Chapter 12
Robin Hood
On the transport, Ryuu, his friends, and his mother stared frozen in horror at the com as nothing but static came through. Ryuu lowered his head and sobbed. On his wrist, the crystal on his bracelet pulsed as his tears struck it.
When he finally raised his head and looked outside the ship, he saw that the cracks on their planet were growing larger and deeper, spreading across the surface with a deep-red glow. Moments later, the planet exploded, sending a shockwave of debris straight at the transport. Getting closer and closer, it raced at the little ship like a giant wave that’s set to smash a small shell into pieces.
The second before the shockwave reached the ship, Ryuu heard the engines give a small clap like thunder and a throbbing pulse. Then it jumped into hyperspace, to safety.
*
Hours later, they were still in hyperspace. Ryuu stood alone in a corridor of the ship, leaning against the force field portal, his hands on either side of his head as grief continued to flood through him. With his tears still falling, he was overwhelmed with images and memories of his father: his recent birthday, his training, their homework sessions, the family’s game nights, and love. Always love.
Behind him, he heard his friends and mother come into the corridor. For a moment, they stood in silence. Then his mother walked forward until they were side by side.
His mother rubbed a comforting hand along his shoulder and he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, he looked out at the blurred stars that were flashing by. On his wrist, the crystal on his bracelet pulsed a few times.
Finally, his mother spoke. “As long as a shred of evil exists in the universe, there will always be a fight for freedom. That’s what your father believed.” She sniffed loudly. “And the fact is that he and your birth mother fought together in the Resistance against The Black Dragon.”
She lowered her gaze, and he looked at her in surprise.
“He never said, anything,” Ryuu muttered.
“Before we settled down, the fighters used to say that if the armors hadn’t been seized by the Black Dragon, Jun would have been a Dragon Knight. He never would have admitted it, but it was his dream,” his mother continued. Ryuu glanced at his bracelet, which pulsed again.
She looked out at the sky and said, “Good-bye, my love. May clear stars guide you home.” Then she wiped some tears from her face.
“What did he mean?” Ryuu asked. “When he said, ‘find . . . the other parts of you,’ what did he mean?”
She was still for a moment. Then she turned to face him, and he could see that she was crying again.
“When your birth mother came to us, you weren’t the only one she gave birth to. You have a brother and sister,” she said. “You were all born on the same day.”
Ryuu and his friends all stared at her. His jaw dropped, his eyes widened, and his tears stopped. “Wha . . . I have a brother . . . and a sister . . .”
He paused and tried to absorb what he had heard. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.
“Your birth mother made us promise not to tell you until you were ready. We were going to tell you today when we realized . . . then all this.” She waved her hands about.
“I’ll give you some time alone,” she said quietly. Then she turned and left.
Ryuu’s friends gathered around him.
“Well, this has been a hell of a day,” Allison said.
For a couple moments, the group stood there in silence before Bryan broke it.
“You know, I think I understand how you must feel, Ryuu—”
“That’s not my name anymore,” Ryuu said flatly.
He looked at his friends, who flinched.
“Alec-Ryuu Jun Yamamoto died back on Amal. From here on out, my name is Robin Hood,” Ryuu, now Robin Hood said. His voice and face were hard.
One by one, his friends looked from him to each other.
“Well, it was already a nickname, so Little John suits me just fine,” Bryan, now Little John, said. He crossed his arms.
“I guess it would be appropriate for me to bear the name Tuck,” Eric, now Tuck, said.
“I could settle for Willa Scarlet,” Allison, now Willa, said, after glancing at her brother.
Looking around at his friends, Aiolos smiled. “I guess it’s up to me to be the cool Much.”
Robin smiled briefly at his friends and then turned to look out again at the stars.
For a couple seconds, Robin was still. Then he looked down at his bracelet. Raising it, he ran his fingertips over the pulsing crystal.
“We’ll find them,” he promised. “We’ll find the Sherwood, the other knights, my brother and sister, and my birth mother. And most of all, we’ll make the Black Dragon pay for what he did on this wretched day.”
