"Holy fuck! Mike, can your guts be wrong for once!?"
Seeing a massive surge as she lost contact with both Mike and Hanna down on the surface, River immediately started heading down as she spotted a pair of flares.
(That must be Mike, two and not one flare means loss of contact due to some sort of malicious intent, in that case…)
Bringing the Wyrm's weapon systems online, River watched as her ship's sensors went haywire at the same time as Mike sent up another set of flares from the surface.
'Don't approach' is what that set of flares said.
"Fucking hell, I sure hope you know what you're doing Mike. If you don't then I'll kill you myself…"
Veering off her trajectory to rescue Mike and Hanna, River instead switched into a larger holding pattern as she observed what was going on on the ground.
"Move or die!"
Shouting loud enough for Hanna to hear him through his own suit, Mike ripped Hanna's arm as he transitioned into a sprint to get as far away from the singularity he could before it stabilised. In a matter of seconds, the pin-sized hole above the crystal quickly stabilised before it started violently expanding. Although the planet had no atmosphere, the sheer amount of energy leaking out from the spacetime anomaly created a shockwave which travelled through the ground and knocked both Mike and Hanna off their feet.
"Shit! Get behind me, stay behind me!"
Bringing up his malfunctioning rifle as an empty threat, Mike knew full well that the only way he and Hanna would survive was to not draw any attention to themselves. In a split second, the spacetime anomaly overcame whatever resistance that was holding it back and the extragalactic visitor arrived to inspect its kill. Approximately 25 metres in diameter, the vaguely round grey egg-like shape contained no visible means of propulsion, its only outwards feature was a sort of sensor array that glowed in a strong blood-red light.
(It's a type Delta drone… Which means I just need to stay put.)
Recognizing the craft and/or creature, Mike put down his rifle and concentrated on keeping Hanna down as another quake shook the ground, it seemed the Delta type remnant had finished its post jump startup and started moving. Floating above the crystal corpse for a moment, the remnant blinked out of existence for a moment before reappearing only a few centimetres from Mike, all of its red eyes trained on his face.
(Stay… Still… Mike…)
Feeling like countless spiders were crawling all over his skin as the countless eyes of both synthetic, biological and mechanical nature scrutinising his every move, Mike suppressed his fear best he could, he knew very well that moving right now would make him a target for 'investigation'. Gazing into the abyss for what felt like hours, Mike eventually noticed that the eyes lost focus before the remnant once more blinked out of existence and reappeared again above the crystal corpse, this time all of its eyes focused on it directly below. As the remnant was now distracted, Mike got on his feet again, keeping himself between the current threat and Hanna Mike only managed to take a few steps before the ground shook again as the remnant started harvesting its kill. Without warning the red light the remnants emitted increased by several magnitudes as it seemingly broke even more laws of physics as the crystal corpse bathed in red light started to lift out of the ground along with a few stray chunks of bedrock. Although Mike had seen it in Interstellar Online, several tons of crystal corpse and bedrock levitating before slowly starting to disintegrate really was something.
[GVC-44, this is Xeno suppression force captain Kate, we're engaging the unknown contact. Clear out or fold into our formation!]
Above the pandemonium unfolding on the ground, River got the worst news she could get, the Xeno suppression force had arrived and they seemed intent on crashing the party.
"Kate, this is River! Mike and one of your researchers are down there! Watch your fire!"
[Two lives are not enough to let foreign powers roam around inside our borders, GCV-44, you have been warned, we're engaging the primary threat!]
With the communication link forcefully disconnected, River could do nothing as multiple ships blinked out of hyperspace above the remnant drone and started their attack run. Back down on the ground, Mike was finally snapped out of his daze as the first series of railgun darts hit the remnant drone, harmlessly shattering against its shields and showering the surrounding surface in shrapnel.
"AAAAAAAHHH!"
Hearing a glimpse of Hanna's panicked scream through the connection to his own suit, Mike acted almost on instinct and broke into a run, keeping a firm hold on Hanna all the while.
