. His strange static filled aura fluctuated only slightly.

"We're almost through this. If that scientist's knowledge holds, there should be another security armory close by..." He said . "And the central chamber should be another floor down, accessed by staircase."

That was his reaction to dropping in exhaustion. Noting only that his partner was alive and that potential resources were located nearby.

He lurched woozily down the path. "C'mon...the armory has thick barriers...and we're in no condition to advance in our current state..." he explained.

The Armory doors were secured by a Force Field with a Keypad. He quickly typed in the security code the scientist had given--007--and the Force Field disabled, the doors sliding open.

He waited until Elias Edo had gotten in before manually sliding it shut and re-engaging the security...and then collapsing against a wall.

"I need a moment..." He breathed, slumped against the wall.

"I think that's the last we've seen of the major onslaughts. It will be stragglers now. Most of the remaining force will be concentrated near the reactor area...where we have to go. This poses a couple of problems..."

He looked around. The room was stacked with weapons.

"You fire at or cut the wrong thing in a reactor area, you'll have some interesting things to contemplate before you get dusted. We could accidentally trigger a meltdown before we have the time necessary to escape."

Nathan blinked, gaining his faculties back.

"We'll have to stealth it..."

 

[Elias Edo]

Kenari
DuroLabs Facility

​

Elias was visibly surprised at Nathan’s lack of response to having surged electric judgement before collapsing, but now wasn’t the time for a psychological exam on Bloodscrawl. They needed to move while they had enough momentum.

He followed Nathan to the armory described by the survivor and kept watch until the barrier was down and the doors were unsealed. They were in some deep chit now, but at least the walls were lined with guns. Lots and lots of guns. Elias looked to his friend while he laid out the options.

"You fire at or cut the wrong thing in a reactor area, you'll have some interesting things to contemplate before you get dusted. We could accidentally trigger a meltdown before we have the time necessary to escape."

“Don’t worry about me,” the Jedi said with a cheeky grin. He flashed teeth through the exhaustion they both were feeling.

“I’m good with a blaster.”

It was a skill most Jedi rebuke, but Elias had learned how to handle a blaster when the Rebels first organized to fight the New Imperials. That felt like a lifetime ago, but blasters were like bicycles…

He ran his fingers over the weapon racks while Nate caught his breath against the wall. Blaster pistols, rifles… his hand stopped on a particularly nasty looking scattergun. A huge grin spread over his tired face.

“Hell yeah,” he mused, taking the slugthrower and showing it to Nathan.

“Can’t use it downstairs, but this baby’s coming home with me.”

Elias returned to the racks, passing by the rest of the firearms until he came to a smaller case of assorted vibroblades. He reached for a standard length combat dagger and complemented it with a sleek parrying knife.

‘Stealth it,’ he thought, repeating Nathan’s words in his head.

“This’ll do the trick,” Elias said, turning to his friend and offering him a hand.

There was a lot at stake here, but he knew they’d make it through. All that stood between them and the end of this nightmare was the reaction and one helluva sprint back to the ship.

“Ready?”

---

Tags: Nathan Bloodscrawl ​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

"Ready..." Nathan answered Elias Edo after a few moments, he opened the door, and this time clung to the shadows...


The Padawan raced through ancient passages and remains of research labs, the Dark Jedi giving quiet chase. He stuck to the shadows but he knew he would be hunted down, and he didn't have any weapons to defend himself. He would have to use the environment. He grabbed loose cables and anything sharp that he could get his hands on, and found a few power couplings. But the tall, lanky Dark Jedi was relentless, his overly long red lightsaber cutting swaths through debris behind the Padawan.

"Your attempts at survival are endearing, truly. But the game will soon be over." The Dark Jedi spoke.

An outstretched hand unleashed a ball of compressed Force Energy that raced towards the Padawan. He barely cleared the blast, which demolished parts of the laboratory he had fled into. He kept running, the Dark Jedi giving chase, a black hooded reaper rushing through the detritus of Science and Hubris.

The Padawan spotted an old fusion generator in the wreckage of the massive lab full of displays of failed experiments, and he used his strength to rip open a panel, jury rigging loose cables and jamming shrapnel into the system even as he frantically hotwired it as the Dark Jedi drew closer and closer. He wheeled around on his hunter. The Dark Jedi towered over him.

