The Masked Blue Shark: 

Old scars never heal

*****

After engaging in what should have been an easy rescue mission in the Gravata's 82nd system which has a few worlds with sentient life still in its renaissance phase, the Masked Blue Shark is now on his way to rendezvous with his friends in Eldritopolis territory.

While navigating in deep space aboard his personal spaceship the Mordre, he gets up from the pilot seat in the cockpit and heads to the living quarters but just as he is about to enter a beeping is heard from the communications systems in the cockpit indicating someone is trying to hail the Mordre. Blue heads back and sits down in the pilot seat again and activates the communications system.

Blue responds, "Mordre here."

There is a slight, curious pause after Blue answers. Then, a familiar yet irritating male voice with a crazed tinge is finally heard replying, 

"If this is the Mordre, you must be good Ol' Blue. Long time no see. Mind surrendering to us peacefully? The Grand Master misses you..., traitor."

Blue quickly replies while faking interference, 

"I'm afraid you've got the wrong ship. Ksssh, oh no breaking up, kssh. Hang on while I fix the communications kssh."

"No dice, Blue," the voice says. "We've got you trapped. Give up now, and the Grand Master might be lenient towards you."

Blue punches the engines to maximum speed to try and escape.

"Fine then, we'll come to you. We've been waiting for this day,"

Blue hears a loud thud and feels a jerk in his stomach as the ship is suddenly pulled violently backward. 

Blue, "What the hell was that!"

"Just something to keep you from simply jumping out of here," the voice smugly chuckled, "The party hasn't even started. I can't have you leaving too soon."

"This is getting ridiculous. Stop screwing around and show yourself!" Blue shouts over the coms.

A massive red battleship rips through space appearing nearby the Mordre. The battleship dropped out of a thinly veiled mini-dimension. You can see anyone passing by, but they can't see you no matter how advanced their tech is.

"As you wish Blue. By the way, if you don't remember me. Then, let me remind you! The name's Masked Crimson Hammerhead your replacement in the ranks since you betrayed us. And the one who will bring glory to the legion once I've captured you!" Crimson valiantly announces to Blue over the communications system.

"Not today...or ever," Blue says coldly.

The ship is immediately surrounded by many smaller ships the exact same build and design as the Mordre but a dark tan color, as they all come out of tears in space. Each of these little vessels is manned with a small crew, and they all begin firing energy beams at Blue's ship.

Blue attempts to weave through the energy beams and flee Crimson's fleet.

The Mordre roars forward as the energy beams hit its shields and deflect.

Crimson yells "Come on Blue, run faster!" he screams over the intercom sarcastically followed by laughter.

Blue ignores him and keeps a steady course to escape.

Blue feels a sudden jerk as the ship is pierced by a harpoon and yanked back toward the battleship.

He activates the ship's thrusters and tries to pull away from the battleship as the Mordre is being pulled back.

Blue flips a switch to start up the automated defenses and sets the target to the harpoon chain as the turrets come to life and open fire.

The cannons fire blasts of energy destroying the harpoon, tearing it into small pieces and sending the remains flying off into space.

An alarm begins blaring throughout the ship as a female AI voice declares. 

"Shields down to 50%."

"Shields down to 20%."

"Shields down to 10%."

Crimson yells, "Run, Blue, run!" Crimson mockingly laughs at Blue's futile attempt.

Blue activates the main engines and pushes hard to accelerate as he just reaches the edge of the field preventing him from jumping away and shatters a hole in reality to jump away into another universe away from the battleship and its fleet.

After the Mordre crashes another hole through space into a different universe just barely escaping Crimson's fleet, Blue slumps forward in his chair leaning against the console in front of him.

"My reflexes are atrocious," he mutters wearily.

Blue looks up at the cockpit window staring out into the quiet, peaceful space filled with glimmering stars. Exhaustion begins to overtake him. The Mordre still had sirens going off due to damage all across the ship. Blue pushes a few buttons on his console acknowledging the damage as the sirens go silent. He slowly closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep.

---

Blue refreshed from much-needed sleep is in the kitchen of the living quarters setting out two slices of bread on a plate and mixing tuna with mayonnaise and relish. He smears the tuna mix on both slices of bread really giving it a good slathering before closing the two slices together.

Blue's helmet vanishes. 

His young, pale-skinned face along with his left eye patch is visible. He picks up the sandwich and takes a big, satisfied bite. Smiling warmly with his sandwich still in hand, Blue walks back to the cockpit and sits in the pilot seat. He leans back and relaxes eating his sandwich and enjoying his meal.

The ship is still badly damaged and is currently drifting through space. He pushes a few buttons on his console as a star chart hologram opens up at the front of the cockpit. Blue examines what is the nearest planet to his location, and his eyes go wide as he recognizes the planet that is closest to him. A blue light hologram opens up near the planet's projection filling out information.

