43 Unwitting Heroes

Under the relenting harshness of deep space, Alekai and Jesse toiled without pause. They kept their chatter to a minimum so they could concentrate on the work at hand.

From all calculations, It would take at least one hour to reach the Skrillz starship from their point in space. This meant, coming and going twice would total four hours of traveling time for the Gear.

To attach and detach the payload was another solid hour's worth of work for each load which meant another two solid hours of intense concentration on both to haul and navigate that many individually tractored scorpions.

Half-way through the first haul attempt, the two media scout pods that had followed them from the start had to return to their base starships because they had run low on power.

Another two came to take their place and continued to capture what seemed like the most boring visual feeds to Jesse.

She truly was not doing anything more than navigating the Gear, but for some reason, the media pods kept their visual receivers on her and Alekai.

Unbeknownst to the two inside the Elite Gear, the announcers kept up a constant stream of chatter to the general public.

Their discussions ranged from Jessica and Alekai's fashion sense, to the surprising resurgence of their position within the exclusive and elusive Elite Gear Force which were supposedly manned by only the best of the Space Force.

The talking heads continued their constant streaming chatter about the politics behind the death of the Krystabella, the exploded Scorpions, and the huge haul of scorpions that were currently being delivered by the two inside the Elite Gear.

What was true and what was conjecture, nobody knew. The only thing that was real was the fact that Jesse and Alekai had risen to the top of the fame charts.

Of course, at that moment, Alekai and Jesse were completely unaware that any of this was happening.

Their worries were of a far different and more pressing nature.

"Alekai. You keeping an eye on the energy gauge?"

"Yeah." Alekai muttered as he continued to keep his hands on the controls. "Something that should have taken half as long is going to take twice as long because of stupid ass Robbie."

Jesse sighed. "It's going to take another six hours to complete this mission and we've been at it for over six hours. I can't even take a bathroom break because of his stupid stunt."

Alekai sighed. Her complaint reminded him that he needed a bathroom break too, but they were just going to have to hold it in until they could get back to the Anastasia.

After he took care of his bodily needs, the first thing he was going to do was go find Robbie. The Gear Force working in the exoskeleton environment was hard dangerous work.

Abandoning team mates in the middle of a job like this was grounds for court martial, but before all that formal process, he would make sure Robbie's face got a nice work out as a punching bag.

He glanced at the power gauge. Jesse didn't even need to remind him that they would truly be scraping bottom with their Gear's power.

Their only saving grace was the fact that they were in an Elite Gear which could hold twice the amount of energy that the lightweight Scout Gear could handle. They also didn't have to expend any energy to shield against any damaging blasts or weapon fire.

Of course this also meant that by the time they were done with their scorpion hauling job, they would be down so low that they would be unable to shield themselves against any damage coming from any source.

They were truly sitting ducks.

As they got closer to the Skrillz starship, Alekai began preparing for the eventual uncoupling of the scorpions, leaving Jesse to maintain communications with both Tom in the Anastasia as well as the Captain of the Skrillz.

"Okay, this is close enough for us to drop their babies off." Jesse announced and stopped their forward movement.

From a distance, two scorpion scout pods emerged from the Skrillz starship and hovered nearby. They did not make an attempt to come closer to the Elite Gear. It looked as if they were merely observing.

The media pods however were having a field day. It was one of the rare opportunities that they had to be able to capture visuals this close of the enemy ships.

More chatter of the political aspects of assisting the mortal enemies ensued even as the Elite Gear went about its work of unloading the baby scorpions.

Even with Jesse helping, it took almost an hour before they were done.

In wearied silence, they made their way back to the remaining scorpions, still floating near the dead starship. They had burned through three solid hours of power.

Another hour of tractor beam work and they were moving back to the Skrillz starship with their final payload.

It was then that Jesse spoke into the silence of the Command Deck of the Elite Gear.

"Alekai." Her soft voice floated through his mind.

"Hmmm?" He was too tired to even respond coherently.

"We're going to have enough power to get to the Skrillz and deliver this final group to them."

"Hmmm." He agreed.

"But we're not going to have enough power to get back to the Anastasia."

Alekai sighed. He'd seen that outcome four hours ago but he didn't want to say anything to Jesse because he didn't want to worry her.

"Hmmm." He agreed again.

"I talked to the Captain of the Skrillz about our power emergency."

Alekai said nothing. He was too tired to even 'Hmmm' a response.

"She wants to send one of the scorpion scout ships to escort us back to her starship so we can get a quick recharge."

"No."

"But that would solve our issue. We would at least have a way to return to the Anastasia within a matter of two hours."

"No."

"Alekai, if we don't, we'll be partway back and run out of energy in the middle of nowhere."

"I already talked to Tom. He has sent a Gear. It will be reaching us soon to tow us back."

"Do you really want to be towed back when we could come back on our own steam?"

"Never forget. Any mission you can walk away from is a successful mission."

Jesse was silent for a moment and then her voice came back on.

"I just told the Captain of the Skrillz that we would have our own people tow us back after delivering the final group of scorpion babies."

"Hmmm."

"She insists on assisting us with the charging as a way of thanking us."

"No."

Jesse sighed.

"It's too late to refuse, Alekai. Those two scorpion scout ships up ahead are waiting for us to unload and then they are going to tractor beam us back to the Skrillz."