“..oss? Boss!”

Hearing the voice of Josse, Lloyd’s fluttering eyelids opened wide awake, only for him to curse out loud. Something was wrong with his body. He couldn’t help but clutch his heart over the resin suit.

“Fuuccck… What the hell happened just now?”

He dragged himself away from the corner he had been forced into, all the way to the bed. Lloyd could feel brain kick start and begin working better with every passing second, but his body was doing the opposite. His heart was speeding up instead of slowing down with the every step he took, forcing his lungs into taking breaths faster and faster to deliver more air. By the time he managed to lean on the bed, his implants monitoring his health was showing that his heart rate had reached 220 beats per minute.

‘Not good, I have to go to the infirmary!’

Had it been any other vessel, ship’s computer would have already alerted the medics to rush to his aid. But Lloyd was alone in his ship, so all he could do was drag his hyperventilating mess of a body towards the medical scanner in the neighboring room.

‘Shit!’

He didn’t make halfway through the door before he collapsed to his knees, thinking that death had come for him. Yet, he was proven wrong a second later when his stomach alerted him to lean forward and puke his guts out.

*Bleerrghh*

When the stars in his eyes faded, Lloyd noticed that the foul thing he had vomited was not the dinner he had, but blood. Black, coagulated blood. Next thing he noticed was his heart rate slowing down. Ignoring both, he forced himself into the next room and lay down in the scanner pod. By then his heart rate that had risen to 235 bpm had relaxed down to 190.

‘This is fucking bullshit!’

It was only then that Lloyd truly managed to start to think. For one, he was alive. Whatever that anomaly and the momentum changes he had experienced were, he had lived through it. Next thing he noticed was that the lights, artificial gravity and medical scanner were working, meaning the fission core of the ship was intact and providing power.

‘Right, didn’t I hear Josse’s voice?’

“Josse? Are you there?”

Lloyd tried, hoping that AI could hear and answer him.

“Yes, Boss. I have been trying to wake you up since the crash 37 hours ago, but not even your implant could wake you up.”

Lloyd gave a sigh of relief when he heard the voice of the AI. He justified his relief by convincing himself that he didn’t want to fail his mission, but the truth was he didn’t want to return to being alone in the middle of nowhere.

“Did you say crash? What did we crash to? No, start from the beginning!”

Events that happened before and just after entering the anomaly came back to him, but he didn’t remember crashing into something. It must have happened after he had lost consciousness, but it couldn’t have been too bad, considering he was still alive and ship intact.

“I detected some sort of anomaly on the flight path with the visual sensors. It was somehow refracting the light. I tried to stop the ship, but as deceleration fast enough to stop the ship would have turned you into paste, I failed. It seems like the anomaly was some kind of a wormhole. When we entered it, I found the ship on a re-entry course with a planet. I tried to operate the Grav-plating to counteract the gravity, but I couldn’t bleed the momentum of the ship, resulting in the ship crashing onto the planet.”

Lloyd couldn’t believe what he was hearing. An unknown space anomaly was one thing, but coming across a wormhole and traveling through it was another. If he ever managed to convince people that he was not a lunatic spouting lies, he would either get a medal or get shot to keep it secret. It was at this point that Lloyd’s thoughts manage to catch up to reality.

“Planet..? Are we on a planet??”

“Yes, sir. From what I gathered, we are on the second planet out of the 14 planets, counting from the star of this system. This planet has 3 moo-“

Lloyd had no choice but to cut the ramblings of the AI short.

“Enough! Report the immediate situation and the damage done to the ship!”

He felt like cursing whoever had programmed Josse, but stopped himself. He knew it was his fault for not giving contextual clues on what he wanted to hear. Any other human would have understood what he meant, but the AI was not human. He had asked Josse about the planet they were in, and the AI had started to answer him, and whether the passion in its voice when talking about the system was genuine or just simulated, didn’t really matter.

