Interstellar Age

Chapter 257  Hunting a Fugitive 

The vigilance landed on the primitive world, where Tia quickly scanned the planet for any signs of intelligent life. There was indeed a native species that had evolved to the point of intelligence, at least enough to develop stone tools and basic villages.

Despite her best efforts, Tia failed to detect the life signature of an Elf. Still, this did not mean that the fugitive was not on this planet. After all, the Alfheim Dominion had some of the most advanced technology in the galaxy, and the Sages were clearly hiding certain things from the rest of the Milky Way.

It was entirely possible that he had brought with him a jammer that was sufficient enough to block out Tia's sensors. Because of this, Tia sighed heavily before informing Erich about what would have to happen.

"I am afraid that Master is going to have to descend to the surface of this primitive world with a landing party. I would suggest taking Mala and Mirage. As they are your two crew members, who are the most well versed in combat and primitive survival... Good luck Master, Tia will monitor the system to ensure that Master is not interrupted!"

Erich sighed and entered the armory, where he found both Mirage and Mala were suiting up for battle. The two of them both wore their power armor and equipped themselves with their favorite weapons.

Mala, of course, was wielding Erich's power hammer, while Mirage was equipped with a long range sniper rifle. After ensuring that they were properly equipped, the trio entered the shuttle, which departed from the frigate and headed to the world below.

---

The sage in question saw the shuttle descending from the atmosphere. After all, such a thing was easily noticeable, considering there was nothing else in the skies of this world other than some small flying species.

When the sage saw this, he sighed heavily and shook his head. He drank the juice of a particular fruit which grew on this world and sighed heavily as he spoke to himself in a solemn tone....

"He has found me.... Perhaps revealing myself to these primitive lifeforms was a mistake after all. After all, a proper sage can detect the smallest traces of interference in a developing society if they truly know where to look. But where did this novice gain such instruction? Now that is the question..."

After saying this, the sage stood up and pulled up his hood, as he began to climb further into the mountains, hoping to lead Erich away from his campsite. Where his transmitter was sending vital information to his allies.

---

When the shuttle landed outside a small village, and Erich deployed out from the rear hatch, he witnessed a variety of stone age aliens standing before him with spears in their hands. They were terrified about who this extra terrestrial was.

After all, the sage had not made such a bombastic entrance, and instead pretended as if he were their god. He had even gone so far as to grant them knowledge in many fields. So that they could begin starting their first civilization.

Erich, however, was dressed in all black power armor. The only bit of color on it was the golden archon symbol which was proudly displayed on his right pauldron. In his hand was an advanced particle rifle. He did not bother raising the weapon in an offensive manner, knowing that the primitive weapons of these aliens could not harm him.

In fact the Aliens, were quite small in stature, much smaller than the Seven foot tall Germanic man, and his Orc wife, who stood at an equal height. While they weren't as small as goblins, these small bipedal aliens were almost like anthropomorphic foxes. Or at least were very similar to vulpines in overall appearance.

The aliens spoke in their local language, which, thanks to Erich's universal translator, he could actually understand what they were saying. It was an advanced piece of technology that detected speech patterns, and ran them through a program to translate the individual words into those which were similar in Erich's native tongue.

"It is the Dark one! As foretold by the mighty one! Brothers to arms!"

With this said one of the furry little creatures charged at Erich, where he simply reached out and picked the alien up by the neck, he applied only a slight bit of pressure, but it was enough to cause the alien lifeform to yelp in pain. Erich's words were then translated to the little beast while he spoke in a sinister tone.

"Take me to this mighty one you speak of! Or I will wipe out your entire village!"

The other aliens quickly attacked Erich with their spears, but the stone spearheads did not even leave a scratch on Erich's armor. This caused the man to sigh heavily as he flung them aside with a light kick.

Erich then applied even greater pressure to the alien's throat, who was caught in his grasp, before pulling out his sidearm and shooting one of the villagers in the head. The energy beam shot straight through the creature's skull and into the ground behind him, leaving a slight scorch mark. This was a terrifying sight to the stone age lifeforms, who immediately threw down their weapons and bowed before Erich as if he were a rival god to the sage, who they referred to as the "mighty one."

"Please... We will lead you to the mighty one... Just don't harm our village!"

Satisfied with this response, Erich released the grip he had over the little fox creature, and let him drop the floor, where the alien took several deep breaths. Erich, however, was not willing to wait for him to catch his breath and was quick to point this out.

"Lead the way...."

With this in mind, the small fox like humanoids, began to lead Erich and his party through the woods and towards the location where they knew that the "mighty one" resided. It was an actual mud hut, and when Erich kicked down the door, he was not surprised to find that nobody was home. This immediately caused the little aliens to panic as they pleaded with Erich to spare them.

"Please! He's normally here! I don't know where he could have gone! Don't hurt us!"

Erich, however, did not pay attention to these pleas for mercy, and instead scanned his surroundings, looking for anything that might be hidden within the mud hut or the dirt beneath it. And though he did not find anything of intrinsic value, he did find a trail of footprints that led to the mountainside. With this in mind, Erich left the hut, and the village behind, where he and his party began to ascend the mountain in search of their fugitive.

The little fox people sighed in relief once Erich was gone, and gazed upon his shuttle with awe. They gathered around the vehicle and touched it for some time, looking for a way inside. Of course, they would never figure out how to do so.

---

Mirage began to complain as she walked up the mountain on foot. She did not know why Erich had decided not to bring along one of the all-terrain vehicles they kept on board the Frigate, and was quick to make this known.

"I still have no idea why they were didn't bring the fucking tempest! We are chasing this asshole on foot! Why? Why would we do that?"

Erich scoffed when he heard this, before lecturing Mirage on her complacency.

"You have been out of the field for too long if you don't know why we are hunting this fugitive down on foot. Are your scanners even active? If we were to have taken the tempest, it would be difficult to detect the footprints while moving at such high speeds! Now shut the fuck up. I think I heard something!"

Sure enough, a branch was cracked in the distance, no doubt stepped on by a living creature, which caused Erich to spring in its direction at full speed. Knowing that he had been found, the Sage began to run for his life, but how could he outrun a man who was genetically engineers for the purpose of combat? Not only was Erich faster than a racehorse when he was on foot, but his power armor enhanced those already superhuman speeds.

Erich immediately caught up with his target and switched his rifle to stun as he fired a shot that went down range and dropped the man, who began to roll down the cliff, as if he had been tied with an invisible bolo.

This caused Erich to scream out in joy as he chased after the man, alerting his comrades to his whereabouts as he did so.

"Got one!"

With this, Erich had captured his target. However, whether he would be able to effectively bring him back to the Vigilance's holding cell was another story entirely. After all, they were in an unknown world that was full of potential dangers, and they were a long ways away from the shuttle.