Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 531: Unwelcome Guests

Jace stepped out of the office a few minutes later and sighed. He looked over and saw the sheriff and Liz were riffling through his bag. "I fixed your thing. You can now communicate throughout the system. Now can I get my pay and my bag back?" Jace asked, feeling a touch annoyed as the sheriff pulled out his book and opened it up.

"What language is this? Looks like a bunch of scribbles." The sheriff waved it around before it was suddenly pulled out of his hand by Jace.

"It is not an actual language, it is encoded. Now then, are you done? I want to get going once I get my units." Jace informed the man as he grabbed the rest of his bag and made sure everything was in it. "Gun." Jace opened his hand and the sheriff clicked his tongue in annoyance as he pulled out the gun and put it in his hand.

"It looks new but the design is too small to be one of the imperial. I am guessing it lacks firepower." The sheriff pointed out. "You could get a good sum with a weird design. Maybe even get a decent weapon like a laser pistol."

Jace only held it for a moment but he frowned and glared at the sheriff. "Bullets too."

"Tsk." He clicked his tongue as he dropped the bullets into Jace’s hand as well. "Like I said. That is probably not powerful enough." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"The other nations in my galaxy would have an aneurysm if they heard that. Our guns are known for tearing through armor and most forms of shielding in a few shots. Most people lose their heads in the literal sense if they are not paying attention." Jace chuckled as he double checked the amount of bullets because he had a limited amount and he already knew that they used a weaker variety here. Instead they opted for larger rounds with more gunpowder. One of their bullets if studied would upset the balance of this galaxy if there is one.

"How weird-" The sheriff stopped mid-sentence as a loud noise interrupted them as they turned and watched as several large ships began descending onto the village. Most of them went to the outskirts. "Go hide in an alleyway. Liz-"

"I know. Stay here and stay out of the way." Liz nodded in agreement as she waved Jace off who slipped into the alley by the sheriff station. But he did not stay there long as he slipped under a building into a crawlspace that was filled with overgrown plants and small critters. He crawled toward the front as he closed up his bag.

The sheriff walked toward the group of people that had arrived by space craft. They were dressed in dark red clothes with an array of metals on their outer coats. At least the first three were dressed like that. The others had far less metals and red masks covering their faces. It was less like the daemons’ ceramic style masks and more like a piece of metal forged to fit their faces. "To what do we owe the venerable-"

"Cut the crap. I hate you Prima Terra scum. I do not want to stay on this mudball longer than I have to. Where is the scaleback and the foreigner. You have five minutes to comply." The man in front spat out in disdain.

The sheriff frowned and then raised a hand slowly into the air. Signalling something as Jace spots something out of the corner of his eye and starts moving away. He moved to the other side of the house and moved out of the crawl space as he listened in on them. "I suggest you slow down. Sir..."

The lead man growled and went to respond when one of the officers standing next to him tapped his shoulder to catch his attention. "Sir, we have a problem. We are surrounded." The man pointed out as the other soldiers all faced various directions in hesitation.

The lead man grunted as he glanced around. "It appears we are. But that does not matter. You will bring me both the scaleback and the foreigner or you will die."

"Haa... you spacemen all think you are all that." The sheriff scoffed as he shook his head and then glared at the man. "You have one minute to leave before we fill you full of holes. I suggest you leave quickly." The sheriff declared.

The lead man for the other group seemed to think about something and then yelled loudly. "Slaughter the entire village!" He yelled, the sheriff flinched and reeled back while going to draw his weapon. But before he could draw it a red laser bolt tore through his chest.

"They killed the sheriff!" Someone from one of the buildings yelled out as lasers and bullets descended on the group. Tearing through most of them. But the three in front were fine as an almost imperceptible shielding blocked the attacks.

Then in the air above them were the three ships that landed around the village. "Fire down on the village!" The lead man yelled into a communication device he had opened. A moment after giving the order a bullet tore through his shielding and blew off his hand as Jace fired from an alleyway. "Argh! What the hell!?!"

"We need to get out of the village!" The other man announced before one of Jace bullets tore through his shielding and his head.

The lead man and the other one quickly turned and ran to the exit of the village. Jace went to shoot at them but jumped back as a barrage of laser fire rained down from one of the ships doing a strafing run over the village that tore the buildings apart.

Jace clicked his tongue in annoyance as he kept to the shadows of the alley and watched two of the space craft finish their strafing run while the last ship was hovering over to the pair of surviving officers. Jace shoved his pistol back in his bag and crouched near the edge of the alleyway as he materialized a weapon in his hand.

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"Well shit..." Sherlock cursed as he looked at the cloud of smoke in the distance as he could still hear explosions as well. He leaned forward as his motorbike sped through the gravel path and around some trees. West was following quickly behind him, they left their mechanic behind to watch the ship and guard the dead body they dug up of the Mars Rebel.

As they came around to the entrance of the village they skidded to a stop in shock. Seeing the destroyed spacecraft burning in front of the village. While more than half of the village and surrounding area was on fire. "I will call the ship that I got in contact with and tell them to pick up their pace. We need to contain this before word gets out."

"Hey you two!" Sherlock and West looked over as the ship commander, Ajax, came out of the woods with a bleeding stump in the place of one of his hands while a subordinate trailed behind him. "Give me your ship and-"

"Commander Ajax, I am suspending your command. I have the right to do so under the doctrine of suspension of instigating a rebellion with the populace of the Prima Terra people." Sherlock declared and looked at the subordinate behind him. "Detain your commander."

The subordinate tilted his hat before pulling out a pair of cuffs and putting one on his commander before stopping. "What do you think you are doing-"

"Shut up Commander Ajax." West interrupted him as his subordinate figured out how to cuff him before just cuffing the commander to the subordinate’s own arm. "The Imperial Vessel, Saint Seren is on route."

Commander Ajax flinched as his face drained of color while the subordinate made himself look smaller. Sherlock sighed as put the kickstand on his motorbike down before walking around the debris and further into the village. "Of course it is. At least they are not so constrained with political intentions. But... did they say why they are coming?"

"The Royal Archivist requested it beforehand. They were coming for the black hole that suddenly appeared in Prima Terra’s orbit. They are now more interested in what came through after the portal closed." West answered in a voice of annoyance that was more directed at the commander rather than him.

"Oh god... that woman is going to drive me nuts. There are not many who annoy me without political ties. But that one does. She came out of nowhere, she is fascinated with everything, but she cares little about her own wellbeing or those around her." Sherlock explained as he walked past a corpse and flinched. "At least she does not go out of her way to cause harm."

He slowly walked forward into the town until he stopped just outside of the local sheriff’s station. Seeing the tracks of the scaleback suddenly disappear. But the tracks of the horse lead out of the village. He looked back and saw West was at the edge of the village too far to speak to so he pulled out his communicator to contact her. The scaleback seemed to be onto them. But the other one was just running and if they could lock down the island they should find them.