Chapter 19: Backup

"You want the two of us to go on a hunt through a gigantic city, alone, for a manna eating monster," I retorted, my voice laced with disbelief. "The exact same type of manna eating monster that the Guard has been fighting, and losing against, for hundreds of years now."

Lara smirked at me, "The big bad human frightened of getting his hands dirty?"

That hurt. It hadn't seemed like she was going to use my human heritage against me in the past, and now she was using it to goad me?

"You just got your ass handed to you on a silver platter, Lara, why aren't you calling in backup?" I shot back. I didn't quite manage to keep the hurt out of my voice.

"Oh Jacob, why would I need backup when you're here?" She gave me a predatory smile, "Come on, just treat it like it's your first Guard mission or something."

She turned on her heel and walked off in the only direction the Null Space invader could have gone, the same way that I had entered the makeshift coliseum.

There was something she wasn't telling me, I could smell it, and like a dog with a bone, I wasn't going to stop digging until I found out what it was. Of course, that did mean that I would have to tag along with Lara on her journey to find the Null Space invader.

"You coming or what?" Lara called over her shoulder. Her voice broke me out of my thoughts.

"Uh, yeah, I guess I am," I called back, before jogging to catch up with her. "After all, it wouldn't be a good look if I let the famous Lara get killed by a raging null space invader, right?"

"Oh please, if I got my ass handed to me you'd have had your head ripped off in under three seconds," she said. "You're tagging along because I need another pair of eyes and ears to help track this thing, that's all."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that, maybe I've got more tricks under my belt than you'd expect."

She gave me an appraising glance at that statement. I wondered if I had gone too far. Humans were known in this universe for being untrustworthy and deceitful, was claiming that I'd hidden my true power from her a good move even if it were true?

<I can guarantee you that it wasn't a good move, kiddo,> BB chimed in.

He was probably right, but then he hadn't approved of this little outing in the first place, and if I hadn't come out then Lara would have probably turned herself into a splatter trying to fight the invader by herself twice.

<That or she would have called for backup like a sane person.>

I doubted that. I was still sure that something else was going on here, something else that she didn't want anyone else to know. I felt like I was missing some crucial piece of information, and as we wound our way back through the labyrinth of mega building side alleys, I knew that I had made the right choice by finding her.

"So how do you know where you're going, anyway?" I asked. "All these alleyways look the exact same to me."

"I grew up here for a start," Lara said, and plunged her hands into her pockets moodily. Asking about her past seemed to be a way to sour her mood fast.

"Fair enough, it makes sense that you'd know your way around the block," I replied. "I'm more asking about how you know where this thing is going, though. It feels like we're going deeper into the structure, wouldn't it want to kill as many people as possible?"

She snorted at that. "Is murder and death all you humans think about?" She shook her head. "No, it won't be going to the housing or the shopping districts. This thing cares about one thing and one thing only, can you guess what that is?"

The thought crossed my mind the moment she asked the question. "It's going after manna, right?"

She nodded.

"But I still don't understand. Surely the largest source of manna in the area would be the area with the most people or at the very least the guard complex where all the strongest people are, right?"

She shook her head this time. "The tidal forces on this planet are so strong that they'd rip any material apart if given the chance. Those four moons and all that water out there make for a whole lot of current and gravity fluctuations, the perfect place to hide a bunch of cities. This world was basically designed as the last bastion against the Null Spacers because they'd never be able to get close enough to land. Their ships would be torn apart."

"But if that's the case, then how do the megacities not sink? How do you ever get Initiates off-world?"

"You know Jacob, sometimes it's as if you woke up this morning with absolutely no knowledge of manna or how to use it," She remarked offhandedly. "Like you were born yesterday or something."

"So there's some sort of manna engine powering a shield that keeps us safe from the gravity, then?" I asked, completely ignoring our situation.

"Correct, one point to the human," she said. "Underneath every mega building is a manna station that absorbs the manna from the surrounding area, just like our bodies do, and concentrates it into a powerful shield that keeps everyone on the mega building safe. Our ships have similar setups, just much smaller."

That made a whole lot of sense, and it really was the perfect way to keep the people on this planet safe from any kind of invasion. Especially considering it didn't seem null space invaders had any access to manna, which meant they wouldn't be able to generate the shields needed to keep them safe. Theoretically, that would mean that no null space invader should be able to get onto the planet.

Unless someone had brought it here.