(old)

??? -- Markus

As Markus was rushing to don his engineering Suit, he watched the group of supposed bandits through the outside cameras walk up to the freight container. As he clicked the arms into place on his suit, Markus watched them climb up said freight container and call out to ask where Allisarah was. As the man sent to check inside the freight container crested the lip of the door to look inside, he saw him turn back and say something to the rest of the men scattered about.

After Markus put on the legs of the suit, the rest of the men convened, then spread out to look for Allisarah. A two-man group went towards the ship, one went towards the highest hill nearby, and the rest comprising of a group of three went towards the materials scattered about at the base of the ship.

Grabbing the helmet off the ground, Markus walked out of the bedroom and towards engineering 2. Donning the helmet and walking through the doors, Markus saw that Allisarah had already strapped her knives and bows to herself and was testing her knives by pulling them out of the sheaths they were in and placing them back.

Looking up, Allisarah saw the 7 foot metal giant walk through the door of the ship. While Markus was 6’9”, the engineering suit put on several more inches to his stature. Taking a step back subconsciously, Allisarah asked if he was ready.

Looking down at her, Markus wanted to lay out the ground rules for the engagement, but needed some information first. “What crimes are we liable to be charged with if we kill these men?”

Allisarah looked at him in askance and thought for a moment. “Oh, you mean like if they were nobles and this was a court?”

Markus nodded in the suit.

“Well frankly, the court in Banver’s is more corrupt than most due to nepotism. Generally, we would just talk to the guard, maybe a marshal or captain of the guard might get involved, but these guys are known as brigands. So they probably wouldn’t give us a second look if we told them as such and gave them some valuables.”

“Oh, well that’s much better than what I thought it was going to be like. Okay, here are the rules of engagement. You pepper anyone coming in from up on the ledge of engineering 3, I’ll deal with anyone who comes close. Deal?”

Allisarah gave him a concerned look. “Pepper? What’s pepper?”

“It’s a figure of speech, I want you to shoot them with your bow.”

Allisarah had understanding spread across her face. “Ahh, Alright. Seems fair enough. You with your,” she gestured to him, “bulk, can hold them off.”

“That’s the idea.”

Markus went over to the door that once led to engineering 3, but now led to the outside world. Connecting his HUD to the data link for the cameras, Markus saw that the 2 man group had arrived at the ship. One was yelling to the three man team that was surveying the nuclear reactor materials to get over here. Looking at a different camera, Markus saw that the rope was still attached to the side of the ship, and the other of the two-man group at the bottom had their weapon drawn and was shouting for allisarah to come out.

“Damn, change of plans. Allisarah, you’re going to go to the door across from personal- across from the bedroom and stay there, when it opens, look out and start shooting. There will be 3 coming around, and it looks like one has a bow, so be careful. When you need to step back or dodge, there is a panel on the side of the door that looks exactly like this one.” Markus pointed towards the keypad next to the door. He then pointed out a large rectangular button on the top. “Press this to close the door behind you. I’ll open the door from here when the 3 others are just passing you, okay?”

Allisarah nodded her head. “Sounds good, you capable of dealing with the two out there?”

“Should be able to. Now go, they're coming.”

Allisarah darted off down the hallway, Markus closing the doorway behind her as she went.

Markus opened the engineering 3 door and stepped out. Aiming for the middle of the both of them, Markus started falling. The bandit on the right with his sword out was looking up at Markus as he did so, then immediately pushed his friend over.

Landing in a crouch, Markus glanced at the pushed over bandit to his left. Seeing that he would be down for a few moments Markus looked to his right to see the other bandit staggering back from the dust kicked up by Markus’ landing. Markus was about to ask them if they could leave, when the staggered bandit charged at him with his sword raised.

Holding out his hand, Markus grabbed the sword as it swung towards him and slammed into his palm. While the suit had an exoskeleton that was semi-delicate, the suit around his hands might as well have been tank armor to these people. Heat resistant, cold resistant, puncture resistant, cut resistant, and able to withstand the oppressive vacuum of space, Markus’ Engineering suit was more advanced than anything anyone on the planet had ever seen.

