The time had come. Escape was imminent.
Oiden gripped the Fluff Crystal Gun with trepidation. He had positioned the Zalhfarian pouch of piss just above the crystal and had the blade of the femalien hand weapon at the ready for puncturing.
Hinze began howling in fake pain.
Astron's heart rate escalated as a team of guards approached their cell.
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The first of the guards peered quizzically into the cell as if to surmise the situation before gaining entry. Hinze tried his best to seem as agonized as possible; it was in fact enough to prompt the guards to eventually slide open the cell door. There were 4 of them.
The first (and consequently the largest and most heavily-armed) of the guards approached Hinze. It looked him up and down not unlike an AT Paramedic would at training quarter. The other three guards were positioned in a kind of triangle-like formation behind the first.
All 4 guards were now in the cell. Oiden knew the time was now.
Oiden sliced into the Zalhfarian pouch with a steadied movement of his right hand. The femalian hand-blade was remarkably sharp and had no problem creating a 3-inch long incision in the pouch holding the piss. After he removed the blade, the purplish, oozing mass of congealed human urine began seeping into the makeshift tube housing the fluff crystal. Once it hit the crystal, the telltale vapors immediately began billowing.
The guards immediately picked up on the scent. Two of them had already made their way towards Oiden, each at the ready with their barbed batons, fast on the approach. Oiden brought the fluff crystal gun to his lips and, with a huge push of his diaphragm, blew the crystal-smoke right through the pea-sized hole he had bored into the end of the tube.
The effect on the guards was not immediate. One of them managed to land a hit onto Oiden's right side, just below his ribcage. It wasn't a pretty sight - the guards' weapons were engineered to do as much damage with one blow as is possible with a hand weapon. Within seconds, Oiden was doubled over in pain and the guards were exhibiting determined signs of confusion.
"FUCKING GO, NOW! NOW! NOW!" Came the command from Astron.
The team of soldiers bolted like a pack of scared mice right through the open cell door, arms flailing and full of the screams of newly freed prisoners. Oiden, though injured, picked up the weapon that was used to assault him and carried it with him as he left, the last of the 48 men. In their wake was a dissipating cloud of purple-black smoke and 4 guards, all shaking and seething with rapturous pleasure on the floor of that cell.
The femaliens were all on the floor, motionless. Apparently the fluff crystal gas had completely incapacitated them.
"Holy shit..." Hinze remarked at the spectacle, before joining the others in their harried run through the doors of their cell.
The men held together well as they traversed the first 200 yards of their exit route. They had plotted a beeline through the first holding branch through a series of annexes to where they believed their Denstrolle fighters were docked.
"Fuck, Czissin, what are our ST's telling us?" Hinze asked, between breaths.
Astron was running with two status tokens in his hands.
"We're on track. I'm picking up dense signals coming from our 2 o'clock. Looks like we've got about another six thousand or so feet. Is anyone down?" Astron replied. Sweat was forming on his brow yet his composure was well kept, considering the fervor.
"Oiden's been hit. He's keeping up ok but he's not in good shape." Hinze said.
"Good. Let's keep going."
Oiden was trailing blood; it was pouring from his bowels as he ran. Each step sent a fresh wave of the sticky red stuff through his clenched fingers as he tried to keep his garment pressured over the wound.
"Fuck...you bastards won't get us all..." he said under his breath as his run reduced to a jog.
"HERE!" Astron yelled out. He pointed to his right at a door with a series of strange glyphs above it. "Our fighters are in here. Get going on the energy lock release and I'll start manning the control stations."
The soldiers assigned to their duties scattered to begin their respective tasks.
The remainder of the team stood captivated and worried - interestingly, there wasn't a sound to be heard from anywhere else. It's as if those 4 guards were the only ones in the compound at the time of the escape.
"Where the fuck is Oiden? OIDEN! GET YOUR ASS UP HERE!" Astron demanded.
There wasn't a sound to be heard from Oiden or anyone else. Then, suddenly, in the far distance a strange, oscillating sound could be heard. It's volume increased steadily and it was then that Astron knew that backup was on the way. If the team didn't make a move now, they'd be committing suicide.
Astron clamored up the entry hatch inside the first fighter and began activating the launch systems. After preparing the lift engines and prepping all SS9 checks, he bolted back down and assisted the others with the other fighters.
About a thousand feet away, Oiden was down. His hands were at his side, both drenched in blood. His gaze at the ceiling of the annex in which he fell was one indicative of death. As the backup team of guards approached him, he closed his eyes and let his held tilt forward as life escaped his body.
"READY!! ACTIVATE LAUNCH SEQUENCES NOW! LET'S GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!" Astron bellowed through the intercom system shared by the team of Denstrolle fighters.
The energy lock had been disarmed and the propulsion cells roared to life. The bay doors eased open and the massive ships rolled smoothly out into the salty Ibitus 412N air.
Soon all 8 of their vessels were airborne and en route back home.
After a few minutes of panicked caution, Astron set his team's ships on autosequence and called a meeting of his peers through the virtulcomm.
"Folks, Oiden didn't make it. The rest of us, however, did. We've got about a day's worth of traveling ahead of us. I suggest you each relax and prepare yourselves for quite a welcome back at training quarter. You all did a fantastic job."
After fielding a few questions from the men pertaining to re-entry protocol, Astron clicked off the virtulcomm.
As he sat back in his chair, Astron pulled his journal from his satchel and began writing.
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