“Step it up, Two-Five,” I tell my gunner. “We need to hurry.”

“Haste makes waste, Seventeen.”

“Haste also keeps navigators alive. Now move it.”

I have no idea if whatever organization’s taken root on this world has patrols, but they probably do. I can’t imagine they’d overlook something as out of place as a smoothed out crystal sphere just laying around their giant scrambler’s perimeter. That is assuming our ignorance didn’t get us spotted and we merely managed to book it before anyone could respond. Either way, we need to hurry while we have some modicum of surprise on our side.

We manage to reach roughly the same spot we were in about forty minutes after we left. Could’ve been here faster if Two-Five wasn’t so inept at traversing the rough terrain. We really need to get him some boots with better grip or something, he keeps slipping on the gravel and sand. Which makes up about 90% of the fucking terrain on this planet. I suppose could’ve just left him behind and gone on ahead then come back with his power crystal, but I’d rather move a bit slower than be separated without any means of communication.

In any event, it appears we were too little too late. I peek over a ridge overlooking our previous hiding spot and I spot two guys already searching the area with their guns drawn. They clearly suspect someone or something else is on this rock with them. There’s a third one standing over our big blue trump card next to that boulder. The thing stands out like crazy amidst this red and gray wasteland, so it’s no surprise they already found it. At least the guy seems to understand why touching it might be a bad idea, so it should buy us some time.

I duck behind cover and sign to delta that our objective is in sight, along with three hostiles. Yes, they are most definitely hostiles, and no, I’m not saying that just because of the automatic rifles. Those environmental suits they have on that are black in the torso but blue and white in the limbs and helmet? I’d know that color scheme anywhere. It’s the uniform of those crazies that thing breaches are a sign from God that will bring salvation, rather than the catastrophic threat to an entire planet’s ecosystem that they are.

All it takes is a few members of a foreign species with a fast enough reproduction cycle and no natural predators, then the entire thing just collapses in a few dozen years. Why do they think the One Earth Government sanctions literal extinctions whenever any sort of animal manages to start spreading on a world where it doesn’t belong? I tell you what, it’s certainly not to ‘make coats out of their hides for the wealthy’ like those nutjobs on the internet say.

However, their presence here and now is way more worrisome. It would be way easier if they were criminals, like smugglers or slave traders. Those people may be scum, but at least they can be reasoned with. But a bunch of armed zealots who seem to have a hate-boner for any authority other than their own? Yeah, the only talking those guys are going to do is with their guns, and that’s a discussion Two-Five and I are wholly unprepared to have.

My gunner then signs asking for orders. It’s a tough call to make. Our only real way out of this is to capture the crystal, topple the tower, then call in the cavalry. The real question is whether we can pull that off with just the two of us and our peashooters. If we’re going to do something we better do it quick, so I sign to Two-Five to make a distraction, a loud one. He gives me an ‘okay’ then crouches down and slaps the dirt between his feet with his left hand.

The button-like gems on his weird bracelet thing start to glow and the dry sand-like dirt around his fingers starts vibrating. When he lifts his hand, the dirt particles follow in a small, cone-shaped cloud. They gather and swirl inside his open palm until they’ve formed a lumpy rock of some kind. The thing then starts to glow blue and vibrate, producing a high-pitched buzzing noise almost identical to that of a mosquito as it just floats a few centimeters from his hand.

Now, I’m no expert on whatever the fuck is going on, but my instincts are telling me that my gunner just made a grenade from a fistfull of dirt. He twirled his fingers around and just sort of pointed at a spot to the left, and the thing just bolted off faster than an olympic sprinter who just heard his wife is going into labor. I… don’t know where that analogy came from, but I don’t get a chance to question it before the thing makes impact about fifty meters away. There’s an ear-splitting explosion followed by a massive cloud of dust and smoke.

“The fuck was that?!” one of the cultists shouts, just barely audible over the din. “You two check it out, I’m going to report it in!”

I peek out from behind my hiding spot. I see the two thugs that were searching the area approach the site of Two-Five’s distraction with their weapons pointed at it and away from us. The one in the back is clutching the side of his helmet, no doubt about to call his nutjob buddies over. We can’t have that, so I take aim and fire a tranq shot. The echoing boom masks my firearm going off while my high-tech bullet clamps onto his thigh, then shocks him into submission.