Probably.

Wrenching the sword sideways out of the grip of the bandit with his other hand, Markus looked up and tossed the sword onto the ledge of the ship.

Looking back at the bandit, Markus saw that he was trying to find something in his belt, probably some sort of knife. Stepping forward, Markus reared his hand back and punched the bandit in the chest.

Markus heard a squelch of viscera and watched as the bandit flew back 10 feet.

While the engineering suit wasn’t made for combat, it sure as hell could dole out as much force as needed when it wanted too.

Taking a moment to process what just happened, Markus looked over at the bandit that was on the ground. During his scuffle with righty however, it seems lefty had gotten up, drawn his sword, and was swinging it directly for Markus’ head.

Positioning his left arm in front of the blade to block, Markus heard a hiss of releasing pressure as the sword sliced into the exoskeleton frame of the suit. While it didn’t penetrate the suit, it did penetrate the hydraulics of the exoskeleton.

Losing most of his movement in his left forearm, Markus quickly punched out at lefty as well, but the bandit dodged back, gaining distance. Looking behind lefty, Markus could see the three-man group of bandits jogging under the door of personal storage 2, or the door Allisarah was stationed at. Pinging his HUD to open the door, Markus saw Allisarah step out and take aim at the three-man group.

Allisarah hit one of the men in the three man group in the left side of the ribs, an arrow jutting out of his stomach.

Hoping that it was an incapacitating shot, Markus set to work on the man in front of him.

Putting his left arm behind himself and striking out with his right arm, Markus charged forward with a haymaker. The bandit’s instincts told him to block the hit with his sword, but it seemed that it wasn’t enough. Smashing into his sword like it wasn’t there and continuing on to his shoulder, Markus smashed the bandit into the side of the ship like he was hit by a car. Most likely breaking half the bones in the bandits shoulder area, Markus stood up, looking at the approaching bandit.

The bandit hit by allisarah was slumped on the ground next to the ship, trying to tend to his wound. The extra bandit had split off and was hiding behind a rock, using his bow to pepper the doorway Allisarah was inside.

The other was coming to help lefty out.

Grunting, Markus readied himself with the best approximation of a boxing stance he could do. That is, that he could do with only one arm operational.

The man coming up to Markus had his sword pointed forward, as if to skewer Markus on the end of his blade.

Twisting his body before the man could do so, Markus slapped the sword to the side and tackled the man. At least, that’s what markus thought it looked like. From the sidelines, it was more of a man running into Markus and Markus falling on the man.

Putting his right arm on the mans chest, as his left was out of commission, Markus stood up. Or at least, he tried to stand up. Putting that much weight onto a man’s chest can really break some bones.

Just like putting his weight on the middle of a cardboard box, Markus’ hand crushed through the man’s chest, killing him almost instantly. “Ah fuck” Markus muttered. Looking up, Markus saw one more bandit in the distance running towards the fight, but as he got closer, he started backing up and running away.

Standing up and looking over at the man sitting behind the rock, Markus was hit by an arrow fired from his bow. While it didn’t penetrate the suit, it did knock him on his ass.

Looking down towards the archer again, he could see him lining up another shot at Markus. As Markus brought his only working arm up to protect himself, however, no shot came. Slowly moving his arm away from his sightline, Markus saw an arrow sticking out of the archer’s neck.

Surveying the area, it seemed that the only bandit left alive was the one with the arrow in the ribs, as it seemed it hadn’t punctured a lung. He was attempting to stand when it seemed they locked eyes, and as he surveyed the battlefield as well, he dropped back down.

Looking towards him, Markus stood up and began heading his way. As Markus arrived, he shouted at the man. “Put your weapon to the side and you won’t be harmed!”

Quickly undoing his sword belt and throwing the contraption to the side, Markus picked it up and chucked it towards lefty. Looking down at the man, Markus asked the man his name.