“There is no immediate danger, as the crash managed to scare away any living beings I managed to spot before landing. But I am unable to see whether they are returning or not. The ship crashed into a hilly area near the southern end of one the continents. To the West and South West is a light forest followed by mountains and cliffs before turning into an ocean. South is flatlands for about 50 kilometers after the small hilly region we are in ends, and it joins the same ocean after that. As for the East, there is a giant forest that goes for hundreds of kilometers, but there is a big river before that.”

As Josse spoke, he also started to send pictures taken during the descent into the screen inside the room. While Lloyd saw these pictures, they didn’t sink in. His mind was too busy trying to cope with the reality.

‘Not only have I crashed into a planet with atmosphere, it even has trees, rivers and fauna…’

“North is the most interesting part. Just 3 km away from here there is a river, which marks the starting point of marshes. It ends after 40 or so kilometers near another river, but I managed to spot some lights after that. I think the planet is populated with sentient creatures.”

Lloyd stayed silent for some time, trying to process the mess he had gotten himself into. Thankfully something else distracted him soon enough.

*Ding!*

It was the notification sent by the medical equipment. Scanner had long finished doing its job and passed the information to the analyzer, but Lloyd hadn’t noticed it with his muddled brain. He didn’t even need to get up, as the information had been sent to his implant that had been fused to his retina.

‘All green? How could it be? There is not even concussion!’

He had expected internal injuries, broken bones and brain damage, but medical equipment had disagreed with him. There were no broken bones or bruises from the tussle he had almost 2 days ago. That was at least plausible, and the lack of brain damage from high G maneuvers could be attributed to luck, but the blood he had puked not even ten minutes ago was proof that he had bled into his stomach from somewhere. But there was nothing in his report.

“Josse, what about the ship? How is the damage?”

Since Lloyd had woken up, every step he had taken; everything he learned had thrown him to more and more confusion. But he was confident that he should be able to understand this topic at the least.

“It’s not looking good, Boss. I had to orient the bow towards the ground to minimize the damage, so the front third of the ship has turned into slag. We have lost the observation deck, navigation, main gun, primary hydroponics and the secondary engineering along with all the cameras and point defense weapons located at the front. We still have all other weapon systems online. As for rest of the ship, Fission core and the containment chambers are fine. Forge and the primary engineering where my core is located are little jostled, but operational. But the secondary hydroponics will need manual cleaning. Also, we have lost the front Grav-plating nodules…”

Lloyd’s face, which was turning more hopeful as Josse spoke soured at the end. Third of the ship might have been destroyed, but as long it could hold air with some repairs, the ship still could fly without it. And as long as one of the engineering rooms survived, it was okay to lose the other and the bridge where navigation system were located. Anything else could be repaired.

But there was only one piece of vital tech that the Forge couldn’t repair or replace.

Grav-plating nodules.

They were miraculous pieces of modern science and engineering, and they couldn’t be manufactured without factories that cost trillions upon trillions of Credits. These devices that made up almost 50% of any ships manufacturing costs could cancel out most of the gravity emitted by a source. Without them, the 70 meter long Autumn Voyage couldn’t escape planet’s gravity well.

‘Wait, Grav-plating is down? So am I feeling the planet’s gravity?’

Lloyd finally moved off the scanner to hop around couple times to familiarize with the gravity, but it was the same human standard he was used to. His body had cooled down by now, and he was feeling in top shape again. Whatever it was that had made him like that, it was long gone. Remembering the spilled blood, Lloyd’s lips twitched.

‘Shit, I have a lot to clean up.’

It was right then when Lloyd got a crazy idea in his head, so he asked Josse for confirmation.

“Josse, simulate the Earth tectonic plates to see if this could be Earth but in future!”

 Trees, rivers, marshes and something smart enough to use fire. Lloyd had a suspicion that this was Earth, and he had travelled into future or perhaps even to the past.

“Err, Boss? I did the simulations, but nothing is coming up. I mean, the gravity here is 2% less than Earth’s, so there is no way your hypothesis is true.”

