Battle in the snow II

Ljubiša ran as fast as he could away from the ever-growing number of Kortonians chasing him. The heavy snow made it difficult to run, but he was somehow managing, even under the awful weather conditions.

"Turn left!" Emidio yelled to Ljubiša over the radio. "If you don't you will run into more Kortonians, you don't see them in the fog!" Ljubiša followed the instructions and made a sharp left still in chase.

"Brigham, what do I do?" Emidio lowered his microphone and turned to his captain. "He can't keep running forever, he will get tired at some point and there are too many of them for him to fight them head-on."

"Um… We should…" Brigham stuttered. The blue-haired captain was at a loss and panicking. None of this was according to plan, he didn't have a backup solution. He mumbled to himself, what do I do, should I run out to help him? He is too far away, I won't reach in time plus my riffle and pistol are back at the ship? Ana and Roy are too far away as well. Maybe we could… no that won't work either…

"I know what we can do!" Curro yelled over the radio to Emidio and Brigham, "Listen up! Emidio, lead Ljubiša towards the ship!"

"He is too far away he won't make it!" Emidio said.

"He doesn't need to, just do what I said! We don't have time!"

Emidio did what Curro asked, and he led Ljubiša towards the ship. The redhead, never the athletic type, already started to feel out of breath.

"How much more do I need to run," Ljubiša asked over the radio panting.

"Just a little more, you can do it!" Curro tried his best to encourage him.

Ljubiša continued running away as fast as he could but he soon came to his limit. There wasn't any strength left in him to keep at it. He looked at his AK-47, it was out of ammo and he would need to reload it, something he didn't have the time for. He was going to throw it away, pull out his Makarov pistol, and take one last stand against the chasing Kortonians.

With his pistol in hand, he stopped, turned around, and aimed between the eyes of the incoming Kortonian. I am probably going to die here, but I am not going down without a fight!

Just as Ljubiša thought he was doing a cool movie final moment, he pulled the trigger and nothing happened.

He kept pressing it, aiming at the giant bug, but nothing was happening.

It dawned on him, back when he was with Khalid for the first time in the armory. When he was goofing off before the bomb even exploded, when he was trying to imitate James Bond and was thinking of the movie Where Eagles Dare, he had turned on the safety.

He never turned it back off.

"Is this the end for me?"

"Not quite! Target locked!" Curro spoke over the radio. "Kortonians are in range, Ljubiša get on the ground! Firing missiles!"

Ljubiša threw himself into the snow covering his head and a barrage of missiles came at the Kortonians, causing several massive explosions.

"You were finally in the firing range of the Ship, since I am in the computer room I can use the ship's weapons," Curro explained to everyone over the radio. "That's why I wanted you to lead him back. I didn't have time to explain since I needed to prepare the missiles for discharge and to take aim."

“Good job Curro! I don’t know if we could have saved him without you!” Brigham exhaled with relief and clutched his fists.

"What can I say, I know a thing or two," Curro proudly grinned sitting in the main computer room.

"Is it over?" Ljubiša raised his head from the snow and looked at the incinerated bugs. "Damn, I missed the explosion…"

***

Ljubiša rejoined the rest of his group, who managed to treat Khalid's wound. Khalid would still have a bit of trouble walking until they came back to base and Hitomi gave him a full treatment, but this was good enough for now. They could continue on their way towards the pumping station.

Curro fired a few more missiles to confuse and draw attention away from the group. He also fired a few to relieve Ana and Roy from the pressure they were facing. While these weapons were meant for space combat, they were surprisingly useful in their current predicament.

Khalid, Ljubiša, Lei Mei, and Hitomi made it to the pumping station without any further issues. The pumping station was a tall, ugly, greasy, mechanical structure. It pierced deep into the ground of NB011 to extract the water and oil and was connected via underground pipes that moved all the way back to the base and with cables connected to the ship.

The station had only one room, and the 4 mechanisms required to operate it. Everyone moved into position and operated the mechanism, Curro confirmed the refill and the extraction was underway. All they had to do now was get back to base and wait 18 hours, the question was about Khalid's worsening leg wound.