"How about a little insult to Injury?" The Dark Jedi asked, making a clenching gesture and The Padawan doubled over as he felt his organs being compressed.

"It shall be slow. Painful. And you shall know despair..."

The sightless eyes of the Padawan only glared as his arms and limbs were restrained by invisible tendrils of power.

"No words. Even at the end? C'mon, boy, you could at least beg..."

The Padawan felt his limbs and bones start to compress. In a minute they would start to fracture. He was fethed if that happened.

The Dark Jedi flung the boy's own rope dart saber chain around his neck.

"The fate all Jedi deserve..." The Dark Jedi taunted.

The boy's eye twitched, and a nearby piece of debris was teleported above the console of the generator, which had a frayed, improperly linked power coupling jammed in it's innards as it turned on.

The first loud partial explosion startled The Dark Jedi, shrapnel partially hitting him in the ribs and upper left arm, though some shrapnel flung past him and struck the Dark Jedi in the face who screamed as he dropped the Padawan, clutching his face, and the Padawan wasted no time rolling out of the way, his own weapon still wrapped painfully around his neck, diving behind a lab desk as the Generator completely exploded, sending debris and flames everywhere.

The Padawan rose up, glaring as the Dark Jedi pulled himself up with a snarl.

"You DIE TODAY!" The Dark Jedi roared, face bleeding heavily as his red blade sprang to life.

The boy brandished his own weapon and charged.

Adrenaline fueled both of them as they attacked each other, blades clashing in bursts of light, fists and legs flying.

The Dark Jedi's hand clamped around the Padawan's throat...and got a nasty surprise as the Boy's hand clamped brutally on his attacker's fingers, snapping them.

The Dark Jedi screamed in agony, dropping the Padawan, who tackled him through a wall, catching his sword arm and crushing the forearm.

A rage filled shove of the Force from the Dark Jedi sent the Padawan flying toward the ceiling. He impacted and the rib wound almost made him black out as he struggled to get up, only for the will of the Dark Jedi to fling him up into the ceiling again, and he fell to the floor almost lifelessly as the Dark Jedi rose, manipulating his lightsaber with his mind as the boy could barely move.

The laugh of the Dark Jedi echoed in the remains of the lab.

"No more tricks...no more fight. Disappointing. I really expected more--" the Dark Jedi taunted.

The sudden gunfire ripped open his shoulder and the Dark Jedi cried out as the man The Padawan had rescued earlier from the witch fanned the hammer of an old revolver , emptying three bullets into the Dark Jedi's chest...but he didn't die, as they had all hit non fatal areas, and he stretched out his ruined arm to the man the boy had saved, intent on using his telekinesis to crush him to paste, when the chain of the Boy's weapon wrapped itself nearly around his neck, tightening instantly.

"Get over here." The Padawan hissed quietly, yanking with all his remaining brute strength. (Killer of Quan Chi: 1000 XP)

The Dark Jedi only had a half second to cry out in horror before his neck broke and he was yanked brutally across the floor, stone dead as his corpse slid slowly to a halt at the knees of the Padawan as he rose.

The former Prisoner of the now dead Witch was trembling everywhere.

"Just...just so you know..." he breathed, stuttering. "We're even. You don't owe me...and I don't owe you chit." (SNATCH YER' BRAIN BACK, ZOMBIE, SNATCH IT BACK AND HOLD IT: 120 XP)

He regarded the other man (who he still didn't even know how he had come to be here, captured by the witch) with a nod, and searched his fallen opponent. The Witch's prisoner was still badly frightened and hyperventilating when he was tossed a med kit from the Dark Jedi's tool belt.

The boy resolved to head back to the fighter the Dark Jedi had chased him down in. This man he had rescued, and who had rescued him in turn, was on his own. That was the reality of this Era. Things were so bad that help could only be provided to another fleetingly, and at great risk to both parties.

Without a word, the boy departed the frightened man, heading for freedom...