Lloyd could only sigh as he went towards the closet to get the cleaning equipment. The mess had to be cleaned one way or another, and he was only one that could do it, as he had decided that a cleaning bot was unnecessary on a one man ship.

Done with the mess in the corridor, Lloyd moved into the hydroponics room. He was sure that he was not going to enjoy cleaning there. A tussle in a room that was used to grow things was never easy to clean. Indeed, as soon as the doors to the hydroponics room opened, he was met with a wet floor doused with dirt and fertilizer. But what got his attention the most was the single ray of light streaming in from the reinforced plastic window.

“Josse have you analyzed the atmosphere of the planet yet?”

How he had forgot to ask this, he didn’t know. Just because there were trees, water and life here didn’t mean it was suitable for him. It would have been horrible if he found it out the hard way that he couldn’t go out without a suit.

“Yes, Boss. Air composition is very similar normal Earth atmosphere. 24% oxygen, 74% nitrogen and 1 percent argon, rest are trace gasses. Actually, the ship atmosphere has been breached. You are breathing the planets air.”

Lloyd didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or get enraged.

“And why didn’t you tell me this before I asked?”

Looking at the bright side, at least he knew that he had one less worry now. Oxygen was little higher than normal, however it wasn’t enough to be deadly, and his body would adapt to it. But the similarities between this planet and Earth were growing by the minute. He wasn’t sure what to think about it, and frankly he had too much on his plate at the moment. So he threw his body to work, in the hopes that it would help him calm down. However his body tensed up again when he thought about the irritants like pollen that could be in the air, before remembering that medical scanner could have spotted anything like that in his health report.

After 3 mindless hours of work, Lloyd had managed to bring the hydroponics into a working condition, and also managed to figure out his next steps.

First thing he had decided was that he couldn’t leave immediate surroundings of the ship. He didn’t know the local flora or fauna, so getting out of the protective bubble the ship’s remaining weapons provided would be a mistake.

Second thing he had decided was to scout the area and gather information. Thankfully, he didn’t have to do it himself.

Lloyd moved towards the back of the ship, to the cargo bay that also acted as the hangar. Tucked behind many crates containing MREs, parts and metal reserves were the 2 devices he had never thought that he would use anytime soon. One of them was a battery powered car. It was a 2 person 4 wheeler with a maximum range of 550 km, and it had a large trunk to carry samples or transport equipment. It had been designed to be used in hostile environments such as Mars or in space rocks with no atmospheres, so it had a clear plastic bubble roof to make it airproof. The fact that it was hardened and bulletproof was a bonus. But Lloyd wasn’t here for that, but rather the other device, the drone.

Just like the 4 wheeler, it was made to be operated in thin atmospheres or in no air at all. Gravity here was higher and the atmosphere was thicker, but it would still work, just with a drastically shortened range. While it could be set to automatic to patrol for days in Mars, Lloyd guessed that it would still work for at least half a day before returning to the base to recharge.

It took him minutes to carry the drone to a clearing near the entrance and set up the charging port so Josse could operate it without his input.

“All right, fly in a circular search pattern starting from the ship. Hit me up when you find something.”

As soon as Lloyd finished his order, drone came to life under Josse’s control. The AI was using the comms of the ship to connect with the drone. After a routine check, the 4 propellers of the drone came to life and lifted it half a meter to the air. It also had a small jet engine that could increase the operational range and the speed of the drone, but Lloyd wanted to preserve his limited supplies for now. There was no knowing if he ever could return to Sol.

“Got it Boss.”

The doors of the cargo bay slowly retracted, showing the beauty of the foreign planet to him and allowing the drone to leave. While it was novel, Lloyd was weirded out for another reason.

‘It’s too similar to the old Earth from the movies and the games…’

Giving another sigh, Lloyd grabbed an MRE and headed towards the conference room of the ship that he had appropriated as a dining room.

“So, Josse, what where you saying about the planet having 3 moons..?”

. . .

