Chapter 12

Luna bit her lip as she was camouflaged with the surrounding area. She wasn't far from the two men and she couldn't actually move. While the suit offered her stealth it did nothing to conceal the crunch of footsteps on sand.

"An angel?" She overheard the redhead ask with a roll of his eyes. The skepticism was clear as day. "Now I know you have a concussion."

"Hey!" The other on the ground exclaimed before getting up. Luna inched back so he wouldn't brush against her. Her step back however caused her to step on a twig. She mentally screamed as the men were alert again. This was not going well. They had guns, which was more firepower than they had expected from a planet that had been abandoned. During her schooling it was often reiterated year after year during history classes that the people left on Earth, after all these centuries, had devolved back to the Stone age. Now Luna knew that was wrong. She wanted to kick her robotic teacher in the circuit boards. 'Did humanity make up the devolution so that they could feel better about themselves for abandoning this planet?' she asked herself as the men looked around.

Her eyes widened when a suspicious sound was heard further away. "What was that?" She saw the redhead ask as he looked and aimed his weapon in that direction. She then felt someone grabbing her arm. She saw no one but was dragged back quickly to a safe distance. Luna tried to stifle her surprise as Mendia deactivated her stealth suit to appear before her.

"What the hell were you thinking?!" Mendia asked in an angry whisper. "If the Captain hears about this....."

"I'm sorry!" Luna whispered back. "I was in my assigned area when I took notice of their gear. They had greater firepower than I imagined. I panicked."

"That still doesn't excuse you from breaking stealth protocol. If I hadn't been here they would have gotten you!" Mandia growled once she was sure they were safe.

"I didn't do it on purpose!" Luna retorted. "The tree seemed like a good place to hide. I didn't expect my stealth suit to have been damaged and the branch to give out!"

"This is a mess," Mendia groaned. "Now that they know we are camouflaged they will take precautions."

Mendia's built-in shortwave radio activated and both women could hear Mala's order. "Everyone, we have a situation. Regroup at our designated rally point. Observation status is over."

"This can't be good." Mendia hissed and then frowned. She grabbed Luna's arm to check the suit's built-in computer. "The radio's fried as well. You should have gotten the same message I had."

"You think the electric shocks had anything to do with it?" Luna asked as both women slipped away from the area.

"We'll have to ask Larana. She has the probe data." Mendia stated. "For now let's go see what's going on."

Luna's eyes widened as she saw most of the team crouched low behind shrubbery while watching the scene that unfolded before them near the crash site. "What happened?" She asked in a whisper. Surprisingly it was Telmia who answered and not Mala.

"Jila did something stupid again," The Talarian muttered with some exasperation in her voice. She said something under her breath that Luna didn't catch but if trusting her suspicions then Telmia and Haddock had a history together. The alien ambassador called Haddock Jila but his first name on his suit started with an 'S'. She immediately thought 'a nickname perhaps?'.

The scene before them was chaotic. Sergeant Haddock had one of the female inhabitants sporting short hair slung over his right shoulder like a sack of potatoes while he dragged a shorter muscular male by the back of his collar. That one was screaming up a storm and trashing his limbs.

"Snotlout calm the hell down!" Luna saw a blond woman order. She had an axe while the other three men surrounding the sergeant held guns.

"Drop the lass and we won't shoot ya!" the chubby man with the blonde braided mustache shouted. Luna was at a loss for words and things got worse when the two men that nearly caught her arrived too. More guns were trained on their team member and things were spiraling out of control.

"I told him to leave those two," Davis growled. "Damn goody two-shoes."

"We have to defuse the situation before anyone gets hurt," Mala announced as she noticed the lanky auburn aired one trying to calm his friends down by saying the man they had the two didn't seem armed. "I'm going out there,"

"Are you serious?!" Davis asked incredulously. His Captain however was already standing up and walking out of the shrub. Davis cursed and kept his hand on his gun as Mala walked towards the agitated group. They took notice of her quickly and two guns and an axe were trained on her in no time.

"Who are you?" The blonde woman asked with narrowed eyes.