I then point my firearm at the other two. I manage to pacify one of them, but the other finally realizes something’s going on and starts firing his rifle at me. I duck behind the ridge, cursing under my breath as the automatic weapon chews up my flimsy rock cover. I look over to see Two-Five’s prepared another dirt-bomb, which he blindly throws at the agitated hostile. The guy naturally sees the glowing thing and shoots at it. He manages to intercept it, causing the thing to explode into another deafening din and cloud of dust. There’s no actual force or shrapnel accompanying the detonation though, just a lot of smoke and noise. I guess that’s just the orizian version of a flashbang.

And it seems to be rather dangerous to them, seeing as how Two-Five is clutching his head and screaming as if someone’s driving a rusty nail into his eye. I’m mostly fine since I braced myself, while the last hostile is clearly dazed. I take this opportunity to fire a few tranq shots at him, one of which hits him in the chest. I’m wary of touching Two-Five since our causality fields won’t mingle all too well, but I can’t just leave him here rolling around in the dirt. Thankfully he gives me another ‘okay’ sign as he shakily rises to his feet a few seconds later. I signal that all the hostiles are down and we make a run for the power crystal.

Or rather, Two-five makes a run for it. He hides behind the familiar boulder, grabs that crystal ball and starts shaking it some frightening frequency. He then pinches off a thumb-sized part of it like it was made of jelly and starts processing it with his equipment. I attend to the three sleeping beauties while he does that. I bind their hands and feet behind their backs with some Kink-o-Matic Insta-Shackles™ and pour some local dirt down the rifles’ barrels to jam their firing mechanisms. I would like to use the guns for myself, but I was never trained in handling that class of military-grade weaponry. I’d much rather stick to the peashooter I actually know how to use.

Once I’m done securing the cultists and disabling their weapons, I rush over to Two-Five while keeping an eye out for any reinforcements coming from the scrambler tower’s direction. We made a lot of noise in that scuffle, so there’s no telling who might’ve heard it. My gunner seems to more or less be ready, having converted that tiny bit of jellified glass into a bullet-like projectile. He took a few moments to load it into his sidearm, then, after pausing to steady his aim, fired it at the tower in the distance.

However, what came out of his gun wasn’t a projectile, but a wave. I can actually see the air warping and bending as the otherwise invisible force expands outward in a tight cone. It’s almost as big as a house by the time it washes over the tower a second or two later. I don’t know exactly what it does to the structure, but the thing instantly collapses on itself amidst a cacophony of groaning and scraping metal.

A loud siren originating from the volcano washes over us. Well, if they didn’t know something was up, they sure as fuck do now. I waste no time and boot up my PDA, hitting the metaphorical big red button. I feel the computer heat up tremendously as it does its thing, but I’m ultimately met with the notification I’ve been dreaming of for the past several days.

‘Priority Level 2 distress signal successfully sent.’

“Yes!” I cheer with a fist pump.

“Did it work?!” Two-Five shouts at me.

“Damn right it did! Come on, we need to clear the area before any more of those cultists show up.”

“Hide? Are we not getting reinforcements?”

“It’ll take time for them to arrive.”

“What sort of time frame are we talking about?”

“Five to twenty minutes.”

That’s the average response time for a Priority 2 alert, which varies depending on how fast a strike team can be mobilized. We could get one out here faster, but that would require a Priority Level 1, which is reserved for literal extinction-level threats. Priority 2 is for ongoing disturbances requiring the use of deadly force. Which this most certainly is, considering how well armed these people are. If not for their automatic rifles, this would just be premeditated illegal mass transit, a Priority 3. And if it was just me and Two-Five being stuck days away from the nearest sustainable breach, then that would be a Priority 4 or 5, depending on how bad the environment was.

I’m still mad that the higher-ups ignored me when I insisted for a ‘Priority Level Sea’ protocol after my two-month ‘cruise,’ but I guess I can’t win them all.

“Then what is that?”

Two-Five’s finger-pointed question draws my attention to the area where we trounced those armed nutjobs, and I see that the air itself is rippling like the surface of a pond. A man in a navigator’s uniform falls out of the disturbance, landing flat on his ass. I can see him struggling with the post-transfer sickness as he forces himself to press a few buttons on his PDA. Nearly twenty men in military-grade power armor bearing the BMA’s insignia materialize next to him. None of their brains have had to struggle navigating the chaotic space between realities, so they suffer none of the ill-side effects that their navigator is currently going through. As such, they’re able to instantly react to their surroundings and subdue any suspects in sight.

“Don’t move! You’re under arrest for trespassing in a high-security area!”

Which, judging by the way they’re shouting and pointing those giant guns… is us.