Chapter 12: Warm Welcome
A pitch-black reinforced dome, harder than steel, surrounded the Tomber base as the lockdown protocols were activated. At the same time, an emergency message was being sent to the Renegade higher-ups in the hold.
Kate was scared. no, she was terrified.
The lockdown procedure was something she had initiated in a panic. In the end, it would not help her, her colleagues, or the newbie knights who were stuck inside this base with her. It would only let the Renegades know something was wrong and possibly keep the rest of the planet safe. All of them here would still be dying today.
She had no delusions about killing a Reincarnator, so she didn't bother pulling out a weapon; she just watched him, making no sudden movements.
Some of them had deranged personalities that made them act irrationally, so she hoped this one was the type to spare people who didn't resist.
The only thing that went through her mind was the massacre of Terytl-b that had happened a week ago. The news had shocked the entire star system and even the whole galaxy. Everyone was still mourning the losses experienced that day. She couldn't believe that another Reincarnator would attack them so soon.
The alarms around the base kept blaring in tandem with the blinking red lights.
Arbus wasn't sure what to do. His new knight instructor had just put the entire base on lockdown and was currently panicking in front of him.
He looked around, but it seemed his fellow knight trainees were not in the mood to explain the misunderstanding, despite already being informed about his situation at the station from which they were sent off.
They had been just as frightened as Kate until the Administrative Renegade in charge told them he was simply a half-human. It seemed they were either enjoying their new instructor's panic or hoping she would try to kill him. The few that looked like they were going to speak up were silently warned by the white Mornans, who seemed to have taken charge of the group.
'How cruel,' he thought to himself. He wondered why the instructor didn't know he was arriving, given how his case was always handled specially and with more emphasis.
Arbus hesitated. He wasn't sure if trying to clear up the misunderstanding would be the best course of action, given that the instructor's hand was getting closer to her weapon despite her best attempts to keep it away. It wouldn't kill him, but he could still feel pain.
...
"I think there's been a misunderstanding, instructor. I'm not a Reincarnator," Arbus said as calmly as possible.
This only made Kate more frightened. Was he one of those crazy Reincarnators that said the most obvious lies? She wasn't sure, but she didn't want to risk talking to him.
Eventually, Kate realized something after getting over her fear a little. The knights in training were not panicking; in fact, a few of them seemed to be trying their best to hold in their laughter.
The others looked like they were wondering when she would attack.
"Kate, wait!" Just then, Dutch ran into the hangar holding a file. "No, Dutch! Stay back! There's a Reincarnator here!" Kate shouted, panicking again. She was scared that his sudden entrance would break the tense standoff.
"He's not a Reincarnator; he's a half-human Renegade. It was in the files sent over to us this morning," Dutch said, panting a bit as he had run here as fast as he could when he realized why Kate had activated the station's lockdown procedures.
Kate found it hard to believe what she was hearing. A half-human who was also a Renegade? She wasn't exactly sure what was done with most of the half-human children the Reincarnators sired every once in a while, but she was pretty sure they didn't become Renegades. The one thing she did know, though, was that most of them never inherited their Reincarnator parent's abilities and almost always took after their non-Reincarnator parent.
Which meant there was nothing for her to fear from the young Tarokian. After all, most half-breeds found it hard to use their species abilities because of how the genes interact.
"Who the hell authorized something like that?!" she shouted, her previous fear turning into fury while overshadowing her embarrassment.
"...The Sentinel did," Dutch responded with a weary sigh.
Kate froze for a moment before gritting her teeth in frustration. She reactivated the device on her wrist and disabled the lockdown. The base returned to normal as the dome dissipated.
A commander was still on their way here, so she would have to explain the misunderstanding to them when they arrived.
She scanned the knights in front of her again, this time with disdain. "Instead of informing me of the abnormal situation of your fellow knight, you decided it would be best to stand there like mutes and watch your instructor make a fool of herself?" She was both furious and embarrassed at the same time.
Most of the knights in training were scared now. They did not want to fail before they even had a chance to start. They looked towards two of the three white Mornans that were in the squad.
"We apologize, instructor. We simply froze out of fear. After all, we weren't sure if you were right or not," a tall white Mornan with short blonde hair and red eyes said as he stepped forward to be the representative of the group.
"What are you talking about? You were already informed of his status and knew he was only a half-human," Kate retorted angrily.
"Yes, we were, but that could have been a lie. Reincarnators have extremely diverse and terrifying powers. We had no way of knowing if the station we came from was under his control or not," the white Mornan, Jet, said as he put on a worried expression.
"Throughout our journey here, most of us were simply terrified of that possibility, but we had no way of knowing if it was true or not. And then we arrived here, at the training base that should have knowledge of each trainee arriving."
Kate could see where he was going with this.
"Immediately after we stepped out of the shuttle, you took notice of the half-human and immediately sent the facility into lockdown. This only further increased our suspicion since you had no idea he was supposed to be here. The best thing we could do was wait for a Commander to arrive and see what was true and what wasn't," Jet concluded with a resigned sigh.
"After the Terytl-b tragedy, it's understandable that we would be on edge, isn't it, Instructor?"
Kate didn't have a rebuttal for that. When taking everything into account, he was completely right. This was all her fault in the first place. If she had verified the information about the trainees like her colleagues had, she wouldn't have found herself in this predicament. she simply didn't think she would be the one to welcome the new batch again.
"You're right; I'm sorry for shifting the blame to all of you," Kate said with frustration.
"Dutch, please take care of things here. I need to make a call," Kate said as she walked out of the hangar.
Jet smiled as he rejoined his group, casting a glance at Arbus.
Arbus just sighed as he realized how troublesome this training would be.