Having finished his meal an hour ago, Lloyd was still seated at the conference room, watching a recording of a deer eating the fauna that the drone had managed to capture, while he listened Josse go over the non-critical data the AI had gathered. In this hour and a half, the drone had roughly scanned all the way up to the river to north and the woods to the west, and it approaching the limit on the eastern front too, as the camera on board couldn’t pierce the thick canopy of the trees even with the infrared vision.

Both the flora and fauna of this planet interested him, but for different reasons. When it came to animals, it was because they were too familiar. The drone had managed to spot couple of deer, an overgrown rat and a small wolf pack. While they were similar, they all had small differences with their counterparts from Earth. The rat which was the most similar to his expectations, was simply too big. While it was hard to guess the exact size from the camera feed, Josse had calculated it to be at least 80 cm long and 30 or so cm tall, not counting the tail. The deer had large scales that looked better fit on a pangolin than it. And the wolves had 3 eyes instead of the normal two…

Plants looked more normal compared to the animals, but neither he nor Josse could recognize most them- with the exception of couple flowers and common grass. Most interesting specimen was the 100 or so meter tall tree that had grown on top of one of the highest hills. Even that wasn’t too interesting; as there were trees that grew that tall on the records of Earth that he had given to Josse.

He was listening to Josse talk about the simulated weather of the continent when the feed on the screen changed to show a big river.

“We have another hit, but it’s a little… different.”

Josse claimed as the camera zoomed on the opposite coast of the river. There were 4 creatures on the screen. They were short- not even a meter tall according to Josse, hunched back and rather busy. 2 of them were trying and failing to climb one of the trees that extended for hundreds of kilometers east to gather some sort of fruits, and the other 2 were fucking near the river. He was guessing that one of the last two were a female, but he couldn’t be too sure with the alien biology. What he knew was that they were clearly animals, or perhaps primitives with limited intelligence with their actions and the lack of apparent clothing and tools.

Lloyd would have claimed them to be chimpanzees if not for other differences they had. For one, they didn’t have tails. But what made his eyes go wide were the other differences. The animals had long ears, no fur and most importantly, they were green. Both Lloyd and Josse had another name in their minds for these creatures.

‘They are goblins!’

Lloyd’s widened eyes calmed down as he let out a small chuckle to himself. He had expected to be surprised, but he had not expected this. Not only had he traveled to another planet hosting life, he had came to a fantasy world. It was both a liberating and horrifying thought. Liberating, since this line of thought brought many possibilities, and horrifying because he didn’t know if any other fantasy creatures also inhabited this planet.

‘Would the weapons of the ship even penetrate a dragon’s hide..?’

Lloyd didn’t know, nor was he sure that he wanted to find out. So he buried his thoughts with actions- by getting up and heading towards the armory.

“Josse, bring the drone back to escort me to the river bank.”

He had decided to study these creatures. What Lloyd was lacking at the moment was information. He didn’t know much about this world, and even though he was learning fast, not all of his recourses were getting used at the moment. There were other ways to get some of his questions answered. Besides, what did the sentient inhabitants of this world look like? Were they accommodating or would he be hunted down by them? How strong were they? How far had they developed?

‘No, locals shouldn’t be too advanced. Cameras didn’t record any light bleeding into the sky, so they still haven’t discovered electricity. Or perhaps they are not using them for cultural reason. Or they don’t need them with their low light vision. They could even be underground civilization. Fuck, we are back on square one.’

Lloyd had one blessing working in his favor. Josse hadn’t spotted any artificial light or lit fire anywhere close to where he was. Closest was to the north, but it was separated from the ship by 2 rivers and 40 kilometers of marshes and bogs.

Reaching the Armory room opposite to his bedroom, the door opened on its own after reading the short range IFF code that his implant emitted. Lloyd hadn’t removed the identity confirmation requirements from the armory of the one man ship just in case he was forced to ferry passengers in his missions.