"I am Captain Mala of the United Terran fleet." She introduced herself. "That man over there is a subordinate of mine."

"Well your subordinate has two of ours," The portly blond young man stated.

"I'm sure he has a valid reason for it," Mala tried to keep her demeanor calm and nonthreatening. She was sure Davis probably already had them in his sights if anything went wrong. She, as Captain, had to negotiate these hostile situations. "Perhaps we can talk about this calmly?" She asked hoping that these people would be reasonable. From what she had seen so far they cared for the safety of their companions.

"We can talk about it if he puts down our friends and steps away," The auburn haired one stated. Mala looked at them for a moment before motioning to her Sergeant to drop the woman and to let go of the other who had surprisingly been silent after the blonde had yelled at him. Haddock stepped away and those that had their guns trained on him lowered their weapons.

"Hiccup ya think this is a good idea?" She heard the blonde woman ask who was still looking at Mala with distrust.

"If the guy wanted to kill Snotlout and Windshear he would have done it already," The one named Hiccup said. Mala was observing them and quickly learned some of their names as they spoke while checking on their friends. She also wondered what happened since she had ordered Davis and Haddock to stay near the ship camouflaged. She gave Sergeant Haddock a look when everyone had calmed down enough to have a decent talk. According to Mala's observations the one named Hiccup seemed the most reasonable. The one they called Fishlegs was inquisitive but a bit more skeptical. She couldn't read the older man who she heard being called Gobber and the blond woman who was keeping an eye on her with unveiled suspicion seemed to be Astrid. The redhead and the other black-haired man gave off a vibe that made Mala think of hardened soldiers. She had seen those eyes before. She had yet to learn their names though as they kept to themselves, their hands on their weapons and close enough to the trigger if anything were to happen. 'Davis would get along swimmingly with them,' was a stray thought that floated past.

"Windshear what happened?" Mala heard Fishlegs ask once the woman came to.

"I don't know exactly," The platinum blonde muttered while rubbing the back of her neck. "Snot and I were checking the interior of the ship. I was in the cockpit." She begins to explain. "I heard Snot said something along the lines of come look at this and when I turned around something knocked me out. I didn't even have a chance to draw a knife."

The entire group gathered there turned to look at Snotlout whom seemed to be pouting. "Whaaaaaat!" Snotlout exclaimed. "Why are you guys looking at me as if it is my fault?!"

"Cause sometimes it is Snot," Fishlegs groaned. "What happened?"

"I don't know!" Snotlout huffed. "I find this weird-looking do-hicky and I flip a random switch. It starts glowing. Next thing I know that.... THAT GORILLA!..." Snotlout dramatically gestured to the Sergeant "Had Windshear over his shoulder, grabbed me by the back of my shirt, flipped the switch again and hauled us out of there!!!"

All eyes now turned to the older man in question. He seemed rather calm for someone who just had more than four firearms pointed at him. Hiccup looked at Toothless who could have probably taken the shot if needed. He must have felt like those two weren't in any immediate danger from that stranger.

"The short loud one activated the ship's Prolium core," The man said. "It's damaged. A minute more and they would have been vaporized."

"Wait.... Prolium? As in refined Dark Matter??!!" Astrid exclaimed as her eyes widened. "HOW IN THE SAM GREAT HILL OF YAKS DID HUMANITY GET REFINED DARK MATTER?!' She then screeched.

"Astrid don't shout," Hiccup cringed since he had been standing right next to her.

"Hiccup how can I not shout?!" She grabbed Hiccup by the shoulders and shook him. "Prolium exists! It shouldn't even be possible for humans to produce it. Given humanity's technological evolution timeline it would take at least another 3000 years before they reach that capability!" Astrid then turned towards Mala and her subordinate and asked "How much Prolium is in that core?"

"About a liter," Mala answered while wondering how this woman knew of Prolium.

Everyone was silent as they watched Astrid digest the information. "That would be the equivalent of 13 nuclear warheads."

Snotlout now gulped as he realized that he probably shouldn't have touched that switch.