UNHAPPY REUNION
Lester exited the conveyance at higher speed than usual. In times of crisis the
The conveyance operation was faster and less gentle. He tumbled to the feet of the cadets and recovered his dignity. Immediately after Critter joined them and took his perch clinging to Lester’s shirt.
"Less"," Mr Mann" "Professor" Each cadet excitedly greeted LEss in their own
way. Very nice of them especially the one who called him "Professor" since
Less was nothing of the sort. But their punctuated greetings betrayed the
motivation for rescuing Lester... they were without an Ed Greely and probably in
some heap of trouble.
"Zell!" Bodgie got right to the topic.
"We were attacked by Zell!" Jet added to the conversation. "They ambushed
us and chased us here."
“And it called us a bad name!” added Jett.
"And it hit me in my eye!", Grey claimed. He pointed to his right
eye... which looked fine.
"We're cornered. We have no bots. He's coming round the corner:", Bodgie
gave the important information to Less in a panic.
"Right here in my eye! it hurts!", Grey continued.
A Zell on the Flotilla would have to be dealt with. Less raised his wrench and
again commanded his bots: "continue homing on me. Priority 8"
"8! we need 10! they will be here any minute" Jet questioned.
But Less would not have his superior experience questioned, "priority 9 they
would get to me ignoring the safety of any human but myself and priority 10
they would do so ignoring their own safety potentially causing them to arrive
too damaged to protect us.
" What weapons do you guys have in your arsenal? Dumb looks were returned.
Then Bodgie: "Um... we were sorta paired with Mr. Greely because of an incident involving some weapons at the academy and so then... well... we don't really have any"
“Incident?”
“Well…. We were sorta… shooting them at each other on low power in a dare contest… so they gave us Ed.”
Grey: "My eye is still hurting!" .
“Edward the savior”.... Less realized he hadn't been rescued so much as summoned to a
Deathtrap.
"We still have assets, I ran high school track", Jet said. He looked too pudgy to ascend a staircase.
"Uh, okay, you don't need to tell me your other assets.--” He heard a sound and transformed his wrench into pistol mode.
“A pistol! “ Exclaimed Jett.
“Don’t get too excited… Tactical Engineering pistols are for cutting materials I’d be lucky if I could shoot this thing in the eye to blind him”
“Yeah! The Eye! Shoot him in the eye!” said Grey…
Something was approaching from the corner.... it slowly stalked it's prey as if to
intimidate the darling little cadets. Breathing and deliberate clinks of claws
walking across the metal floor grew in loudness and terror... And the creature
seemed to have asma or something too as its breath was wheasy and evil.
Get behind me. Maybe I can hold them off before my warbots arrive" calmed Lester.
Grey covered his face in fear.
Then, a tiny creature no more than 30 centimeters eclipsed the hallway… a Zell for sure.
Lester completely dropped his guard. “Do you guys know ANYTHING? That is a Zell boss….”
“Human Scum… You face Vraylar the Zell… Now. Die as you deserve too!”
“Such words!” shouted Jett.
But Lester was done. “Sic” he said to Critter and critter jumped and attacked the tiny Zell… the two were about the same size and they tumbled with Crittter giving most of the beatings
“Ack! Ack! Ack! Ack!” screamed the little Zell.
“A Zell boss is harmless without troops to command. He probably got over excited by how cowardly you acted and couldn’t help chasing you down himself.”
Critter disengaged and Vraylar made a hasty retreat. Lester took his wrench pistol and gave the wretched Zell a little zap in the fanny for good measure… “ACK!” he said.
“Bodgie If we live through this please remind me to petition the academy to reinstate your weapon permits so you can use them to shoot each other at the earliest convenience”