Left wall of the tiny room was covered with body armors, different kinds of munitions and batteries, while the right side held the weapons. Lloyd’s  stash couldn’t hold a candle to his father’s collection of expensive antiques and banned weaponry but it wasn’t too small either. All Lloyd had was couple of pistols, 2 rifles and one sniper. Rest were their ammunition, accessories, parts and other expendables such as grenades and explosives.

First thing Lloyd took was an armor from the left wall. It was nearest item on the left wall to the entrance for a good reason. It would cover everything from his neck to junk while not limiting his movements. As this armor- standard armor of the marines throughout the Solar system, was made from a 3mm thick kevlar and hardened polymer layers, it wasn’t too heavy either. After complementing it with a pair of boots and a brown helmet he moved to the other wall to get armed. Lloyd’s hand first reached for his favorite pistol, the 2 mm gauss gun. It shot small needle like projectiles at high speed, but the power behind each shot could be adjusted manually. This pistol could penetrate 80 mm of steel at 100 meters on highest power, but the same armor he was wearing could easily take dozens of hits from the pistol.

After holstering his first weapon of choice and picking out a knife just in case, Lloyd moved on to the last thing he was going to take out from this room- a rifle.

The one he picked out of the two was a 120 centimeter long beast. It was a rail gun that could empty its 50 shot magazine of titanium slugs in less than 10 seconds. This beauty was made to answer the ever increasing quality of armors that posed a problem for the militaries. No matter how strong your armor was, it didn’t matter if your body inside it couldn’t take the heat that came from massive momentum of the bullet getting transferred into you.

After grabbing a couple of extra magazines, Lloyd moved to the cargo bay to fire up his transportation, the 4 wheeler. Just a minute later, Lloyd was out of the Autumn Voyage and on his way to get a goblin for the ship’s medical scanner to work its magic on. It could scan and analyze everything down to cellular scale, so Lloyd was hoping that it could shed some light on the biology of this world. Josse also informed him that the drone was hovering 2 kilometers above him to keep an eye on his vicinity not long after. The hills he was driving through were gentle and surprisingly barren of large rocks and trees, allowing the 4 wheeler to speed away.

Just short 3 kilometers after he had left his ship, Lloyd could see the giant tree on the top of the hill he had seen previously on the feed. Now that he was looking at it from below instead of the top, it seemed majestic and mysterious with its orange, golden and green leaves swaying in the soft wind. But Lloyd couldn’t watch it for much longer, as the river came in view just 500 meters after he passed the tree.

Lloyd disembarked after picking up his rifle when he was as close as he was comfortable approaching the river bank with the vehicle. The soil under his feet began to feel soft when he was 20 meters away from the flowing water, and the last 5 meters were practically a bog. Lloyd didn’t have to search for the goblins as they were highlighted in his vision with the help of the data Josse was sending to his retinal implant. The creatures had stopped trying to climb the trees and fucking during his short journey here. Instead, 2 of the goblins that had been trying to climb the trees were flinging mud and stones at each other while hollering seemingly randomly. It took a minute of observation for Lloyd to understand what was going on. They were fighting to figure out who else would procreate with the sole female of the group. When the rock thrown by one the goblins hit the other one in the head, all hell broke loose. Three other goblins, including the female and its previous partner, jumped on the injured one and started to beat it with sticks and rocks and tear it into pieces, slowly savoring the flesh.

Lloyd’s stomach churned at this sight. He had been sure these were not the same race that used fire in this continent, as he had seen them act feral on the feed, but this was another thing entirely. Lloyd lost the last bit of hesitation he had for culling animals on a new planet. These beings deserved dying.

“Josse, give a small honk.”

The 2 groups were separated by about 15 meters of banks and 50 or so meter wide river. Lloyd was sure they wouldn’t be able to spot him for another half a day if he didn’t give them a small help, so he told Josse to honk the horn of the 4 wheeler. He had been internally debating what to do before as he didn’t knew what kind of reaction they would have. But now, he was sure that it would be hostility. If they could swim, they would come to his side, if not, there wasn’t much he could do, as Lloyd was not going to go for a swim in such a situation no matter what.

