“What are they looking for, Captain Parker?” Khoth asked.
“The same thing they were looking for the first time they came here,” Jack said after a moment.
“One Colossus-class ship?” Khoth asked.
“She’s not like the others. She’s not like anything else according to Thammah,” Jack told him.
“She should not be informing you of that,” Khoth stated.
Jack chuckled. “Yeah, and she wasn’t supposed to know about the weapons that just saved your ass, Commander Voor. But she did. And she promised friendship if I helped you. Are we friends?”
“I am here to assist you--what is happening?!” Khoth hissed as the controls of the Exarch were no longer responding to his commands.
“Commander Voor, what’s wrong?” Jack asked.
“I do not know.”
The Exarch was suddenly swerving towards the center of the small town of Sunrise.
“Ah, Commander Voor, you are going in the direction I hoped, but--”
“Someone has taken over controls of the Exarch!” Khoth realized as he tried to regain control. But he was locked out.
“The Khul? We’ve never heard of them being able to take over Precursor tech!” Jack cried.
“They cannot. I do not know who is doing this,” Khoth stated.
His hands flew over the holographic controls, but to no avail. He was being taken to nearly the center of town. Jack’s aircraft flew alongside him.
“That’s… oh, god,” Jack whispered.
“What?”
“You’re going down near where my son works. There’s a Khul ship not half a block away,” Jack’s voice went hoarse. “I--I have to get down there! Goddamnit!”
The raw anguish in Jack’s voice actually hurt to hear. It was completely unveiled Xi. He remained silent as the man’s soul was on display. But then the Exarch was veering right to an area not far from where the Khul ship had landed.
“Do you see all those Khul? They’re surrounding that house! That’s… oh, God, that’s Walter’s house,” Jack whispered. “Jace may be there. He’d go there to try and help Walter and the kids. Goddamn!”
“My sensors show over a dozen heat signatures inside,” Khoth stated as the controls allowed him to see that much.
Khoth heard Jack calling on his people to come to a certain address, telling them that Khul were targeting this residence. He was not wrong. The amount of Khul was astounding. It looked like 30 pods worth were converging on the one small home. Khoth’s fingers curled around the triggers for his weaponry, but he eased off of them without firing. The spray of his weaponry on the Exarch would be too wide. He would be just as likely to hit the home as the Khul.
“They have to get there! Goddamnit!” Jack hissed as he spoke of the people he had called to get to his son. “I can’t land here! I can’t do anything!”
Khoth’s ship hovered over the Khul about a block away. It did not lower. It was as if he were being given a bird’s eye view of the destruction that was about to happen. Were the Khul controlling the Exarch? Did they want him to witness this? Show him how powerless he was in comparison again? That was not the Khul’s way. So why was he here?
Whatever the reason, I will not sit by and watch civilians be killed.
Khoth unstrapped himself from the pilot’s seat and swung around to face the back of the vessel. He got up and put his palm against the weapon’s locker. The locker opened and the rahir--his long-bladed weapon with its cutting laser edge--and the draagves--the laser rifle with ability to launch mines--slid out. He grabbed both. He slung the rahir over his back and checked the sight of the draagves. The Exarch was hovering low enough that he could jump and his exo-suit would easily cushion the fall. The Khul were so focused on the house that none of them seemed to notice the ship down the block. He would fight his way to that house. The people in there had no other chance.
Khoth went to the Exarch’s door and used the sensor to request it to open. The door remained stubbornly shut. He requested the door to open again. Nothing. He brought the draagves up, thinking to shoot the door’s controls to get them to open. But that wouldn’t work. Altaeth technology had safeguards to stop just such a thing from working. He glanced at the screen which showed the Khul surrounded the house now. Khoth raised the draagves, aimed at the sensor. He fired.
Nothing happened.
He fired again.
Nothing happened.
