by Colin Cook
"We need someone after that taxi before he gets too far out!" Bailey shouted to the Turian lieutenant as he shoved his way through civilians. Chellick nodded and
activated his omni-tool.
"Way ahead of you! Echos 12, 15, and 20, you have a go, repeat you have a go! Force Axel's escape craft into an emergency landing now!" he shouted into the
microphone of his device, one that was connecting him to three Mantis gunships waiting on standby outside the Tower!
"Dude! That was one of the most insane getaways I've ever seen!" Darren called back to me with a laugh and a wild grin as he pushed the taxi to its maximum limits,
blasting us down the radial Embassy Walkway on a frantic course back to the Military Docks.
"If you think that was insane, you should see what some of my friends can do," I answered as I struggled to pull myself up from the floor. However I was roughly thrown
back down as a storm of concussive thermal rounds began impacting into the side of the car, a combined barrage briefly slamming against us from the cannons of three
Mantises that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere in hot pursuit!
"Unidentified taxi, you are aiding and transporting a dangerous fugitive…" an angered voice began barking through the dashboard's radio, but was suddenly silenced by a
slap of Darren's hand on the cutoff switch.
"You know they can just shoot us down if they want to right?" I asked after finally managing to pull myself up in between the two front seats. A devilish smile formed on
the hippy's face as I said that, followed by him quickly pulling and buckling the strap for his seatbelt across his chest.
"You might want to hold on to somethin' pal," was all he said before sharply pressing a combination of buttons and sending the taxi into a steep nosedive. I heard myself
yell as I fell back, the car diving down into the main levels of the Walkway before pulling up just in time and briefly skimming across the surface of the Presidium Lakes!
"Haven't we already been down this route before?!" Haxon asked sarcastically as the roar of the Mantises stayed close behind us, each gunship following our path in
single-file formation like a trio of ducklings following their mother.
"Except last time we were getting shot at while going the other way!" I agreed with a jab of my thumb back to the rapidly shrinking Citadel Tower, remembering our flight
from Agent F'Loson in the Iron Man suit across this very same terrain. Up in front of us Darren was laughing again as he sharply banked the taxi into a hard right, throwing
me around the car again as he flew us at dangerous speeds back into the main Embassies within the Presidium Ring.
"Look on the better side of things boys, C-Sec gunships are prohibited from firing below the Presidium's hull level. And since we're actually inside the interior of the
Embassy District, they can't do shit to us now!" Darren explained, pulling up the taxi a bit as we flashed overtop of several bridges, causing many people to scream and
dive to the ground as we and our procession of gunships passed by.
"Yeah, now we're just in danger of accidentally running someone over," I commented dryly while still trying to pick myself up, since I hadn't managed to put my seatbelt
on yet.
Suddenly a loud crack shot out from the cannon of the Mantis following right behind us, the car jerking forward for a moment as something slammed into its rear
thrusters. Immediately the lights on the taxi's dashboard began to flicker, and a decreasing humming sound came out from Darren's controls while the car itself began to
subtly slow down in speed.
"Unless of course they fire attachable EMP devices onto my car," the hippy stated hesitantly as he turned to me with an awkward expression. We jerked forward again,
this time more harshly as the Mantis rammed its front end into the car's malfunctioning propulsion, nudging us further back down toward the Lakes that flashed by
underneath us.
"How much farther do you think this thing can take us before it loses all power?" I asked quickly as I brought my head back up in between the front seats.
"Probably no more than a few kilometers man, sorry it had to end like this," Darren apologized with a sad shrug. I merely gave a mischievous smile as I clapped him on
the shoulder.
"Don't worry, I've got a plan. Bring us out of the Embassies back into open space," I said as I pointed up through the windshield toward the Fast Transit Lanes zooming
overtop of us. Darren frowned in confusion.
"But dude, that'll make us an open target again."
"Just trust me, I know what I'm doing," I said reassuringly. Darren could only shrug again as he went to work on the failing flight-controls.
"You're the boss, boss." With a draining screech of protest, the slowing hover taxi shot up skyward with every last ounce of power it could muster, cutting diagonally
through the Fast Transit Lanes with the three Mantises following close behind.
"I'm givin' her everything she's got! If you wanna use that plan of yours you better do it now man," the driver said as many of the lights in front of us shut off, and the
power coming out from the thrusters snuffed out with a hiss. Quickly I extended my right hand and pressed my gloved palm against the surface of the dashboard.
"Prepare to have your mind blown," I said calmly before closing my eyes and willing the power of the ring to channel a surge of energy into the dying vehicle, almost
exactly in the same way that I had done to Irwin's car seconds before we were about to be arrested. In an instant, the ring lit up bright silver and shot out a familiar web
of silver electrical arcs that sunk into the dashboard and disappeared.
