Shi Lang was floating in the starry space. In the space, there was no direction, no concept of up and down. The young general threw the time constrain at the back of his head and took a few moments to admire the scenery around him, and also the fact that he was the first of the terrans to have a free space walk.
After a moment, he realized the bind he was in. He inhaled deeply and inflated his lungs to the limit. Then he controlled his body and suspended the functions of every organ other than his brain and eyes. This has been a long time since he micro-controlled his body functions. By doing this, he was conserving the oxygen in the suit, and the other thing was that he diverted his spirit energy from all over his body to the brain.
He was going to use all this spirit energy to use the technique from the Shura Sutra in his mind. This technique was called Life Search. It was not as simple as a wide-range search on the radar. It was more like detecting the fluctuation of the spirit energy in the broad space.
The spirit energy channeled through his brain and the beautiful surroundings that he was admiring a bit ago, turned into a blur. In his world, only spirit fluctuations were left. After a few minutes, he exhaled heavily and said, “Phew, fucking hell, so I need to head over there.”
In just a few minutes he thought that he was exhausted. That sorted, Shi Lang restored the functions of his body minimally, and holding his sword, he adjusted his positioning and fired the thrusters on his suit. The push sent him flying in the desired direction, with a sword in his hands. He was drifting through space, and based on his impulse he started the recording camera on his suit.
…
Inside the warship, Amelia and the others were searching space for a distress signal from Shi Lang’s suit. However, even after probing every five minutes, they were unable to catch any signal. As more time passed, the atmosphere grew tenser. Amelia asked, “Is there no other way?”
Hawk and Sonic shook heads when suddenly, Milo arrived at the bridge and said, “Fucking hell, we are all fools.”
Everyone looked at him and found the young man to rush to a station and crackle the keyboard there. The team was surprised by his sudden actions but they did not stop him at all. They did not have time before the radar caught their attention. A string of beeps sounded from the radar.
Sonic reacted the quickest and said, “Distress signal detected.”
Amelia said in a taut voice, “Set course to intercept and catch that fool.”
The team jumped into action, and Milo slumped down in the chair. He said, “I apologize, the frequency could only be detected by a special method and I forgot that.”
Sparrow said, “You will be dealt with later. The boss is running on fumes of oxygen.”
Shi Lang had been drifting in space for almost twelve hours.
…
Jacuuba was standing in front of the Komodian leader who had come to meet him later. However, this time he was not being treated with courtesy at all. The former had shackles on his limbs and his tail had been cut off. His dignity was gone.
The lizardman in front of him sat on a high throne and said, “Jacuuba, you are one of the people who should understand that this decision is nothing personal. However, the komodians will not be spending any more lives for you and your fallen clan.”
This was not sounding like a decision they were forced to take, but something they were doing willingly. However, Jacuuba could not say anything to convince him otherwise. His place among the Lizardman was now of a drifter. Those who did not belong to any clan. The most shameful and lowly of the lizardman were these drifters.
Jacuuba had looked down on those who had lost their tails, and now his situation was similar to those as well, he realized what shame was, but the values in their heads were so deeply engraved that he had surrendered to his status. The komodian leader looked at him and asked with much indifference, “Do you have anything to say to us?”
The Zerg leader raised his head and said, “No.”
“Take him out, give him a prosthetic, and load up a ship with food and important supplements. He can decide where to go from here.”, said the komodian leader, and then the soldiers took Jacuuba outside.
The room was quiet for a moment, before one of the komodian people asked, “Your lordship, why was it necessary to cut off his tail? After all, he was a lizardman and had done great deeds in his time.”
The bigger lizard who was conversing with Jacuuba earlier said, “He may have done good deeds, but they were all for the Zergs, we supported him like anything in our palms, yet this guy led so many of our people to death. The assailants killed so many brave komodian soldiers. The eastern general lost three sons and a whole generation of the family in the last assault. Not only to the assailant but to the tradition as well.
All because they failed to guard one Zerg rebel. Was the price worth it? The tail from this Zerg was payback for those deaths.”
That said, the bigger lizard stood up from the throne and left the room. According to the reports, the ship that the assailant has taken was destroyed by the person inside it. The body was not found and no life signs were detected. So, Shi Lang had died in their eyes.
…
Shi Lang was drifting in space and he had just inhaled the last puff of oxygen and in his mind was playing some classical music song. It was not that he had given up hope, but this song somehow was stuck in his mind and he was unable to get it out of his mind. He was very calm, but at this moment, the bodily functions that has been suspended were deteriorating.
Just when Shi Lang was about to lose consciousness, he heard some chatter on his communicator. A faint smile bloomed on his face before everything turned dark.
One of the team members, who was an expert in spacewalks, came out from the hatch with a thatcher rope attached to his back. He caught Shi Lang and said, “Interception complete, pull in.”
Milo quickly clicked on the panel and the rope was pulled in by a motor. Shi Lang was pulled in, but he was not allowed to meet everyone, he has been drifting in the space for too long and was exposed to the radiation.
Although Shi Lang was using his spiritual energy to shield himself it was still a bit of a stretch as his spiritual energy ran out a few hours ago. After he was dragged inside the ship, he was cleansed with sterilizing agents and then taken straight to the medical room.
Then his suit was removed by the bots, and then he was given the necessary medical care. It took him three hours to wake up and look outside the medical bay. He spotted Amelia standing there and smiled, but the reciprocation he was seeking did not come. Instead, he met a strong glare.
Shi Lang became honest all of a sudden. If he was to spend a little more time in that condition that he probably would have died, and when the spirit stone, powering his suit was used up, he would have shrunk into a frozen corpse floating through space, eternally.
This possibility did cross his mind, but to keep himself from panicking he did not think too much about it. The escape was a gamble through and through. Thankfully, Milo noticed the missing key and adjusted things, or Shi Lang would have died and the rest of the team would have become a group of drifters.
The system did not let him out of the medical bay until he has spent twelve hours there. When he came out, the first thing was a strong pinch on his waist from the girl who hugged him tightly and sobbed. He sighed and patted her back as he said, “It’s alright now, I am back. Am I not?”
Amelia stomped on his foot and said, “Dare you to mention it again, and I am divorcing you if you ever pulled off such a stunt. You crazy Terran, why do I even love you, moron.”
Shi Lang chuckled and held her tightly, he liked how she threatened him with divorce and said, “Amy, how about we go back and get married?”
Amelia was shocked and so was the rest of the team. They had not thought that Shi Lang would say such a thing all of a sudden, the girl in his arms responded with a humm, and the ship was about to set course back to the Federation directly, when Milo, who was monitoring the command bridge, contacted them with the ship radio.
“Boss, I spotted a drifting scout vessel. The scans show it’s Jacuuba.”