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Spencer looked around as he jumped out of the ship.  Around him he could make out stars and he could see the curvature of the gray planet's surface as he fell towards it. He watched the stars seem to grow red for a second and looked behind him.  Silently, as he was in space, the Adican ship erupted outward into a massive ball of fire consuming it and the space around it.

As Spencer fell he felt quite peaceful and still, gravity the only force acting upon him.  The gray planet grew larger and larger and Spencer decided he should figure out how to control the thrusters on the suit.  He felt around and found two buttons, one on the top of each of the thumbs.  By balling his thumbs in his hands he activated the buttons.  Spencer activated the buttons and felt vibrations throughout the suit as the thrusters ignited propelling him forward slightly.

Spencer began experimenting with the suits capabilities, after all, he still had quite the distance to fall.  After a few minutes he had gotten the hang of turning by moving his body and the thrusters by spinning the buttons on his thumbs.  He tried not to go too far because he didn't know exactly how much fuel he had and he needed to land on the planet and live.

As Spencer quickly found, the suit could scan for locations on the surface of planets by voice.  Spencer just looked at the planet he was falling towards and said "scan for the capital."  On the glass in front of his eyes the suit would locate  the capital's location on the planet.  He then thrust over the capital's location and just had to wait until he was closer to the planet.

Soon Spencer noticed the stars starting to disappear and the sky turn blue.  Quiet at first, he noticed a rumbling sound and realized the suit was on fire.  Spencer's first reaction was to panic, but after a few minutes Spencer was through the atmosphere and the fire disappear.

Now in the planet's atmospheric pressure, Spencer could feel the full effects of free fall and felt a bit queasy.  He was approaching the ground in the middle of the capital and preparing to try to land the suit and save his life.

Spencer began to make out a few specs that he realized where people.  Luckily the specs had the common sense to move out of the way before Spencer hit the ground.  He began to sweat profusely, worried about landing and fired the thrusters on the suit to slow his descent.

Spencer began to slow down, but he was worried he waited to long and would become a pancake on the grounds of the capital.  The ground was imminent and Spencer was still travelling down fairly quickly.  

Spencer hit the ground hard, almost like a literal meteor.  He made a small crater in the road where he lay on his back for a moment, dazed.  Figures peered at him from the edge of the crater, but Spencer was too dizzy to make them out.  After a few minutes of lying at the bottom the crater, Spencer regained his head and pulled himself out of the crater.

Spencer stood up and looked around to be greeted by Helena, with a score of soldiers, guns trained at Spencer.

"Who are you?"  Helena asked,  "Remove your helmet and show us your face or we'll open fire!"

Spencer detached the helmet from the rest of the suit and pulled it off, "It's me."

"Spencer!"  Helena said as she rushed forward towards him and delicately wrapped her metal arms around him.  "We've been worried sick where you were!"

Spencer thought this display of affection was odd for Helena, who usually appeared to be a sort of distant person, focused on the goal, not the people.  Before Spencer could say anything though, Helena let him go and began speaking again.

Helena whistled lowly.  "Where'd you pick up a Rapirian orbital drop suit?"

Rapirian,  Spencer thought, that's why I fit into the suit.  An Adican suit would've been built for a six legged creature Spencer couldn't have used it.  Why did Adican's have it then?

"Spencer?"  Helena asked.

Spencer remembered Helena's question and quickly replied, "Oh the suit, it's a long story"

"You'll have to tell me everything that happened."  Helena said.  "Those suits are a rare commodity.  The Adican originally designed the suit, for Adican of course, but Adican were too big and the suits ripped apart upon entering the atmosphere.  The goal was to create a mode of transportation that could get infantry units from space to the ground quickly.  Adican strategists thought that a planet's main defense was in space, its ships.  They thought it would be significantly easier to win wars if they could bypass the space battles by sending soldiers directly to the planet's surface.  Rapirian engineers got ahold  of the technology soon after, and they were small enough to make suits that didn't burn up.  Unfortunately because of what people heard about the Adican model, people were skeptical about the project and it quickly ran out of funding.  Only a small number of suits were created.  The Rapirian still have a few, but most of them are owned by mercenaries who sell them on the black market or want to get to a planet's surface quickly and stealthily for whatever purpose."  Helena paused for a second.  "Sorry for rambling, you need to tell us what happened to you."

Spencer explained to Helena what happened, from being kidnapped, to Jazo and the axe.  He told her about the bomb and what the axe was attempting to do.

"Wow,"  Helena said,  "Sounds like you had quite the adventure."

"You could say that,"  Spencer said.

"I wish I could give you time to recover,"  Helena told Spencer,  "But, all three planets were successfully captured and the council is meeting on the battleship at planet number two.  Many Corinian people are ready to help us defeat the Empress, our work here is done."

"Do you know if Grace is still alive?"  Spencer said thinking of her.

"I do not know the status of any of your human friends, or anyone not on this planet for that matter.  We're boarding the ship to get there soon.  Take the suit off in the ship and we'll try to fix and refuel it."

"Sounds good,"  Spencer said as he began to walk through the city towards the battleship they had arrived in.

Spencer got to the battleship where many Silver Company soldiers were milling around, talking to one another, and preparing to leave.  Spencer quickly grabbed a bite to eat before boarding the battleship.  Once inside he removed the suit and handed it to a Rapirian who told Spencer he could take care of it until he needed it again.  Several more minutes passed until The Silver Company was ready for takeoff.  Spencer sat down and strapped himself in as the ship blasted off into space.