Broken Bow [Open]

[Onua]

-Mere hours ago-

"This sector is restricted by order of the Zangyack Bureau of Astro-Navigational Control." A monotonous voice filled the cockpit of the shuttle Onua had stolen. Just his luck that the owner chose to keep the pilot assist on.

"I don't care about the Bureau." Onua replied as he fiddled with switches. "I need an ionic scan of 5 kliks ahead."

"Such an action would contradict article 44-8-225 of the..."

"Just do it." Onua sighed, exasperated. Damn the Zangyack and their laws, he needed to find the others.

"Acknowledged." The pilot assistant replied. After a moment, it spoke again. "Scan positive. Ion trails confirmed."

"As I thought." Onua said to himself. "Lock on and follow."

"Alert, Zangyack warship detected on intercept course." The pilot assistant's voice said blandly. "This shuttle is being targeted."

Frell! Onua though angrily. They found me.

"Lay in a jump course to follow those ion trails!" he said, taking the controls. The shuttle didn't have any weapons or shields. Essentially, he was a sitting duck until he could go to lightspeed.

The Zangyack ship loomed into view, its weapons fixed on the tiny shuttle. Onua tried to move out of the way, but felt the ship give a sickening shudder and heard an alarm go off.

"Hull breach in rear section. Establishing emergency force field." The pilot assistant said. "Jump course laid in. Engage?"

"Yes, engage!" Onua cried, gripping his seat. As the ship gave another lurch, it jumped to lightspeed.

"Heavy damage sustained to life support systems. Engaging emergency stasis function." The pilot assistant said.

"Emergency what?!"
---
-Now-

A black shape fell from the sky and, with a loud splash, landed just off the coast of Johannesburg. It floated for a moment, then started to sink below the surface.

[Aqua]

Aqua's device sent out a ping indicating that something had entered the area near her, she was back in Africa again as she was concerned that Zangyack might use this area as a staging place for their attack. Ever since the convergence began they had been quiet, but that was no doubt because they are trying to determine how to best attack the vulnerable planet with most of their military in chaos; however if there was one thing that Aqua knew it was predicting enemy attacks and so she had come here to scout out the area and see if there were any hidden Zangyack outposts that needed to be taken out.

But the higher priority came up when the ship went down as she quickly made her way to the coast. A downed ship usually meant either a dropod, which is unlikely considering Zangyack's own military capacity, or some sort of unlucky space traveller that got caught in the crossfire, either way she had her gun ready to defend herself if need be and approached the ship carefully.

[Onua]

As the shuttle sank, the front opened and the pilot's seat floated up to the surface. Upon the seat was an unconscious Onua, wearing a rebreather.

[Aqua]

Aqua saw who it was and was very surprised as she went into the frigid water and began to haul Onua back to shore as she took off his rebreather and checked if he was even alive.

[Onua]

As soon as the rebreather was removed, Onua began coughing.

[Aqua]

"Well in terms of landing I guess that's your worst one yet," Aqua remarked when he regained consciousness.

[Onua]

"In my defense, I was shot down." Onua coughed.

[Aqua]

"Ah yes that is usually a problem when going through a Zangyack fleet," Aqua remarked.

[Onua]

"I managed to get past the fleet, actually." Onua replied, struggling to sit up. "I just hope they didn't notice me."

[Aqua]

"I doubt that," Aqua said, "they have this world tighter than a drum."

[Onua]

Onua tried to stand up, finding his legs were still a bit weak. "Oh well. They're after my head anyway."