The Boy turned, and the frightened man shuddered as he caught the glance of the Padawan's dead, sightless eyes before the biker gear clad Padawan vanished into the Shadows...


Nathan had been extremely careful sneaking past the roving infected, making sure to stick close to Elias Edo . Any fighting before reaching the reactor would have only made their job more difficult at this juncture.

It grew more horrifying the closer they got to the reactor. The mutations had devolved them further, until they were little more than a humanoid structure of organs and glowing bones surrounded by tendrils of moving plants.

It was even more horrible that even with as many as he and Edo had killed, there were still more than enough to overwhelm them potentially.

They at last reached the reactor entrance. Nathan peered in through a viewport. Organs, brains, bones, fused to the wall by plants, the skin long ago torn off. He quietly typed in the code the scientist had given him from the interrogation and the door began to unlock.

Nathan popped a flare and teleported it far away, the light making mobs of infected rush towards it while he slipped in.

"Quickly, Master Edo. That will only buy so many seconds..." Nathan called out, keeping his eye out for hostiles coming from the heart of the reactor area...

 

[Elias Edo]

Kenari
DuroLabs Facility

​

"This... this is it," Elias said, staring down the reactor. It was hardly recognizable as such, beneath the smattering of flesh and viscera. But it had to be their mark. All that was left now was to rig it and get the hell out of DuroLabs before the entire facility exploded. He looked to Nathan, who'd bought them a bit of time with his handy teleportation technique.

"How do you wanna do this?" he asked.

Elias knew a thing or two about detonating bases from the inside. He picked it up from his days as a Rebel. DuroLabs, however, was a much different case than the prefab Imperial outposts he set ablaze in his days as a Knight. He eyed the controls, the parts of them he could see through the smeared blood and plant matter. He could probably hack into it, cause it to meltdown somehow, but his skills with slicing were not very honed. Nathan's plasma launcher may be a good bet, but he wasn't sure how much time they'd have to get out of dodge before the ordinance blew - and that was assuming they wouldn't need every last grenade during the fight back up to the surface.

He looked to Nathan again, willing to go along with whatever plan his friend had.

"We don't have much time."

---

Tags: Nathan Bloodscrawl ​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan thought about it a moment, examining the controls.

"This reactor is reliant on an underground body of water to cool it in an emergency. Seems to be reliant on a coolant loop of some kind..." Nathan whispered as he began working the controls.

The fact he knew how to work the controls and was in fact well aware of how to actively sabotage a large scale, industrial fission reactor, spoke to the truly scary depth of knowledge he had acquired in his travels.

"The Drengir was wise not to damage the controls...but foolish not to do more to protect them... though admittedly what it did would keep most normal folk away..." he muttered as he typed in certain commands that would cause power fluctuations in certain control circuits, circuits which regulated the flow of the underground reservoir into the cooling units. It would instead cause a massive amount of water pressure to build and it wasn't long before various alerts started. Nathan overrode them. Various alarms started to go off.

"There..." Nathan said. Soon the coolant tank will overload, and heat build up will begin in the reactor. There's nothing this abomination can do to stop it. By my estimate, we have... fifteen minutes before total meltdown occurs. The explosion will consume the entire area, and a few hundred kilometers around it, rendering this part of the continent quite glassed. We need to leave, now or the secondary explosions that will occur in the process will kill us as surely as the reactor itself will when it goes belly up."

A terrifying roar caught his attention.

(THIS Plays)

The main...mass around the reactor had begun to form something giant, terrifying, and humanoid, a mass of stolen bones, plants and organs. Nathan began to open up the reactor door quickly, but it was opening slowly, and the only thing he could do to delay it was to fire his last plasma grenade at it.

It impacted and exploded on its chest, but this only seemed to upset it, and it began stomping towards them, faster and faster, even as the explosion from hitting it damaged the reactor further.

"Correction..." Nathan said, backing away, calculating the new damage into his old equations just as the door opened.

"Seven minutes...Run! RUN!" he shouted as he let out a blast of flame at the abomination to let Elias Edo squeeze out of the reactor first then him, barely getting clear of its bloody, clawed appendages.

Nathan could only run as the thing's strength snapped through the reactor entrance door like it was paper and a series of massive explosions in the tunnel in the distance followed.