“My name? The fuck you want my name for?” The warty man said. “Just kill me and be done with it.”

“Well if you really want to die that quickly, I can always oblige.” Markus said to the man. As Markus wound up to crush the mans skull, Allisarah leaned out the side of the ship and yelled down to Markus.

“Don’t kill him!” She shouted. “We may have use for him yet!”

“And what use would that be, Alli?” Markus shouted back, playing with a nickname. “You’re not a cannibal, are you?”

Allisarah laughed. “No, but we can ransom him most likely, or get a bounty for him at the commissioner’s office. There are many things we could do!”

“You can do that if you want to, I have nowhere to house him. And only after you teach me about magic!” he yelled up to her.

Taking the man under the arm, Markus walked him over the place where he hopped down from engineering 3. Putting him in a precarious princess carry by grabbing his left arm with his right, Markus jumped and just barely caught the edge. Markus was huffing and puffing for some reason. He reckoned it was because of all the excitement and chalked it up to the adrenaline rush.

Putting him down, Markus walked him into Engineering 2 and tied him with some wires to a piece of metal sticking out from the rending of the Eclipse drive. Meeting with Allisarah, she noticed Markus’s limp left arm.

“What happened? Are you hurt?” she asked, motioning towards his left arm.

“No, but this suit is going to be a bitch to get off now. Would you mind helping me? It would speed up the process considerably.” Markus said while popping off his helmet.

Allisarah blushed. “What of the bandit who ran for the hills? Do you want me to hunt him down or?” Allisarah said, leaving it open ended and ignoring the request to help strip.

As he was about to answer in the positive, Markus sucked in a breath of air. Something was wrong. What felt like the right of his stomach and the right side of his lower abdomen felt like they were on fire suddenly.

Almost falling over, Markus stumbled into his bedroom. Allisarah was saying something, but at this point Markus could barely hear anything over the roaring pain in his mid-section. Stumbling his way to the bedroom Markus looked around in a daze of pain. Realizing what the problem was through the pain, Markus started grabbing for one of the drawers next to his bed. Opening it up, Markus looked inside, and saw something that made the fiery pain turn into an ice cold in his chest.

Opening the clear bag and swallowing the pill, Markus’ pain nearly instantly faded away.

Hearing Allisarah still questioning him, Markus began to explain.

“I have inside me two organs that can become detrimental to my health should I not take these supplements,” he said while holding up the baggy with ‘good luck’ written in English on the side of it. Inside were 2 more pills, where there should be hundreds. “It is fortunate that I did not pass out sooner.”

Allisarah snatched it out of the air, saying “Good luck? Why would someone write that on this?”

“I’m not sure.” Markus said. “But I can only begin to- wait. Did you just read English?”

“No? It’s written in Serendell common. Can you suddenly read Serendell common now, Mr Celestial?” she said with a smile.

Markus took the bag back and looked at it. It was written in English. Standing up and grabbing a data-pad from the table, Markus snapped a picture of it. When he looked at it on the screen of the data-pad, Markus saw binary.

What the fuck?

Looking back at the bag, Markus didn’t see any writing anymore. Flipping it over turned up nothing as well.

Double what the fuck?

Looking through the rest of his drawers and cabinets, Markus still found no sign of any Fresh Organ pills anywhere.

Slumping down, he reasoned that he had about a 2-week supply before the Fresh Organs in his body started ripping his body apart to sustain themselves.

He had 2 weeks to perform surgery in a medieval environment and not die of some sort of infection. It would have been fine if he was removing some other organ, but he was going to be removing the organs responsible for his good health and that house the capability for Markus to be so hardy against infection.

“Well, fuck me.” Markus muttered.

He also realized that he would have to build the reactor without his engineering suit functional as well, seeing as left forearm hydraulics was busted. He guessed his suit wasn't made for this type of activity.

"Double fuck me." he muttered while rubbing his face.