Having hit the unidentified threat with railgun artillery to no avail, the Xeno suppression force started opening up with large bore lasers, kinetic energy missiles and even low yield anti-ship torpedoes as the remnant drone finally became annoyed enough with the flies swarming it to take offence. Halting its disintegration of the crystal corpse midway, the light in the remnant's countless red eyes suddenly cut out as the half-eaten corpse dropped to the ground as gravity took hold of it again. Without changing its position, the remnant drone's countless eyes crawled out over its skin as each of them settled on their respective target, then a single beam of light was all it took for the drone to silence a significant number of flies disturbing its meal.
"Red-5 and Red-2 have flatlined, contact lost!"
"Bandit is still hovering 650 metres above the surface, its waste heat is spiking again!"
"Preload the shields and bring us about stern, continue engaging the target with localised fire, deplete its shield and bring it down before it can take out more of our forces!"
Having carried out her orders in spite of protests from River, Kate used the doctrine she knew to work against the crystals, only this foe was a bit different from that.
"Wha!- Contact lost, the hostile has disappeared from all scopes! No visual contact!"
"Impossible! Re-establish cont-"
"Fuck it…"
As the remnant drone started focusing on tearing the Xenos suppression force apart, River decided to act and started a rapid dive towards the surface where Mike and Hanna were still opening up the distance. Silencing numerous flight system alerts with the master caution switch, River watched her altitude drop at a frankly worrying rate as she allocated all of the Wyrm's power to its propulsion systems. Finishing up accelerating down towards the surface, River turned the Wyrm around and waited for a few seconds as her eyes remained glued to the altimeter. Slamming the throttle, not a second too late River made sure to extend the landing gear before reorienting last second and landing hard as she opened both the inner and outer airlock for Mike and Hanna to get inside while pre-charging both the thrusters for liftoff and the FTL drive for a blind jump a few lightyears out of the system.
"MOVE IT!"
Having shielded Hanna from dust and debris kicked up by the Wyrm landing, Mike almost ripped poor Hanna's arm out of its socket as he pulled her up in front of him and basically shoved her into the Wyrm before strapping her firmly into her seat.
"GO!"
Still, without power in his own suit Mike referred to shouting way too loud and tactical hand gestures the very second he himself was strapped into his own seat, leaving River to burn hard as she jumped to hyperspace the very second she cleared the planet's gravity well.
"What the fuck was that!?"
The second the Wyrm's cockpit was repressurised after it had entered hyperspace, Hanna's head was still spinning as her body was still filled with enough adrenaline to push her blood pressure to dangerous levels.
"The very reason why I don't want to be part of any kind of wild 'probing' and shooting wildly at aliens. From the punishment, it withstood unharmed while teleporting, there's no way we can fight something like it without at least learning what we're up against…"
In the end, Mike and River completed Beck's escort commission and handed Hanna back over unharmed, Mike even earned a considerable bonus for safely protecting and extracting Hanna after coming into direct contact with an unknown alien craft which decimated a detachment of the Xeno suppression force. Having handed Hanna back over to the pilot's guild, River immediately started asking about what exactly it was they had encountered.
"So what exactly was that thing? I didn't get a good look, but it seemed outright invincible…"
"That's because they basically are. That thing was a remnant drone, it's the same tech as the things that are pulling numerous galaxies together."
Taking a few seconds to try and think what kind of technology would be needed to 'pull galaxies together', River eventually defaulted to her initial response.
"So basically magic then."
"Basically. According to my game knowledge, they're also extragalactic like the crystal-like entities and seem to combat them and are generally not hostile… Unless you start shooting at them of course."
At this point, River had all but accepted that Mike came from another world, with the number of things he had so far predicted and continued to predict accurately it was just easier to accept it rather than think about the alternatives.
"Right, so avoid confrontation at all cost. What do we do when we inevitably manage to piss one of them off?"
"Pray? Unless we can get our weapons upgraded we have no chance, not even talking about the other shit the remnants have that'll make something like a drone seem like a toy…"
Stopping mid monologue, the look on Mike's face transformed into something River realised was the beginning sign of a very bad idea.
"Luckily we have a subject matter expert already onboard."
"... You can't be serious."
---
"Here we go, remember what I said."
"Sure."
Having fiddled around with the cryostasis pod, Mike initiated the wake-up sequence before backing off a few metres. While River had reluctantly gone along with Mike's frankly insane plan yet again it wasn't until a few seconds after she had watched him start the procedure before she realised something.
