Free Metal Deep: Infinite - Metal Wing: Episode 5 by GX Knight

remain calm and collected, but I felt as if my unsettled stomach might leap from my body as I found her room. I put my hand on the doorknob and let it rest there for a moment before I slowly opened the door.

TIP OFF
    Light from a few instrument displays leapt from the dark like little beacons, but in the rest of the room, shadows hung low and pooled like clouds from every corner. The bed was in the back hiding from me behind a beige hospital curtain. The tip of the bed’s foot was the only part visible. I moved past a couple of chairs and a small table, and I placed my hand on the cloth divider that separated us. I grabbed the curtain to pull it away, but I felt another jolt as I had back in the pistol lab when I connected with the gunsmith.

    My mind searched like a light until it landed on Starshine. I felt her, awake, alert, but frightened. A shot of adrenaline caused this new mind-light I had to keep searching. I found someone else with us. They were old, could have been ancient, and in a word: sinister. I flung the curtain aside, and my eyes fell to an empty bed. Slowly, I scanned upward to a couple standing out on a balcony. I saw Starshine, shivering, and in front of her, Uncle Raven, who was holding a gun to her head.

    I made cautious, deliberate steps toward the door as he waited for me to join them outside. I forgot about him for a moment as I witnessed the horror-show of injuries Starshine had sustained from the falling debris after the explosion. The entire left side of her face was disfigured. Half of her golden hair had been burnt away to a bandaged scalp, and her right arm had been amputated about three inches above where the elbow used to be.

    Uncle Raven read my expression, “All of this trouble for a broken thing like that. You know she doesn’t even like you. Seems I recall in situations like this when you were younger and training on the Laser Ball courts you’d call Do-Over and then start again after you messed up. You have fallen in line with our best laid plans up until today. What do you say we call a Do-Over and get back to our business?”

    “What’s that, the business of taking over Bathesda? I think I understand now.

    “General Wyld believes he’s bidding for power, but you’re using him to get Bathesda and Calvaria. What’s the next step? You kill him and become the people’s hero for saving them from the violent dictator? After that you start your empire with your engineered ultra-soldier-nephew at your side? The question I have is why ? Where do you plan on going? Back to our home world?”

    “That cunning little tin can,” Raven said impressed. “That’s one of the reasons Spyral was meant for you, and not Sabra. Sabra was supposed to my chariot. I boosted her logic process a thousand fold. Those A.I. are a tad unpredictable before they’re broken in, but then so are you. I should have made sure she was conditioned first. At the end of the day, I suppose knowledge is more powerful than an arsenal of weapons.”

    “I noticed you made her fast too. That so you can flee like a coward whenever there’s trouble?”

    “There’s always wisdom in cultivating an appropriate exit strategy.”

    “Oh yeah, Uncle, and what’s your strategy here? You’re now holding a girl hostage who means nothing to me.” Starshine didn’t move. She seemed completely catatonic as she stared at the wall with an obvious emptiness, unaware that she was a hostage. I pulled one of the pistols from beneath my jacket and aimed it at my uncle, “without her as a bargaining chip, you seem to be out of options.”

    Uncle Raven laughed, “You think I’m here to stop you? I created you. I’m here to save you. My entire life has been devoted to making what you are right now. Things may have skewed slightly from the original plan, but the goal hasn’t changed.”

    “Then why are you pointing your gun at her?”

    Just then I felt another tingle, as the door to the room flung open and General Wyld