Upon arriving to the guards’ position, Kevin darted at the first guard, crushing him with the weight of his iron self against the wall, cracking the Kregan’s spine in the process. He turned around as he felt blasts rebound against his backside and ripped away the enemy’s weapon with his teeth.
His eyes lit bright red, which clearly terrified the guard as Kevin smashed the rifle between his teeth and discarded the remains to the side. He added a low growl to increase the fear level to the already shaky Kregan.
“Open the damn door, now!” he growled.
But the Kregan kept shaking. So Kevin toned down his appearance slightly and reverted to a magnificent white wolf with blue eyes.
“I won’t repeat myself. Door. Open. Now!”
The guard put his palm against the scanner on the side and the cell’s door opened revealing a dark room.
“Lights, if you please.”
The guard keyed another command while Kevin grew armor and a single cannon on his back. He set it to stun and fired it the moment the room lit up.
As the Kregan guard fell on his back inside the cell, Kevin heard a female voice suppress a scream.
Kevin took a deep breath and entered.
There she was, in a fetal position against the farthest corner of the room, shaking like a leaf.
“It’s alright, Princess, I’m here to save you.”
She blinked a few times, with an expression on her face that told Kevin she was still trying to compute if the quadruped animal that entered the room had just talked. Kevin didn’t know if the Arcadians had wolves, let alone talking ones.
“It’s me, Kevin,” he added.
“Kevin? But—How? You sure look different.”
“It’s a long story, one I’ll be happy to tell you once we get out of here.”
Kalliopy relaxed and got up onto her feet. Kevin approached her as calmly as he could, the last thing he wanted was to startle her.
“I need you to inject yourself with a sub-space tracker. Not an easy task for me to perform in this form.”
When a loud alarm blared, Kevin knew they had to hurry.
“How though? Where’s the tracker?”
“Right, duh!” said Kevin.
With a thought, a part of his armor slid open to reveal a subcutaneous injector. “Grab it and put it on your skin. Quick!”
Kalliopy grabbed the device and injected herself, which made a swooshing sound.
Kevin turned back into his Beagle form.
“Why aren’t you returning to your human shape?” she inquired.
“I’ll tell you later, that’s the way my dog looks. Just so there’s no confusion in a few moments.”
But as he said the words and both heard himself and saw the dumbfounded look in her eyes, he understood that he couldn’t have been more confusing, even if he tried.
“Ziron, two to beam out.”
Green light streaks engulfed them both as they vanished.
Boomer tried jumping the fleet the moment Kevin and Kalliopy were aboard, but nothing happened.
“Uh—guys? I can’t jump the ships!”
“The enemy has erected a jump interdiction field.”
Kevin barked. “Full impulse, engage!”
The ships vectored away from the enemy fleet at maximum sub-light speeds.
Ziron bowed. “Princess, it’s both a relief and an honor to see you again. I—I’m so terribly sorry we couldn’t come earlier.”
Kalliopy smiled, despite being in poor health and her royal attire being mostly ripped, stained, and barely holding to her skin, she still looked beautiful.
“That’s alright, Ziron. Thank you,” she looked at both Beagles. “Thank you all.”
Boomer barked and Kevin spoke. “You’re welcome, we’re just glad we got here in time.”
“Do you have to stay in that form? Mind you, it’s cute, but a little disconcerting.”
“Ziron?” pleaded Kevin.
“Come here, boy,” said Ziron playfully.
Kevin was not amused but ran next to Ziron nonetheless.
“We’ll discuss this later,” whispered Kevin.
A purple energy circle drew under Kevin’s Beagle form and a column of light shot upward, sending Kevin levitating.
“Extraction process commencing.”
Kevin morphed from Beagle to other forms quickly: wolf, panther, tiger. Meanwhile, Kevin was making distorted yet clearly painfully related noises.
“Is that normal? What’s going on?!” barked Boomer.
Ziron scratched his head. “I’m not sure.”
A red light and audible alarm sounded on his console.
“Crap, something is overloading.”
“Do something!” implored Boomer.
“Ziron, don’t let Kevin be hurt,” ordered Kalliopy.
