Broken World

Scattered

August 21, 2859. Days after escaping Hades and his hired mercs, we hid out in my ship until things died down. Arc was a little unamused by my ship. She said she's seen better. I decided to listen to some old earth music I had onboard thinking of what to do next. I looked at my UGNR silver star again, thinking about how space was back then, long before the Scattered, I even had thoughts of how everything was before the infamous Grand War centuries before I was even born. I looked at it for a few until Arc, now wearing a spare jacket and hoodie I gave her, came into my ship quarters to inform me of something. "Kid, this ship is a mess," Arc said to me annoyed. "Why can't you clean up this busted place?"
"Because it's my ship," I said smirking.
"Ugh. Anyway, I also found a job both of us can do to earn some money." She explained.
"And that job is and from who?" I asked concerned what it was.
"It's a job the New Brotherhood usually hire mercenaries for, something related to the Scattered." She replied.
"Not doing it," I said bluntly.
"Why not?" She asked getting annoyed with me.
"Because I don't work with government officials or go near Scattered," I replied. "I steal, shoot, get paid, and that's it."
"Ha! Then some hotshot you are." She taunted, making me lose my temper.
"Okay, chick you wanna go!" I yelled. "I can prove I'm no hotshot! I'll take that job and prove it!"
"Works every time," Arc said smirking.
"Wait, what?" I said confused and calming down.
"Boys are always so easily tricked. Now let's go." She explained leaving the ship. "No backing out."
"Okay. Clever." I said following her.
We left my ship and went to the New Brotherhoods Command to meet up with our employer, we eventually approached the large tower that centered the entire city.
"Your the employer correct?" Arc asked the mercenary that was waiting for us.
"Indeed I am, Douglas Montague at your service, and you are?" He said introducing himself.
"Names Arc." She answered.
"Daniel Norway," I answered. "So what kind of job is this anyway?"
"Excellent question Mr. Norway. Our army of trained mercenaries are skilled, but I prefer hiring wandering mercenaries instead, Nice little game of chance, I suppose. Anyway, our job is to investigate an old Scattered crash site here on Olympia." He explained.
"A crash site here, on Olympia? But how?" Arc asked shocked of knowing a crashed scattered warship was somewhere out in Olympia's outlands.
"Crashed and nearly destroyed during their attempt to destroy Olympia a couple weeks ago. Now then, were going to investigate a spike in activity there and destroy the site before another possible attack on the system can be made, any other questions?" He asked.
We didn't respond.
"Excellent, then let's go." He said boarding a Brotherhood transport, we followed him onboard and set off for the crash site.

We eventually arrived at the crash site in the planets outlands, we immediately got off the transport as it landed and were briefed on the plan. "Okay listen up, in order to destroy the ship, we have to destroy the ship's reactor, located deep inside the wreckage. Just expect a lot of Scattered to wake up when we get inside."
"Not a problem, we'll be ready," Arc said preparing her weapons.
We eventually arrived at the crash site and made final preparations before entering the crashed ship, once they finished, they entered the ship and already saw hundreds of scattered drones swarming below us.
"Those things are crazy," I said as we began traversing through the ship to find the reactor, seeing not only scattered drones as we continued deeper into the ship, but also nearly thousands of scattered forces, including grunts, warriors, and even a few siege crawlers roaming the lower levels of the wreckage as we eventually saw a massive glowing red orb ahead of us, the ship's reactor.
"There it is," I said as Arc readied her sniper rifle and scoped out the area around the reactor.
"What do you see?" Douglas asked loading a pair of heavy pistols.
"I see...about twenty grunts, five warriors, at least fifteen drones swarming the area around them," Arc replied before looking down below. "On top of that entire hive."
"Definitely not an easy task," I said looking towards the core and noticing the rocket launcher on Douglas' back and getting an idea. "Could I see that real quickly."
"What are you planning, Mr. Norway?" Douglas asked handing me the rocket launcher, I immediately identified the launcher as an old UGNR model and knew my plan would work.
"Just watch," I said looking down the launchers sight and aiming towards an unstable support of the ship's interior and pulling the trigger. A rocket immediately fired out of the launcher with a powerful roar as it flew towards the support, blasting it to pieces and causing bunches of rubble to collapse throughout the wreckage. Arc looked down her scope and saw the scattered near the core running to keep their ship together.
"Let's hurry and plant the charges," Douglas said as we rushed to the core and quickly planted the charges before they could return. As we planted the last charge, the scattered drones returned and started to dive towards us, causing us to start running as Douglas opened fire on the drones to keep them back as we escaped. We continued running away from the drones and additional scattered grunts and warriors that had begun chasing after us. Douglas continued to shoot at them as we exited the ship one by one, I about got out until a scattered warrior jumped in front of me and swung his sword towards my head. I quickly drew my energyblade and blocked his attack as I slipped past him and exited the ship.
"Light it!" Arc yelled as I detonated the charge blowing the ship's reactor up, causing the site to instantly collapse shortly before a massive ion explosion consumed the ship, we ran onto the transport and flew away from the blast site, the ship was eventually destroyed and faded into dust.

We flew back to the main city and attempted to warn the rest of the Brotherhood by going to Grand Duke Ironwood, Leader of the New Brotherhood.
"Your positive of an attack on Olympia Mr. Montague?" Ironwood asked.
"I have evidence right here," Douglas replied showing him the video feed from Arc's sniper scope. "The recent scattered attacks may be way bigger than we thought."
"I understand your concern with the Scattered and their growing numbers." Ironwood explained. "I'll put our fleet on alert and watch your findings until then relax and enjoy the short time of peace. We all know it won't last knowing everything that's been happening."
"Sigh. As you wish." Douglas said leaving, we left as well and were paid shortly after. I planned to return to my ship until Arc had a better idea.
"Hey, let's spend some of our credits," Arc suggested.
"I thought we were saving them." I pointed out.
"It doesn't hurt to spend some credits on new equipment. come on." She said running off.
"Arc wait up!" I yelled following not far behind her.