- Decoy (2)

'They'll be on my back before I know it. Here we go.'

Gus looked back to where he was going as he steadied himself after his landing. Immediately in front of his vision was a structure made of glass. Despite his best efforts to stop himself, his momentum carried him through his motion, crashing into the glass and sending small shards flying everywhere.

As he fell into a neatly organised bed of colourful plants, tightly clutching the weapon, he heard the startled scream of someone by his side. Spitting dirt out of his mouth as he rose, he looked toward the source of the noise.

He had just crashed into a small family's garden, destroying the beautifully creation there. A man, a woman, and a young boy all looked back at him from a corner of the greenhouse, a mixed expression of terror and hatred plastered onto their faces.

"You live on a huge farm and you garden in your spare time? Gotta love the dedication," Gus joked, hoping to lighten the mood. "Look, I'm sorry for wrecking this place, but you've got to get away from here. Get downstairs or something, being up here just is not safe. You must have heard about the incident at the rally from here?"

The family remained silent, choosing only to continue to stare at him with the same expression that they had been before.

"I know you can understand me. I know you can speak Terran. So don't just stand there. Get inside, get to safety."

No matter what he said, they were unwilling to listen. 'Not that I can blame them,' Gus thought. 'How would I react if someone came crashing into my home and telling me to run?"

He looked behind them at the attackers. They drew closer and closer, creeping across the buildings to him like a wave of oncoming darkness coming to engulf him in death and destruction. As soon as they saw him, they raised their weapons and prepared to unleash a wave of fire in his direction.

Reacting quickly to the threat, Gus leapt forward and tackled the family to the ground, covering them with his body. Seconds later, the glass above them shattered from multiple energy rounds, throwing sharp, jagged shards on top of him. As they hit him, he felt a couple of them cut into his flesh, tearing his top and drawing blood that ran down his sides.

"Are you going to listen now?" he yelled at the family. "Get downstairs, and stay down until this is finished!"

Peering his head up, he looked back to see how many of them were now following him. Although they were still some distance away, he could see dozens of the attackers coming towards him across the roofs of the residential area. Looking into the sky after hearing the sound of whirring rotor blades, he saw a hoverjet in the sky nearby.

A hoverjet was essentially an aircraft that was not given the technology necessary for any type of space travel, although some daring pilots had managed to get them up to the stations that closely orbited some planets by the skin of their teeth. It was a helicopter equipped with a modern jet engine. Using the engine, it was able to travel to any location on the planet in minutes before carrying out its role as a helicopter. He had never seen one up close, but he had heard them in the past as they sped overhead on their way to different places.

"Damn it!" he exclaimed as he got up and continued running. 'How did they get that thing inside the dome?' he thought, assuming it to belong to the attackers. Forgetting about the family, he began running to the next rooftop on the other side of the greenhouse. As he moved, his body exploded into pain where the glass had cut into him.

He fired off a couple of shots in front of him as he ran, smashing open the glass in front of him. Once that was done, he turned his gun behind him and fired off a wild volley in the direction of the pursuing attackers. Although he could not see whether or not they hit, the resulting system messages more than made up for that.

*Enemy Eliminated: [2]*

*Reward: [200] EXP.*

'Not bad,' he thought. 'If I can keep this up then I'll be a superhuman in no time.'

As he leapt across to the next building, a vibration on his wrist caught his attention. The momentary distraction caused him to mess up, and he suddenly found himself slamming into the corner that joined the roof to the wall.

Reflexively, he took a deep breath in as all of the air rushed from his lungs. Scrambling to maintain his grip, he found a small strip below his foot. Recognising it as a windowsill, he violently kicked out, shattering the window and allowing himself to slide into the building.

He gnashed his teeth together and growled in pain as he moved into the building, his wounded back scraping on yet more shattered glass that was lodged into the window frame.

*Reactive Mission: Survive.*

*Rewards: [50] Durability Points; [500] EXP.*

'Survive, eh? Yeah, that is the plan.'

*You have taken numerous blows so far. Surviving here would be a noteworthy feat of durability, especially given your level.*

"Yeah, I'm not complaining," he muttered, looking at his comm device. Connor was calling him directly, since he had muted the overall squad channel.

"Gus. Whatever you're doing, it's working. We're making our way through the streets back towards the rally site. From there we're going to get out of the dome. While we can hear a lot of them, they are definitely more aware of you than they are of us. Be careful out there. And good luck, I hope your thing grows well, or goes up, or whatever it is it does."

"Just keep doing what I'm doing, is it? Easier said than done. Don't worry, I've got it covered."

Breathing heavily, Gus rose back to his feet slowly.

'Guess I'd better get back to it.'