First Contact Fallout by Aer-ki Jyr (best non fiction books to read txt) 📕

him with a stun blast, which his armor did have a defense for built into the material rather than relying only on shields like Zen’zat armor did, then he left him lying alive in the narrow walkway as he ran and squeezed himself into the compact cockpit after pulling the bodies out.

He wasn’t a Zen’zat pilot specialist, but they could all fly basic craft with rudimentary efficiency and once he input the 211 code by hand the craft was his to fly. He put the shields back up and moved off towards the other gunship, which still had no idea anything was happening to its twin. Mario’topa charged the Dre’mo’dons to anti-ship levels, then fired two large blobs of obnoxious purple energy at the other dropship.

The purple was the color of the new V’kit’no’sat, and they’d adjusted all their standard weapons to that spectrum where possible. Real V’kit’no’sat weapons came in a variety of colors, almost none of them purple, and this was a very simple way to visually differentiate who was who on the battlefield, though he suspected it was more of an insult than anything. But color change or no, the damaging effect was the same, and before the other gunship had the wherewithal to even shoot back, Mario’topa had already breached its shields and begun to eat away at the armor.

It turned and fought, then tried to flee, then turned and fought again as if the crew couldn’t make up their minds. They were too far out of Ikrid range for him to mess with them directly, which would have saved this gunship some hull damage, but aside from a couple of holes that made it into the passenger hold his ship was still intact by the time the other one finally fell into the jungle in flames.

Mario’topa came in closer and did a mental scan, then fired a few more times until the living minds below were erased from existence. He checked the regional sensors, finding no other craft anywhere nearby, then he used the ship’s comm system to reach out to the Zen’zat below.

“Both Itaru gunships have been disabled and the one still flying is now in Zen’zat custody. If you’re still alive stop running and report in.”

“Yenni reporting,” a female voice returned over the V’kit’no’sat comm frequencies. “Light injuries but still mobile.”

“Yenni, circle back and check the other Zen’zat that was with you. He’s probably dead, but make sure.”

“Complying.”

Mario’topa pulled himself out of the cockpit after setting the ship to hover mode again and moved back to his sleeping prisoner. He retracted the armor from his right hand and pressed it against the pure black skin of the Bo’ja, then began to hack his mind directly for information. By the time Yenni reported back that the other Zen’zat didn’t have much body left to find, Mario’topa had already discovered everything he needed to know and shot the Bo’ja in the head twice before dumping his body out the side of the craft where it fell down into the trees and disappeared along with the other two dead crew members.

Mario’topa lowered the craft until it touched the treetops, then he descended a mechanized extendable pole that Yenni used to climb up and into the craft despite the multiple cavities in her armor.

“Why aren’t your wounds healing?” he asked.

“My Kich’a’kat is damaged and my armor is locked in static mode. I don’t think I could get my helmet off without breaking it free.”

“Stand still,” he said, reaching an armored hand out and touching a fingertip inside one of the breaches on her chest. It went more than an inch inside where there should have been breast tissue, but soon new skin was grown to cover over the gore, though the bulk of the mass was still missing. Her other wounds also healed as his own Kich’a’kat was used to heal her, but the damage to her armor was something only a tech could deal with.

“Appreciated,” she said when he’d finished. “Where did you come from?”

“A Zor’do near here. You were from a downed squadron?”

“We were the only ones to make it out on foot alive. How did you know?”

“I took the Bo’ja alive. They were ordered to clean up your hangar assault. What was your squadron doing?”

“Poaching random targets. I don’t know how they found us. We haven’t flown in more than two weeks.”

“I picked up Mushgu’va from one of these gunships.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. Let’s confirm that,” he said, heading back to the cockpit without finding any additional equipment added to the control board. “Stay here and monitor the airspace. I’m going to check the wreckage.”

“No, you stay here. I can handle it,” she said, heading out the still open doorway and dropping down into the jungle without hesitation despite the at least 80 meter fall.

Mario’topa waited several minutes, then she signaled him to bring the gunship all the way down to the surface in a specific location. He had to crush a few trees to do it, and bend a few more aside in the process, but eventually he got down within a few meters of the ground to where Yenni was dragging a piece of equipment twice her size across the ground away from the still burning wreckage.

As soon as he got outside to help her he saw that some of her newly regrown skin was now red and charred, but he ignored it as he helped her drag the extremely rare sensor array up to the ship, then the pair lifted it on their shoulders with the heavy gravity of the planet not helping any. They carried it inside and dropped the already damaged sensor down into one of the banks of lateral seats.

“The techs will want that,” Yenni agreed as Mario’topa reached another hand toward her wounds, but she flicked his arm away. “I’m fine. Let’s get