“… we could safe a lot of innocent people this way. Try not to screw up.”
“Understandable, sir. I’m on my way.”
Finally, there would be silence where the guns were screaming before.
Two warring nations were getting tired of the constant blood shedding and wanted to negotiate a peace treaty. The ambassador of one of the countries, however, was afraid of hostile nationalists. Both of the countries were filled with people who wanted the war to continue. He contacted Declipse, begging for protection.
And so Rikko was sitting next to him in the gunship. Being a personal bodyguard was never his thing, and he wasn’t too happy about it. Diplomatic people had the tendency to see their bodyguards as their personal butlers, and this one wasn’t an exception.

“Oh bodyguard, could you get me a glass of water please?”
Rikko grumbled something very inappropriate as he walked towards the kitchen.
The negotiations had been horribly boring so far, with the ambassadors currently pulling new borders. From the moment the gunship had landed, time had seemingly slowed down. The ambassadors acted coolly, but not hostile towards each other. With movement detectors which were linked to his visor, Rikko had been bored to death since they had landed.
When he opened the bottle of mineral water, a red light started to flicker in his visor. The flickering meant something was nearing the building at high speed. The red colour meant that something was explosive!
The next second an explosion shook the building. When he was out of the kitchen, there were two things Rikko noticed.
One: the ambassadors to his right were unharmed.
Two: the wall to his left was gone.

Just outside the garden of the house was a single man holding some kind of missile launcher which Rikko recognised as a used RPG-launcher. Behind him were several people, holding smaller weapons. This was going to be hard.
Rikko dived for the ground, just before a large number of bullets hit the wall, chipping off a piece of stone roughly the same size as his head. His return fire was computer guided and thus much more accurate, clearing out a small portion of the enemy force, including the person with the launcher. He knew he couldn’t use paralyzing fire, it would only stall. It had to be deadly.
“Ambassadors, I would HIGHLY appreciate it if you would find a safer place to continue your negotiations!” Rikko shouted over his shoulder at the astonished ambassadors.
“But…” the one he had to guard started to protest. He was cut off by Rikko.
“NOW!”
Rikko knew he had to get outside, otherwise they would just lay siege to the building. Outside he could wreak havoc and cause confusion. He pulled his double sword and opened it. Then he jumped out of the hole caused by the RPG round, using his shield as cover from the fire and made a wild dash at the attacking people.

- 186 minutes later -
“G-Lead to base, do you read me?”
“Loud and clear, G-Lead, what is your situation?”
“Under heavy assault. Requesting immediate backup!”
“I’m sorry, G-Lead, all ground troops in your area are currently on mission. Aerial assistance will be send. ETA… nine hours.”
Rikko rolled his eyes. All the technology you could wish, and still unable to send assistance quickly…
“Understood.”

- 234 minutes later -
Another enemy fell, the grounds were clear now. Rikko was sweating all over.
“Full visor, pure oxygen, water!” He commanded.
Immediately his visor covered his complete face and started to supply pure oxygen. In the meantime, clean water was sprayed into his mouth. This wasn’t the first time he did this.
For the full time, he had been able to keep the ambassadors safe. He didn’t know how long he would be able to keep up. Checking his chronometer, he saw he had five hours until ETA.
A bullet zipped by his head. Turning his visor back to normal mode and his head to the potential danger, he went back to what mattered. Killing hostiles.

- 312 minutes later -
Rikko fell to one knee, placing a shot in the final opponent’s head.
“Full visor, pure oxygen, water!”
A blue light started to blink. Blue meant water. Blinking meant he was out of it.
“G-Lead to base, where is that aerial support?”
“Base to G-Lead, aerial support has just entered your area. They should be in range soon.”
And indeed, four gunships came flying in, their automatic turrets rotating as they shot the targets Rikko had missed. Somewhat later a fifth joined them, with it’s hatch open. Inside the hatch was Eva standing, her hair being thrown around because of the wind being created by the engines. She signalled the pilot to land, who did what he was ordered.
“Come on, we’re out of here!” Eva yelled over the sound of the engines.
“The ambassadors!” Rikko answered.
Eva pulled one of the ambassadors into view. She had picked them up and was a little later because of that.
Rikko nodded, jumping into the gunship. Eva screamed at the pilots to get back to base. The sound of the engines increased in power and then stopped because Eva closed the hatch.
“Deus ex machina.” Rikko said, looking at Eva “I was just out of my water.”
“That was indeed a close call, Lead.” Eva said, looking professional with the ambassadors in the same room.

Halfway the ride back home, they had to land on a carrier for a refuel. Rikko and Eva took the chance to switch to an empty gunship. The colony split there, with two gunships bringing the ambassadors home and the other three going back to base.