The monster bellowed before it gave chase with surprising speed, an entire army of infected that were on fire from the explosions giving chase along with it.

All they could do at this point was run.

 

[Elias Edo]

Kenari
DuroLabs Facility

​

Nathan worked his magic on the reactor, but there wasn’t nearly enough time to ask how he knew so much about sabotaging such dangerous systems. There was only time to run.

Elias slipped through the door, halting on the other side to make sure his friend was through too. Then, it was a knees-to-chest sprint back to the surface level. The abomination they’d awoken was swift on its… feet? And flanked by burning Drengir, as if the situation couldn’t get any more dire. Distant explosions only added to the scramble, shaking the underground complex and bursting pipes overhead. Elias just narrowly missed a blast of steam, which scalded his upper back as he passed through.

“We’re almost there!” the Jedi shouted. Screams from the Drengir nearly drowned out his voice. He pushed harder, his legs and arms burning as he forced his body past its limits.

Breathless, he was the first back to the security door that Nate hacked when they first arrived. His friend was right on his heels, and the Drengir horde only meters behind.

“Come on!” Elias yelled, igniting his lightsaber.

The moment Nathan crossed the threshold, he would slash the keypad, triggering a manual lockdown that would hopefully seal the hivemind inside the facility long enough for them to get out of dodge.

---

- Nathan Bloodscrawl -​

 

[Nathan Bloodscrawl]

Nathan ran, ran as he had rarely ever run in his life. A piece of falling rubble hit him in the shoulder and dislocated it. But he had so much adrenaline in him he barely registered it. All that mattered was to run. As fast as you fething could.

The howl of the Drengir, the inexorable doom chasing after them, reminded him all too much of how the Cult had eventually chased him and his wife across the galaxy to get to their daughter. He remembered that same helplessness of the Force telling him he and his wife would die and that there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.

Normally, he wasn't capable of feeling fear. But as the howl and explosions pursued them, he felt the faintest slivers of anxiety.

He cleared more fallen debris, which put him slightly behind Elias Edo .

But Nathan refused to fall here. He had to kill the Cult of The Brain Demon. He had to.

Elias reached the exit first, and Nathan dived through just as the door started to close from Edo's saber slash.

There was no time to be relieved as the door closed. They had to keep running.

The giant on the other side began pounding on the other side, and it started to give.

"RUN! RUN! DON'T STOP MOVING!" Nathan yelled as the Hivemind started to punch through the barrier. They absolutely could not stop to fight it. Every second counted. They had three minutes left.

The barrier was on the verge of giving and Nathan made sure to keep running even as the hivemind began to finally tear through the barrier.

But they were almost out of the facility, and Nathan finally spotted the ship...just as the hivemind finally tore through the barrier.

The scientist he had let go earlier was only eighty percent of the way to the ship, still crawling. No way he would make it.

Nathan scooped up the man with his good arm, an act that cost him ten precious seconds. He heard the roar of the hive mind behind him as he carried the screaming scientist the rest of the way, dumping him on the deck without fanfare.

"EDO! GET ONBOARD! ITS RIGHT BEHIND YOU!" Nathan yelled, sparing Edo all the time he still could in the minute and thirty seconds they had left. Once Elias had made it aboard safely, Nathan shut the hatch and teleported right to the cockpit, lifting off just as the Hivemind and its flaming army was within fifteen meters of reaching them. The ship just barely got clear of the arm swipe the hivemind made at the stealth vessel as Nathan climbed through the atmosphere frantically.

Ten seconds.

"Climb, damn you, CLIMB!" Nathan shouted as he flew up.

They saw stars just as the sensors registered a Gargantuan nuclear explosion on the planet below. They reached orbit five seconds later.

Nathan just left the ship in orbit, trying to catch his breath.

"Well..." he said to Elias once he left the cockpit, painfully popping his dislocated shoulder back into place without so much as a grunt. "That's probably the first and last time I try removing weeds with atomic physics.

The scientist moaned.

Nathan scowled at the wounded man. "Let's drop him off to the authorities..." he said, instantly going back to business. "Are you injured, Master Edo?"