To their surprise they found a special jeep parked next to the pumping station, most likely meant for their exam. The jeep was highly advanced and had room for 10 people. It also had sophisticated AI, much like their space vessel, it had a self-driving mode which is how it ended up all the way here. It even had a turret on its roof for shooting the Kortonians.

The group quickly boarded the jeep and with navigation from Emidio drove back to the base. Along the way, they picked up Ana and Roy, Hitomi who operated the turret on the roof and made quick work of all of the Kortonians that were attacking the pair.

With that everyone returned to base, alive and well. The atmosphere in the jeep was euphoric. Everyone was laughing, hugging, and congratulating each other. Brigham and Emidio high-fived each other and yelled in excitement to Curro, who was particularly proud of himself.

Inside the jeep the students started singing popular songs from Nova Occasio's War of Independence, they even sang one American and one Russian World War II song which made Roy and Ana very happy.

The mission was a success.

***

Everyone gathered in the main room of the base continuing their celebrations. Hitomi finished treating Khalid's wounds, although he won't be able to run, he should make a full recovery by the end of their trip to the Yugoslav Space Station Lepoglava.

Hitomi approached everyone and interrupted the celebrations, by bowing in front of everyone.

"Um, Hitomi, what are you doing?" Brigham nervously asked.

"People do this in Japan when they want to say they're sorry!" Hitomi said still keeping her head bowed. "I am sorry I made such a fuss about going out into the snow. If I wasn't there Khalid would have died, and that would have been my fault for not following orders. You were right Brigham, I needed to be there."

"What brought this on?" Brigham was surprised.

"Hey don't rub it in!" Hitomi raised her head frowning. "This is not easy for me!"

"It's okay, I accept your apology," Brigham extended his hand and they shook hands.

"This is the part where you say 'I'm sorry too Hitomi'" She said in a cheeky tone.

"Hey," Brigham laughed, "I had to get you somehow to follow orders, and it wasn't even my idea with the food and water punishment."

Hitomi turned to everyone else and bowed once more, "I am sorry to all of you for being so difficult. We depend on each other in situations like this and Lei Mei said it best. All of us need to perform our assigned jobs or we all die. You’re still losers by the way, but we need to be a team.”

"Also," Hitomi lightly punched Ljubiša, "If I wasn't there to see your crazy stunt, I would've thought that it was another one of your didn't happen stories. Truly for the first time since I've known you, I can say, good job."

Ljubiša didn't know how to take this praise, especially from someone as usually mean as Hitomi. He could only awkwardly smile.

"What happened with Ljubiša?" Roy said raising his eyebrows. "Don't tell me Ljubiša did something heroic?"

Ana and Roy were told by the rest of what transpired in the other group. The pair was very impressed by Ljubiša's bravery and by Curro's quick thinking.

"Say Ljubiša," Ana said putting her arm around Ljibiša, "How many Kortonians did you kill?"

Ljubiša placed a finger on his head, "Hmm, actually I didn't kill a single one. Curro was the one that took care of them with the missiles."

Ana walked away and raised her fist in the air proudly, "That means I had the most kills!"

Roy shook his index finger, "I believe I killed 2 more than you."

The two fell into an argument about who had the most kills and who was better in the fight against the bugs. However, after what looked like to be a usual long argument between the two, Ana ended up taking a step back and raising her arms.

“You know what,” Ana took a deep breath and mustered up the strength to say, "It doesn't matter if I killed more bugs than you. What's important is that we both got out of this unharmed." She quickly changed her tone, trying to suppress her embarrassment. “Even though we both know I have better aim, you just got lucky that you got more kills this time.”

“Um… thanks” Roy stuttered. “Getting out of there alive is the main point of the mission, neither of us would have gotten out alone.” His sincerity wasn’t long lived tough “And for the record you maybe have better aim, but I saved your life more times today” He said with a smug smile.

Lupus continued chatting and celebrating, they finally felt an absence of stress and urgency. They could just for once, hang out and they felt a new kind of closeness considering they had been through near-death together for this whole day.

Brigham interrupted the chatter by clapping his hands, "Sorry to interrupt everyone!" Lupus turned their heads, their gaze fixated on their captain. "We have to figure out where we are going to sleep. The ship is powered down for the refill and this base has its heating broken. We will freeze if we sleep in these conditions considering it is minus 40 degrees Celsius on NB011."