Chapter 292 Klaxons
"All officers and Black Claw Agents to ships to stop the Queen!" Roared General Brand into a communicator attached to his chest and then hit it again with a human-like hand that had armors fingers like crab\'s claws with joints. He was beyond frustrated with how quickly the Queen had managed to get to him, but he was heading down to where the Skunk was. Everything depended on him fixing the Track Slider.
Brand stormed into the room just as his Black Claw agents left, and Gamble turned around with an annoyed look. Brand hated this creature, but he needed him to fix the generator, and then he would kill him.
"How much longer until you are finished?!" Brand demanded, and Gamble just shrugged at him and then pushed Jess behind him.
"I am really starting to wonder if this is such a good idea. You know, if I do this, then you are going to kill my friends. Doesn\'t sound like something that I want to do, and I am sure that my Queen would not be happy with me," Gamble said plainly, making rage bubble up inside of Brand.
He lashed out with his right hand and grabbed Gamble by the throat as he lifted him off the ground. "You will do what I say, or I will kill everyone that you care about!" Brand threatened, but then Jess punched him in the back of his head hard enough to make him drop Gamble.
Brand turned on her with a snarl and lifted his left hand, which was made out of a strange black metal that transformed into a large sword made of metal that glowed red hot at its tip. He brought it down toward Jess\'s neck, only for the weapon to be blasted back from a shield that appeared around her.
"I wouldn\'t try that if I were you. Gamble and I have a deal, but even if we didn\'t, you would still be dead before you hurt her," Jess said as she glared at Brand with all the hate in her heart. She wished there was some way to kill this bastard right now because of everything he had done to her family, but she had no weapon!
"Fine, but if you don\'t hurry up and fix the generator, then I will kill your brother!" Brand snapped, and Jess flinched, but Gamble raised his arm, revealing a device on it.
"I didn\'t have time to make any weapons, but I did take the time to hack into all of your security footage and microphones. I am sure that you want to kill her brother, but you will have a hard time finding him," Brand said with a smile as Brand rounded on him.
"What are you talking about, Skunk?!" Brand demanded as Gambles\' smile grew, and he shrugged.
"I guided him to a location where you are not going to be able to find," Gamble said, and then pressed a button, and Brand\'s communicator exploded on his chest. This did almost no damage, but that wasn\'t the point.
"What have you done?!" Brand demanded.
"Blew up yours and anyone else\'s way to talk. All your cameras are playing a recording of your hilarious attempt to take a piss standing up! I thought that might really inspire the people watching everyone, hehe!" Gamble laughed, and Brand lost it.
"Fine! You think you are so smart?!" Brand roared, and then pulled out a device that Gamble hadn\'t seen before and then pressed the button.
Suddenly, klaxons started to sound, and the lights became red and started to flash, making Gamble whirl to the computer as Brand turned and ran out of the room to head to an escape shuttle. The computer had a countdown, but Gamble could hardly even see the timer that was counting down from ten minutes because of all the warnings that were popping up.
"Oh, crap! I have to get this fixed, or everyone is going to die!" Gamble exclaimed as he got to work, but then Jess\'s hand was on his shoulder.
"Gamble, we need to go now," Jess said urgently as she pulled on him, but he shook her off.
"No, I can\'t leave yet! I have to fix this!" Gamble protested as he continued to work. There was no way that he could let all these people die because of him! He had not thought that Brand would risk killing everyone just to get his way, but Gamble wasn\'t going to let this bastard win. "I will give you the location of your brother, and you two can escape the ship and head to my Queen\'s ship. She will welcome you."
"No! I am not leaving you here! We have been through too much, and you have been doing this all just to help me!" Jess demanded as Gamble started to try to shut everything down.
"I have been trying to save my friends and family, that is all; now go!" Gamble shouted, but Jess didn\'t budge.
"You know that isn\'t true, or you would have let your Queen come get you and left us all to die! I know you care about me and everyone else! I couldn\'t live with myself if I left you to die!" Jess said as tears rolled down her face.
Gamble turned around and looked at her for a moment before he sighed and then nodded. "Fine, but we have to hurry."
He turned back to the computer and started to type in a few commands that would send the ship\'s location to Gamble\'s Queen, as well as some other things. He was pretty sure that he could trust this woman. Still, her help was better than nothing, and maybe she could actually help them. There really wasn\'t any other choice at this point.
After a few minutes of work, he was done, and the lights stopped flashing then Gamble turned to Jess with a nod. "All set! Let\'s go!"
The two of them ran from the room to where Gamble had guided Jess\'s brother.
On the other side of the Divinity Spike, General Brand was getting into his ship with some of his Black Claws as the klaxons stopped sounding and the lights went back to normal.
One of the Black Claws turned to Brand. "Do you want us to go deal with them?"
"No, they think that they have won, so I will let them think that they are getting away, but I can reactivate the Track Slider. I will wait until we reach the atmosphere, and then I will activate it again. That Skunk thinks he has thought of everything, but I will always be one step ahead!" Brand laughed as he boarded his ship, laughing as he did.
Gamble and Jess arrived at the room where Gamble had sent Jess\'s brother, and he was using his knife to cut through a pipe. He turned around when the door opened and dropped his knife as he saw them standing there.
Jess ran up to him with a smile on her face before she wrapped her arms around him tightly, hugging him closely as they both cried happy tears of relief that they were finally together again after being apart for so long!
After a few moments, Jess pulled away from her brother slightly with an apologetic look on her face. "Sorry, I just got carried away," She apologized sheepishly. She didn\'t mean to be so emotional, it was just such a big relief to finally have some good news after so many bad things happening lately!
"I am just glad that you are both okay! I heard the alarms, and then the lights started to flash, and I got worried," James said with relief, and Gamble nodded.
He just wanted to get out of this ship, return to his Queen and get back to his Pixie. It felt like forever since the last time he had kissed her.
"We stopped Brand, but now we need to get everyone off this ship. I think that it will be best if we destroy the place, but we can let my Queen do that. Now, let\'s get going! There should be some escape pods, and I am about to activate a ship-wide warning for everyone to-"
Gamble\'s words were cut off as the klaxons started to blare again, and the light went back to flashing red. The Skunk Folk looked down at his wrist and cursed before looking at the brother and sister Otter Folk.
"Get out of here, and I will go back to stop it," Gamble said as he started to leave, but Jess stopped him.
"No, we are going together! I am not letting you die to save us again!" Jess said as she pulled on his hand. "If it wasn\'t for you, my brother and I wouldn\'t be here right now, so let\'s go fix this mess together."
Gamble looked at her for a moment before he sighed in resignation and nodded. If she was determined to stay with him, then there was nothing he could do about it besides stopping the ship from exploding!