The 3 surviving goblins stopped eating and turned towards the origin of the sound like deer caught in a headlights. Lloyd managed to finally grab their attention with a small wave of his arm.

He had hoped them to charge at him, but he hadn’t expected them to go apeshit crazy, acting like a group of lunatic monkeys. One of them started to roar, other male began beating his chest while the female one started screeching as if Lloyd had killed its offspring.

Finally, after testing him out,trying and failing to throw rock all the way to him, all 3 jumped in the water and began making their way towards him. They paddled like dogs rather than swim like how a human would, and this made them horrible swimmers. Lloyd had to wait 2 whole minutes for them to swim the 50 meters. During this time, Lloyd switched the rifle to his left arm to draw his pistol with his freed hand. With the help of Josse’s data, he set the power of the pistol so that the ammo would not pierce the sound barrier. He had seen their power when they had tried to throw rock at him, and he was not impressed. And since they had managed to kill the other one bare-handed with their paltry strength, their resilience also left a lot to be desired.

‘They aren’t even half as strong as the chimpanzees at the zoos’

 He didn’t know how such a weak being could evolve and survive in a planet that also sported wolf packs and deer with scales. And Lloyd didn’t want to think too much about it. Scanner back at the ship would hopefully give him some clues when he dragged the bodies back to base.

Lloyd didn’t retreat too much so he would not to risk the creatures losing sight of him, but he stepped back so he would have 20 meters between him and shore. When the first goblin set foot on soil again, it charged at Lloyd without waiting for the other ones. Seeing that the slowest goblin managed to reach the bank when the first one was 10 meters away from him, Lloyd lifted his pistol and fired at the neck of the goblin closest to him.

*Beep* *Splash*

There was no hammer for it drop inside the gun, nor was there gunpowder to ignite, which made the pistol silent to operate. And since he had set it to be sub-sonic, the projectile didn’t make much noise either as it flew straight. Not even the sound of the bullet hitting and blowing out the back of the neck of the goblin was noticeable. Only the beep of the gun indicating it was ready to fire again and the sound of the bullet hitting the river behind the goblin was heard.

Not wasting time, Lloyd aimed at the other 2 goblins and dropped them one by one. Lloyd approached the bodies to examine and carry them back to the car. The bullet had hit the spine of the first one, obliterating it and killing the creature instantly. Last one had also died the same way, but to his surprise, the other one was still alive. The projectile had nicked the artery in its neck and punched through its windpipe, but it was still alive. Lloyd debated whether to put it out of its misery, but decided to see how long it would live. It would die for sure, but how soon was what Lloyd wanted to see. In the myths, while goblins were usually one of the weakest monsters, all of the monsters had an unnatural tenacity to them.

The creature didn’t have to suffer long as it breathed its last 1 minute and 4 second after it was injured. Lloyd was no medical expert- his only training had been the first aid and medic classes in the Academy, but he knew that he couldn’t live that long with a pierced windpipe and an artery gushing blood down his throat. Ignoring the bodies for a second, Lloyd approached the river to gather a water sample, before returning to drag 2 of the bodies back to the car, one male and one female. His journey back to the ship was short under the watchful eye of the drone, but the sun of this planet was already beginning to set.

Lloyd parked his transportation on the charging dock at the cargo bay as the giant door lifted themselves closed, and went to armory to put back his gear where they belonged. Only after that did he return to carry the goblins to the medical scanner. But Lloyd began cursing as soon as he opened the trunk.

‘Fuck, should have put a tarp first!’

The 2 goblin bodies had leaked liquids all over the trunk, leaving him a mess to clean. Lloyd went to put a plastic cover on the scanner before returning to carry the goblins in.

The scanner gave an estimation of 7 hours for it to fully scan the alien biology of the goblins, and 30 minutes to analyze the water sample he had brought. With his free time, Lloyd took a shower and cleaned his blood smeared clothes, leaving the trunk for tomorrow to deal with.