Dragon Knights Chronicles Book 2:
Blood Calls
Time had no meaning to Robin as he sat against the hull of the cargo hold. He tried to ignore the rumbles from his stomach and the irritating scratching of his desert-dry throat.
Freya had finally gotten to sleep after shedding what seemed like a day and a night’s worth of tears. He glanced down at her as she used his lap for a pillow. Then he gently patted her head, trying not to hit her with the laser manacle on his arm.
The people around them moaned from either hunger or thirst. Slowly his eyes tracked over to the water and food units. Both were bone dry now.
“You’d think with such precious cargo they’d take better care of us . . .” His voice came out in a rough croak.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of a scuffle. Looking over, he saw Hannah struggling with a man over a few morsels of food that the man had managed to horde. When it started to get violent, Robin used what little strength he had left to move Freya’s head from his lap and climb to his feet.
He shuffled over to the pair and pulled them apart. “That’s enough!” he barked, and several people turned and stared.
“All I wanted was a little bit of food for my child,” Hannah explained. Robin kept one hand on her shoulder and the other on the man’s chest.
“And I warned her that if she touched my stash again, meat would be back on the menu for her child!” the man snapped. He continued to shield the meager food with his hands.
At once Robin turned on him. “They’ve already taken our freedom . . . should we let them take our humanity too? Because if we don’t stick together, it will take them easy less time to break us or wipe us out.”
For a few seconds, the man held his gaze. Then the man slowly lowered his eyes and opened his hands, revealing a chunk of stale bread no bigger than a fist.
Slowly, Robin extended his own hand and said, “What if it was your child?”
The man scowled. “If it was my child, I make sure it learned that the best way to survive is to look out for yourself.” He sat back down.
Robin sighed and shook his head. Then he returned his focus to the woman, who gave a sob and fell to her knees. Dropping down next to her, he laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.
When she finally looked at him, he said, “Come on; we still have some food.” He helped her up and the two went for her daughter.
A short while later, Robin and Freya watched as the mother eagerly fed the young toddler.
“If we weren’t slaves, I’d suggest you go into politics,” Freya said, and Robin looked at her. “Damn near had me convinced, and I wasn’t the only one.”
After looking at her for a second, he cocked a half grin. “It’d drive me crazy. Probably end up shooting myself my first term,” he said, and she laughed.
Suddenly the laser cord on Robin’s manacle turned on, and the next thing he knew, he was being dragged across the floor by his arm. He came to a sudden stop next to Takmet, and the band of lasers shackled the pair close to each other.
“This again,” he moaned. When he sat up and looked around, he realized that half the people were also sprawled across the floor after bei
ng dragged across it. “I guess we’ve arrived.”
He had no sooner said the words when the cargo doors opened. Behind them stood three Sentinels.
“On your feet, all of you!” they barked in mechanical voices. They slid their laser whips out from under their forearms, into their hands, and started cracking them.
Robin stole a glance over at Freya, who was chained with the toddler’s mother. The older woman was trying to keep close to her daughter, who was chained to a middle-aged man.
“We said on your feet!”
The sharp sting of the whip brought Robin back. He bit back the pain, cringed slightly, and climbed to his feet.
“Now move!” the Sentinel barked, and they were all marched out of the ship to the sounds of roaring applause.
Contents
Prologue: Frail Hope
Chapter 1: Alac-Ryuu Jun Yamamoto
Chapter 2: Team Locksley
Chapter 3: Samurai
Chapter 4: Ninja
Chapter 5: Journey to the Academy
Chapter 6: The Final Exam
Chapter 7: The Dragon Knights
Chapter 8: The Right Thinking
Chapter 9: The Next Generation
Chapter 10: The Anubis and the Dark Elf
Chapter 11: Live for Freedom . . . Die for Freedom
Chapter 12: Robin Hood
Copyright © 2016 by Andrew Wichland.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
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