By David C. Daoust
“There you are!” Ratchet cheerfully announced once his grandfather was within shouting distance. The anti-gravity boots carried the boy through the rubble smoothly, allowed him to hop and jump through debris as though he was sliding over waves despite the rough, solid, terrain that was beneath him.
Grandpa Haul, still celebrating the launch of the Barracks ship, looked happy to see his grandson suddenly appear amongst the debris, the boy’s high-tech boots were blasting as he rushed forward.
“What’s all this?” the old rogue asked the boy who was currently circling him to burn off the excess momentum that built up from the short trip from the mountain of debris Ratchet had used to get a clear view of his surroundings, down to the flat turf his grandfather was navigating.
“What in the world are you doing out here?” his grandfather asked.
“Me?” Ratchet answered the question with a question, “We came to find out what YOU were doing out here!”
“Well,” the old rogue stopped to think as the boy threw him off. “Oh… of course, I came to follow Vincent!”
“What for?” Ratchet pressed as he looped around.
“What for?” Grandpa Haul repeated, clearly buying himself a moment to think.
Ratchet didn’t miss the moment of confusion that crossed his grandfather’s face, and knew he probably wouldn’t get a straight answer. Very rarely would Grandpa Haul admit when he was confused, often times he tried to play it off as though no one could tell.
“That’s what we do!” the old rogue grimaced, as he continued down the path he was on, “Me and that Bot been through the levels of hell more than once, neither of us would have made it… if we didn’t stick together!”
Ratchet thought that made sense after all.
“Well, where’s he at?” the grandson asked as he finally slowed enough to come to a halt, despite his grandfather stomping off in what Ratchet could only guess was a presumed direction.
“Exactly!” Grandpa Haul stated with a finger in the air, leaving his youngest grandson to stand bewildered in his wake.
The sound of Charles’ Sky-Screamer suddenly filled the air. Ratchet turned to wave at his brother as Charles brought the small vehicle down.
“I see you found him,” Charles said once the boosters fell silent. “Where’s he going now?”
“He wants to find Vincent,” Ratchet answered with a shrug.
“Why did he leave the Screamer back there?” Charles questioned with a gesture back the direction they’d come.
“I don’t know, I didn’t ask…” Ratchet answered briefly as he glided backwards in the direction his grandfather was headed, he shrugged again and spun towards his Grandfather fully, he shouted back to his brother: “We have to stick together!”
“Well, where’s Vincent?” Charles continued his questioning as he hovered.
“Exactly!” Ratchet said mimicking his grandfather’s previous statement, an obnoxious finger thrust in the air.
The scream suddenly returned as Charles shot back into the air. Ratchet watched as Charles skipped over him and went directly to their Grandfather. How the old man had managed to get such a wide lead, in the few moments he chatted with his brother, was beyond Ratchet. The youngest Haul boy watched the pair of ‘Charles Hauls’ chat as he struggled to catch up. The two did not talk long before his brother shot back up into the sky.
“He’s going to see if he can get a bead on Vincent from the air,” Grandpa Haul answered Ratchet’s questioning look once he managed to catch up, “Last I saw… he was headed this way, crashing through the resistance…”
“You mean he joined in the fighting?” Ratchet asked, shocked at the info.
“Sure looked like it,” Grandpa Haul answered seriously, “Once that Bot gets an idea in his head, boy, you better watch out…”
This all surprised Ratchet, while Vincent’s Mining Bot form could be quite intimidating, to the boys that were raised on Twin Crown, they tended to think of Vincent as the tiny hover bot, the toy they used to play with as children; a scout when they played at war, or the guy that was perpetually ‘it’ while playing ‘hide and seek’.
It was the small army of droids that pulled Ratchet’s attention from his Grandfather, he knew where his brother was in the distance, though he launched ahead of his grandfather. The tack-tack noise could be practically felt through to his very core as the droids marched in the distance. Ratchet had never seen such a thing. I mean sure he’d seen droids, but so many, all moving as one, it was more like a swarm.