"Hey Mike?"
As the stasis pod was starting to vent gas into the Wyrm's pressurised cargo, River spoke up as Mike handed her his pistol.
"What's up?"
"How come you could use that console on the pod?"
"Because I can read their language silly. It isn't that different from talking to you now, as there is no chance Vikings conquered the galaxy to pass down their language… On the other hand, I*EA might have, in which case I definitely wouldn't have been able to understand anyone."
Following a warning tone, the metal lid on the stasis pod swung open like a casket, making Mike shut up as he took a step closer to it.
While nothing happened immediately, within a few minutes the occupant of the pod started to stir, then the occupant woke up almost coughing their lungs out before rolling out onto the floor where they removed their helmet barely in time before puking.
(Somehow it always starts with a terrible hangover, why couldn't it be 'hey, you're finally awake' or something along those lines?)
Although Mike sympathised with the beastkin waking up in a strange world with a splitting headache just like he had done not so long ago he didn't let down his guard either as doing so would be the death of him and possibly River.
"Are you okay? We found you floating around out there."
Switching language, Mike quickly confirmed the beastkin understood what he was saying judging by the pair of ears on top of their head twitching before reorienting to point at him.
"I'm okay, just a little pod sick. Thanks for saving me…"
Wiping her mouth free from puke, the beastkin responded to Mike still pretty dazed, but it seemed like she quickly figured out all was not as it seemed.
"Hold."
"I know."
Reminding River not to move even as her instincts screamed at her, Mike switched back to beastkin language Mike decided honesty would be the best cause of action.
"This is pretty hard to explain, but you're not exactly where you think you are. Please remain calm we mean n-"
Cut short by the beastkin attacking, Mike was forced to dodge a kick which properly would have removed his jaw if he had been a twitch slower.
(Fuck!)
Stumbling back a step Mike was forced on the back foot as the beastkin was a fair bit faster than him, even suffering from pod sickness, something which typically manifested itself as a killer migraine and extreme dizziness. Still, Mike held a bit of a home-field advantage, as the gravity he, River and the beastkin was feeling was due to the Wyrm constantly accelerating all Mike had to do was change the rate of acceleration.
From one second to the next, the Wyrm went from a pleasant 0.6 G all the way to 3.5 G.
(Now!)
The effect on the fight was as instant as it was deeply unfair, taking full advantage of his opponent's collapsing stance Mike restrained her hands and forced her to the floor.
"Calm dow!-"
Not getting a full sentence in after he had restrained the beastkin's arms, Mike's nose was broken as she headbutted his face. Although he went into the fight with noble intentions, Mike wasn't virtuous enough to let that headbutt pass. Still restraining her arms, Mike forced his knee into the beastkin's gut and leveraged a good part of his body weight (still under 3.5 G) on it as he grabbed both of her wrists with one hand while drawing his knife with the free one.
"Enough!"
Switching the blade around to a reverse grip, Mike planted the serrated tungsten blade right next to the beastkin's face.
Just like a drunken bar brawl, nothing puts a damper on a fight like serrated steel. Taking a second to calm himself down, Mike sheathed his knife and lessened the Wyrm's acceleration to 1 G.
"Are you done!?"
Lessening the pressure on his knee a bit, Mike only started realising he was bleeding from the nose when a few drops fell onto the beastkin's face, checking with his free hand to find it slightly out of shape, Mike took another deep breath to calm down before snapping it back into place.
"... I… Yield."
"Great."
Removing his knee entirely and releasing the beastkin's arms, Mike sat back up and took a few more deep breaths to calm down before checking on the beastkin.
"Are you okay? Anything broken?"
Initially confused by the question, the beastkin managed to restrain a bit of her anger as she answered seriously.
"I don't think so, but why would you care?"
"As I tried to say before you attempted to remove my yaw from my face I mean no harm. If I did I would have let my crewmate handle you."
It was only as Mike mentioned River that the beastkin seemed to notice her, even as she was still dizzy from the headbutt and pod sickness she still noticed the amount of bloodlust radiating from River's cold smile.
Every part of her instincts told the beastkin that if she had fought against her, River would have long since painted the cargo bay with her insides.