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Sat 10th Dec 2022 03:01

Escape from Dhaab - don't ask me how

by Armand Serrano

The alarm was blaring in the control room. T-minus 30 minutes the computerscreen said. We only had 30 minutes to get off this planet. With the Zeluba Brigade between us and the shuttle. How would we survive. Suddenly the door opened and Niema stept into the room. Moses had called her. She was familiair with the systems on the Dhaab Station. Together with Shamus she was able to find a subroutine for the reactor programm. This gave us one hour more time. Now for the plan. We had to stop the Zeluba brigade from taking the Nannite technology off-planet. Khadyr told us to get to the basement where the labs were. To make sure no one would alarm the others to our presence the three Zaluba soldiers were tied up in the relaxation room. Lysia Wada and Niema stayed behind to keep checking the mainframe.
Quickly we went down to the basement. There was a long corridor to the laboratory . We only made our first steps into the corridor and five soldiers were rushing towards us. Now what to do! To head for cover Khadyr threw one of our smoke grenades. Our visibility was zero and the corridor fell silent.
 
And then it happened. From this point on in the story i swear this really happened and was not a dream or a lie.
 
|Our plan was now to rush the soldiers and shoot them one by one. We checked our carabines, discussed which soldier to take first, what was our fallback plan, did we have enough medical supplies and ...... Wait what ? I heard a Warcry from Shamus. Something about a pet chicken and then he suddenly rushed towards the soldiers bare-handed. Moses abruptly ran behind him shouting: "Forgive him, he does not know what he is doing" . Then we all ran behind Shamus. It was a flurry of punches, bites and gunfire. When we finally approached the first soldier. He was already was stunned. Then we shot the second soldier. Shamus was breathing heavilly and surprised by his own action had to come to his senses. Moses tried to calm him down. A little to soon. The remaining Zeluba soldiers started shooting. Fatally hitting one Red Hyena and hurting the second. Khadyr and i reloaded and were ready for our second volley. We just made our shot and there was a storm coming from behind us. A big furry was stampeding towards the other soldiers. The terror was visible on their faces. The last thing i heard from one of the soldiers was: "it was a good thing i put on the brown pants today". Then silence. All soldiers were defeated. Moses calmed Shamus. Behind the soldiers in the corridor we could see Jussuf lying on the floor in the vaults. We checked him. He was not dead. He wanted us to take him off-planet in exchange for the Nannite technology. While thinking about this proposition Shamus wanted to say something to Jussuf. He was whispering something and then a loud bang. Jussuf was dead. Probably for the better. He did betray us. Then we got the message we lost an hour. We had thirty minutes left. Our only option was to go into the Laboratory to try and access the subroutine again and give us some more time. We threw the nannite grenade into the lab and waited. This to make sure there were no Nannites remaining. We stepped into the Laboratory and Shamus was beginning to show signs of overexposure to the Nannites. First we contacted Lysia Wada and Niema to access the mainframe. Together with the help from Shamus we had now two hours. This was enough time to put Shamus into one of the scanners in the Lab. Instantly it detected the Nannites. Luckily it started to remove them. But this would take another thiry minutes. Shamus was finally back to normal.
The time was going more quickly than we had anticipated.We only had 15 minutes to escape. We contacted Lysia and Niema to join us. We had to go to the Shuttle platform.
And there it was. Raquel with three soldiers. They had mounted two automated Dial gun's. Outgunned an outnumbered we had to come with a plan. Khadyr and i threw the smoke and frag grenade onto the platform. This confused the soldiers and we hit one of the dial-guns. What happened next was a flurry of shots back and forth. Most were misses. But one did hit Khadyr. Then it was my turn but in the corner of my eye... there was Raquel and she shot me directly in the body. While i was lying with pain on the floor she took Moses hostage. She demanded we gave up the Nannite technology. We tried reasoning with her. The station was about to explode. She would not have any of it. During the shouting contest Moses got more scared and was asking Shamus for help. Shamus shouted he would help him. But how. We were pinned down. Is this the end ?
 
What i did not told you that when Khadyr and i stepped into the laboratory we did got infected by the Nannites. Nothing serious. But we were getting a bit sick. Now because of this we now know there was one Nannite who had his last hurrah.
 
Before Raquel could act. Shamus leapt up and came like a flaming fury towards her. In disbelieve she was too late shooting him. Shamus killed Raquel and the remaining soldiers within seconds. The way was clear. We heard Timon's voice from the communication system. We had to go now. We all got on board and flew away. In the background we could see the entire station being destroyed by the explosion. We survived. And we got the Mantella as a reward. Lysia Wada did not need the ship anymore. She would work now for Moses and the Red Hyenas. And for us. New adventures!