Ratchet followed from a distance for a while, he found another mountain of rubble and managed to get a better view over the town. He watched as the droids climbed the inner walls of where the barracks-ship had launched some time ago. He spotted Vincent, left in the droids wake. Too far away to get the Bot’s attention, he turned about excitedly to spread the news of Vincent’s location, only to find his Grandfather missing again. Ratchet sighed. He could see Charles flying high above, and trusted that he probably had a bead on Grandpa Haul. A series of hops got him back down to the other side of the debris, he spun about briefly to see if he could spot his Grandfather one last time, before launching forward to try and get to Vincent before he disappeared again as well.
It was the sudden burst of ionized air, blossoming over the towering walls that first drained the blood from Ratchets face. He was sure he was quite a few shades lighter, probably looked a lot more like Charles than he ever had in his life, his mind could not figure out what he was looking at. The wave grew and expanded, as it enveloped everything around it, bellowing straight for him. Suddenly a damaged Drone burst from hiding some yards away. It was, clearly, also alerted to the sudden danger as it began to speed from the expanding cloud.
The Drone charged directly at the boy, who could only become that much more confused; Ratchet turned and began to rush away. There was no way for him to know what would happen if the cloud caught up with him. Was it deadly? Ratchet didn’t know. Once the wave caught up with the Battle Drone, Ratchet had a pretty clear notion that it wasn’t good, the machine suddenly dropped from the air skidding powerless.
Ratchet suddenly gasped in fright as the wave enveloped him too. He squeezed his eyes shut, half expecting his skin to melt away or worse! Though as the tiny sparks of light passed him, he only dropped from the air, the power of his Anti-gravity boots suddenly expelled. He landed with a thud, and his legs sank deep into the debris. Anti-grav boots were heavy when the power was shut off, and he had been gliding over a pretty big pile of mess.
It registered in his mind, that the cloud had done this, as the drone had come to a skidding halt, only feet from him; the drone was as powerless as the boots. He found himself unharmed, but was stuck pretty good, the clasps on the boots, were buried under the debris, struggle as he might, he could not get his legs free, nor his hands deep enough to release his feet from within.
Suddenly though, a thought occurred to him, he watched as the ever growing cloud of ionized energy continued to stretch over the town. Panic struck hold of him, he suddenly waved at his brother in the distance, trying to motion for him get lower. There was literally no chance his brother could see him in time though, and Ratchet felt his insides shatter as the Sky Screamer suddenly dropped from the air.
Something snapped within the young boy, he could no longer pretend not to think. Not to think about the loss of his mother… his uncle… now he watched as his brother plummeted from heights no one could possibly survive. He turned, tears streaming from his eyes just as the drone that had collapsed into the debris beneath him, suddenly began to power back up.
The tears and pain quickly changed to hate, and the hate boiled over until all Ratchet could feel was a lust for revenge. Revenge against Grady.
The drone sprang back to life, and launched into a low hover before the raging boy.
“You!” Ratchet yelled. emotion clear on his face, “You do what I say! I’m a First Waver, I sent you here…”
The Battle Drone merely hovered before the boy.
“Do you hear me?” Ratchet seethed, cold hatred gripping his soul.
The silence ticked by, as the Drone hovered.
“Kill them!” the boy yelled mercilessly, pointing in the direction of the star port, the only structure that could have housed the fleeing citizens of Grady, “Kill them all!”
The drone didn’t react, did not move.
Ratchet pulled and struggled to free himself, all to no avail.
Inexplicably, the drone suddenly flew off in the opposite direction, the opposite direction of where the people may be. The opposite direction of whom Ratchet had just cast his death sentence. The Drone was not alone, more and more appeared in the air, all charging in the same direction, in retreat. A retreat to the desert.
“No!” Ratchet screamed as the Drone ignored his commands, “You do what I SAY! Kill them all! Do what I say! DO WHAT I SAY!”
The swarm of battle drones fled the town though and the young boy could only watch through tear drenched eyes, his legs trapped in the debris. Helpless.
What the boy did not see, was the small form of a glider, like that which folded out of the glider-pack attached to his own back, circling slowly, safely, down to the ground.