Blue reads it out loud, "Evitus a planet whose main population is made up of bunny humanoids that live in a society ruled by the church."  

"This data is quite outdated," Blue says uncomfortably while shuffling in his seat.

"It's been fifty years. Fifty long years since I've been there. I'm surprised the data doesn't yet reflect the Legion's occupation," Blue added.

Blue finishes the last bite of his sandwich and sits up in his seat. He looks at the cockpit window seeing his reflection.

"I've changed a lot since then. Maybe now is a good time to give a proper burial to those kids." Blue says as he makes a weak smile sadly remembering something...his helmet reappears.

Blue sits silently taking stock of his ship after the battle. He sees that the hull is riddled with holes and the bottom and left side turrets are destroyed. Blue heads into the engine room in the back of the ship and pulls out a panel in the wall that reveals a series of ports. A plate on his mechanical arm opens up revealing a plug. He pulls the plug out and plugs it into a port and begins downloading data from the ship's database. He finds that the ship is badly damaged and won't get far in its current condition.

Blue continues reading the damage reports. He needs to get repairs soon, and Evitus is the only planet where he can get it done. Since Evitus is under the control of the Legion, he should be able to get the right parts, if not better, after doing some looting.

Blue takes a deep breath and sighs as he gets up and heads out of the engine room and goes to check on the rest of the ship.

After taking stock of the damage, Blue returns to the cockpit taking a seat in the pilot's seat.  He flips a switch to turn the engines back on again and sets a course for Evitus with what little power is left and makes his way there.

---

Upon arrival Blue notices there is a blockade of battleships he doesn't recognize surrounding the planet. He does a scan of the ships and finds nothing in the database.

"Strange ships... I've got a feeling I'm going to be stranded here for a while. Still, I can't very well stay put forever." Blue says as he looks out the cockpit window at the blockade of ships.

"Guess I'm just going to have to wing it to the surface." Blue mutters as he grabs hold of his flight controls.

He starts moving closer as he hits a few buttons to hail the blockading fleet.

"This is the Mordre. Is there anyone I can speak with in regard to getting permission to land?" Blue asks and sits in silence as he gets closer to the planet.

He then notices the turrets on the ships beginning to point at his ship.

"Well monkeynuts, looks like I'm hitting the surface in a blaze of glory!" Blue says as his grin looks like that of a madman and punches the ship full speed towards the planet.

The battleships immediately open fire with a barrage at his unshielded ship. 

"Oh no you don't you bastards!" Blue yells as he dodges the blasts.

"I'm coming in hot!" Blue says as he races through a cluster of incoming fire.

Suddenly, an explosion erupts behind him. The ship spins out of control and gets caught in the planet's gravity well as it's pulled through the atmosphere. Blue quickly activates the Mordre's thrusters and moves the ship to try and break its momentum.

A large explosion shakes the ship, and Blue realizes that his ship is about to crash into the surface of the planet. The ship plummets toward the planet and the impact causes the engines to become unstable and explode. From the burning wreckage, a piece of the ship is launched through the air as Blue appears from where it came from unscathed and unharmed by the explosion walking out of the burning wreckage.

"Looks like I need a new ship." Blue grimaced.

Drop ships land around Blue as somewhat familiar robotic soldiers march off the ships carrying spears tipped with glowing blades. They all stand around him pointing the spears at him.

"Well damn, when did the Overseers get upgraded bots and upgraded ships... now that I think about it?  At least now I know what you are." He says as he holds out his hands and two golden energy pistols materialize into his hands and begins blasting beams of light at the robots each beam of light tears through rows of Overseer bots.

"You're all dead; dead!" Blue screams while he jumps onto the spear of an overseer bot pushing it to the ground and jabs his energy pistols repeatedly at it until it stops moving.

Another robot approaches Blue as he dematerializes his energy pistols and he picks up a spear on the ground by lifting it into the air with his foot and catching it then runs the spear through one bot then lifts that bot up with the spear still impaled in it before smashing it into another bot. Blue then pulls the spear out and continues to run the spear through two bots until he slams it into a third one and then lets go of the spear before kicking the bot nearest to him impaled on the spear and sending the bots with the spear flying through the air away from him.

He then hears clapping from the bots surrounding him. He looks at the bots noticing they are applauding him with their spears resting on their elbows.

"What the hell is this?" Blue glares around cautiously.

Then, the bot horde parts to create a path that leads to the ruins of a city. The bots along the path point down the way.

"This isn't normal Overseer command behaviors..." Blue mutters glancing at the rest of the bots who are still clapping.

"Ok, let's see where this path leads," Blue says taking in a deep breath.

He walks forward through the path of bots.

*****