Ziron worked on his holo-controls at light speed and the rate of transformations that Kevin was going through eased up as he morphed two more times until he finally returned to himself.
Kevin panted heavily.
He stepped out of the column of energy and the moment he did, Ziron’s console blew up and sparked and the column blinked out of existence.
“Damn! That was close,” Ziron said.
“What happened?” asked Kevin, holding his head.
“I don’t know, but I think this armor is toast too,” his sight still locked onto where Kevin stood a second earlier.
Kevin turned around to look at it and saw a puddle of liquid metal boiling and bubbling.
“Yeah, that doesn’t look good.”
Kevin felt a soft hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t matter, you don’t need it anymore,” said Kalliopy.
“Oh man!” exclaimed Boomer. “That was my armor.”
Kevin smiled and then looked deep into the princess’ eyes. His heartbeat exploded and he thought for,sure everyone would be able to hear it. Even after all she had gone through, she looked so stunning. Kevin had to fight the urge to kiss her right then and there.
“Kevin,” she said. “Looks like you saved me again. That’s twice now.”
“I didn’t realize we were keeping score.”
She chuckled. “Everyone, if you don’t mind, I need to talk with Kevin in private.”
“Your wish is our command,” said Ziron.
Boomer just shrugged, but watched Kevin and Kalliopy leave the bridge.
Kalliopy was feeling a big pit form in her stomach as she led Kevin away from his friends. Would he ever see them again? She wondered. She hated this, but she had no choice.
She would have gladly perished to not have to do this. But that wouldn’t save her innocent sister from her fate. And she simply could not let that happen.
“You have no idea how much we had to do to rescue you,” said Kevin.
“I can imagine, you look tired.”
“I’m exhausted, I’m looking forward to taking a well needed shower and crash on a bed.”
Kalliopy poorly attempted a smile.
“Are you alright, Princess? What’s the matter?”
“Please, call me Kalliopy.”
Kevin smiled. “Very well, Kalliopy.”
“I’m also quite tired. But before we both get the rest we deserve—” she paused, trying her hardest to suppress coming tears. “I think I owe you something.”
Kevin’s face lit up and the dumbest yet happiest smile appeared. Kalliopy grabbed something in her pocket as she approached Kevin. She truly wanted to kiss the hero that had defied the odds and surmounted many challenges to come to her rescue. As a matter of fact, she had been disappointed the first time around when they didn’t get to kiss.
This time though, it wouldn’t have been a kiss by proxy. But she couldn’t kiss him now, not with what she was about to do to him. She did, however, hope from the bottom of her heart and soul that the day would eventually come.
He swallowed hard and closed his eyes as she drew near.
She delicately applied the small circular device on Kevin’
s neck. Three metallic claws pierced through Kevin’s skin.
“Ooow!” he yelped, snapping his eyes open from the pain.
Kalliopy’s eyes were full of tears. She hated herself in this moment and was deeply ashamed by her actions.
“I’m so—so sorry, Kevin, please forgive me.”
Streaks of red-orange light rained around Kevin.
“Son of a b—”
Kevin’s world changed as he opened his eyes. He saw Kalliopy’s beautiful face in tears as she apologized and asked for his forgiveness.
In that instant, he wondered why that was. But it was only when he saw the streaks of red light engulf him that he realized what was happening. Though his brain couldn’t compute the enormity of it all.
“Son of a b—”
But he never finished his sentence, and everything around him changed as he beamed away from the Osiris and arrived to a much, much darker place.
“Bitch,” he ended up saying inadvertently to some men now standing in front of him.
“What’s that?” said a tall man with a large scar running down his nose. “Not that it matters.”
Before Kevin could say another word, the man raised a gun at Kevin and fired.
And then everything turned black and just before Kevin lost consciousness he wondered. . .
Why?
—== End of Book 1 ==—
To Be Continued…
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Christian Kallias is a Best Selling Science Fiction author. He writes Science Fiction Space Opera with a Mythology twist and Fantasy influences.
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Fire at Will: A Space Opera Adventure With LitRPG Elements Page 17