Echo-1 The Whale

45: Back on Ice

"We'll go after the last two together. They're going for the Ursa Minor submersible, it's the best ship on board," Mox instructed the scout. 

I hadn't even thought about that. I frantically tried to reach Dixon but she didn't respond. Her ship was powered down and for all she knew, there was still a battle going on. 

We flew in through the starboard hangar and landed the Brick on the deck. She was too big to travel internally. Mox and I ran to the elevator with the Sentinel at our heels. We stopped on the lab floor. Nidi was waiting there in her black spacesuit. She stepped inside the lift and clamped on her helmet. 

"I'm going with you. They're not going to get Dixon too."

We got to the bottom floor and ran down the hall. Mox climbed into his rust suit. 

I stopped for a moment. "I'm going to take X's bike. It's the only way to bring Nidi." 

Mox corrected me, she could go in the scout. I wasn't thinking clearly. I started to realize I needed to be following orders. I got into the other rust armor suit and we exited the Brick. The scout landed next to us. Its door opened and Nidi jumped in. Mox and I climbed onto the outside and they took off. 

We rocketed down the corridors to the highway system. I looked back and the Sentinel was left in the distance. I looked at Mox. 

"He knows where we're going. When we get there remember your arm band's sensors are calibrated to find them. And Nidi can smell 'em." 

We slipped down a side tunnel and rocketed up a hundred decks in the blink of an eye. Traveling at high speeds while inside a ship is something I'll never get used to. We reduced speed and changed pathways again. Taegu learned her way around and was taking turns and corners at speeds I'd never experienced even when racing with X around the ship. The Varan scout was an amazing vehicle, even with two big chunks of rust hanging on the outside. 

We dropped into the back halls that led to the cave entrance. We passed the remains of a Vedma fighter sunk into a wall. There was smoke still coming out of the wreckage but no sign of life. We got to the cave and out into a world of white. We skimmed above the ice shelf and in a matter of moments, I could see Dixon's ship in the distance. There was a flash of fire coming from the top of the ship and I saw the twin wolves of Certain Wisdom running, rolling, and burrowing into the snow to again extinguish their smoldering fur. 

I saw Faye on the ice below and right next to her was Dr. Death and he was out of his diamond suit again. It was parked open behind them. We slowed as we approach. Death raised his rust cannon and started firing. The shots deflected off the surface, so he realigned his aim, and sent both Mox and myself flying off the scout as it was coming down. 

Uzi gave the order to fire and the scout's guns lit up the ice with laser bolt blasts. One moment Death and Faye were standing there, the next they were gone. There was a large smoking hole in the ice. It cracked, got larger, and then swallowed the diamond suit. It slowly fell over and crashed through the ice. 

Mox and I used our suit jets to stabilize our fall. 

I ran to Dixon's ship. The entrance was sealed and not responding to any commands to open it. I turned around to look at the others and from the hole in the ice next to the ship came the Diamond-robo-combat suit. Dr. Death was hanging onto the outside and Faye was inside it. She landed on the ice. 

Faye grabbed a hold of Death's arms and dislocated them at the shoulder. Blood spattered over the ice. Death screamed in pain and rammed his head into the impenetrable diamond chest of the suit. Faye dropped his arms and turned her grip clasping on one of his legs and his neck. She lifted him up sideways and brought him down on her knee. The diamond armor tore through the center of his body, breaking him almost in two. His leg was nearly torn off and his neck was stretched and broken. She spun him over her head like a lasso by his neck. Then she threw him at the scout ship. His body spattered against the side and slid to the ground motionless. Dr. Death was dead.