He didn’t bother dressing himself, instead choosing to grab his fresh clothes and head towards the bedroom. Apparently, passing out for more than a day didn’t mean you actually got a good rest.

‘Live and learn, huh.’

The results of the water analysis came when he was already in bed.

“Boss, scanners found no parasites, but there are bacteria present in the sample. Scanner says your immunity system should be able to deal with it.

Lloyd had expected something like that about the bacteria. After all, if his enhanced body was unable to deal with them, it was highly likely he would have never woken up after spending a day and half sleeping in an alien biosphere. He had taken the sample to see if it was drinkable or if it contained some kind contaminant. But he didn’t want to deal with it now.

“Alright Josse. See you later.”

‘Tomorrow. I’ll have look at it tomorrow.’

“Goodnight Boss.”

. . .

Lloyd jumped up from his bed, his implant forcing him awake due to an urgent notification sent by Josse.

‘For fucks sake, what is it now?!’

“Hello. Sorry, boss, but I had to wake you up. An unknown entity has come close to the ship.”

‘What?’

“Show me.”

The monitor in front of the bed came to life, showing live recording from one of the cameras of the ship. On the screen, a human could clearly be seen with the help of the night vision setting, observing the ship from the bushes near the foot of the next hill. Perhaps he had thought that he was hidden enough as it was dark outside.

“Any orders?”

Lloyd was shocked awake when he saw the human, million ideas streaming through his brain. Afterwards his eyes swam around, noting the equipment the spying man had.

‘Leather armor, a shield and a sword… If his equipment is representative of the technology level of this world, this must be a medieval society.’

“Set up an exclusion zone. If it comes within 5 meters of the ship or me, kill it. But fire a warning shot when it comes within 10 meters of me uninvited. I am going out.”

Killing someone in this world would be a bad move, but getting captured by one would be even worse. As far as he knew, they could be cannibals, or burn him for being a sorcerer or a witch like back in medieval times on Earth. Hiding was also out, he couldn’t hide the ship before, and now it was already too late if he didn’t stop this man.

Lloyd quickly dressed himself and rushed to the armory to get his armor and pistol. He didn’t take his rifle as if it ever come down to it, ships weapons were more accurate, stronger and faster than he ever could be. He took the pistol more for peace of mind than necessity.

Done with getting armed, Lloyd ran to the cargo bay to get out of the ship, all the while listening to Josse report the actions of the human. He had come closer to the ship, but he was still 25 meters away.

Lloyd impatiently waited with a pistol in hand as the bay doors lowered themselves. He spotted the human after taking a single step out of the ship, or rather, he locked eyes with the spying man with who was looking at him with a gaping mouth.

“&%)@&*@$%$^*@#$?”

Lloyd’s brows got crossed. It had come to his mind that he wouldn’t be able to understand locals, but the issue had escaped his mind in his surprise. Just as Lloyd was contemplating how to solve this issue, the other human decided for him. All it took for him to charge at him like cheetah with his sword was Lloyd to blink. He was fast, faster than a normal human might have been hundreds of years ago, but with the developments in genetic manipulation, Lloyd could easily follow and match his movements. He didn’t even bother lifting the pistol, and instead chose to keep his attention on the man.

“Josse, fire a warning shot.”

Josse who had been waiting for the charging human to come within 10 meters quickly acknowledged the order and brought one of the point defense guns online. Half a second after Lloyd had given the order, a tiny projectile had raced down the barrel of the gun, sailed through the air and impacted 8 centimeters in front of the left foot of the spy turned assailant.

The local flew 6 meters to the back, losing consciousness even before hitting the ground. The man didn’t get any external injuries, but Lloyd could only hope it was the case for his internals too.

Lloyd stood still for seconds, waiting for his mind to catch up to what just happened.

“JOSSE, do you fucking now what warning shot is?!”