Suddenly both Darren and I shouted in surprise as we were thrown back in our seats, all the lights on the dashboard coming back to full power, the thrusters on the taxi
roaring alive and blasting us through the air three times faster than the vehicle was capable of!
"This…is…totally…WICKED!" Darren managed to shout back to me over the roaring hum coming from his car's engine, the massive G-Forces pressing against us making
his cheeks ripple wildly and his eyes squint, slurring his words to the point of barely being able to understand them.
"We had them disabled, but now they've powered back up and are accelerating out of range!" the pilot of the lead Mantis finished reporting back to Chellick and Bailey
through the Turian's omni-tool. At the moment the two officers were speeding out from the Tower in one of the C-Sec patrol cars they had taken to get there, joined by
four others carrying the agents they had brought with them.
"Can you catch them?" Bailey asked within range of the microphone as he leaned closer to the front passenger seat Chellick was sitting in.
"I don't think you understand what I'm telling you lieutenant, they're flying at near Super-Sonic speed!" Chellick scowled as he brought his face closer to the omni-tool.
"A superior officer just asked you a question pilot. At near Super Sonic speeds, can you keep up with them?!" There was a pause before the pilot answered in a calmer
voice.
"Hover taxi's aren't built to handle that kind of stress on their engines, soon it'll burn out and crash. We can keep up from a distance but we won't be able to stop it; when
it happens we can land and render any medical assistance that may be required, depending on how bad the damage is." Bailey jerked his head forward with a look of
apprehension on his face.
"That isn't good enough! We can't risk having Axel die on us or this whole thing will have been for nothing!"
"That's the best we can do Bailey! We're not exactly in control of the situation anymore!" With that the pilot severed the link between himself and Chellick.
"Get us to the Military Docks as fast as possible! I don't care how many speeding regulations yo
u need to break!" the Turian ordered over to the driver of the car, both he
and Bailey strapping themselves in and preparing for the worst.
A loud explosion rocked the taxi, followed by another burst of flame and debris shooting out from the back end of the vehicle.
"Annnnnd now that's the second thruster gone! This ship of yours better show up soon!" Darren shouted over the groaning protest of his car, struggling at the controls to
keep the flaming/rocking craft airborne as we began shooting across the lowest stretch of the Docks.
"There it is! Far dead-ahead!" I said with a jab of my finger to the windshield, having just been able to spot the miniature form of the Corsica sitting in stark contrast to
the enormous hulls of the Alliance or Council war-ships docked nearby.
"Groovy man! Now we just need to slow this baby down," Darren said with a grin as he began pressing his foot against the brake mechanism. However after a moment,
a worried frown formed on his face once he noticed nothing was happening.
"Well? Hit the brakes," I said as we continued flying closer to the Corvette without slowing down.
"I am, its not working," Darren said as he jabbed his foot down again, still getting no response. The car rocked from another explosion as our super charged speed blew
out the car's third thruster.
"We've only got one left! Hit the brakes harder!" I shouted over the screech of the taxi as it began to shake more violently then it had before. Darren slammed his foot
down all the way and kept it there, but the car didn't even slow down a fraction.
"I'm holdin' the damn thing down, nothings working!" he shouted, both of us feeling a profound anxiety begin to creep up as the flaming car flew within a kilometer of the
ship. Suddenly another explosion jerked us forward as the fourth and final thruster blew out.
Now we were definitely slowing down, and dropping from the air at the same time!
Both of us began shouting at the other about brakes or hitting the bakes, our voices quickly descending into gibberish until finally we simply resorted to screaming in fright,
our eyes wide and our limbs bracing against anything as the taxi slammed down onto the platform stretch!
Smashing nose first and completing a front flip through the air, the demolished taxi crashed and skid several feet, careering in a series of circles before coming to a painful
screeching stop.
"That actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," Haxon remarked after we had completely settled.
"That's easy for a disembodied A.I. to say," I fired back sarcastically while hissing in pain; rubbing the newly forming goose egg that the crash had delivered to the back of
my head. Wincing against my re-enflamed bruising and eyebrow cut, I pulled myself up from the floor into a sitting position, taking notice of all the shattered windows and
the roaring fires still coming from the back of the vehicle. Looking ahead, I raised a leg and sent a useless kick into the taxi's left side door in an attempt to wrench it open.
Almost exactly like last time after our crash in Irwin's car, I made two more attempts at kicking the door open, both of them ending in similar failure.
But then I remembered how we had actually gotten out of that car, with the help of a Force push from Yoda that had blasted the door completely off of the vehicle.
Closing my eyes, I drew back both my hands and clenched my fingers as I willed a great force of invisible energy to swirl within my palms. The ring glowed silver for a
second before I snapped my arms forward, releasing the built up energy in a concentrated burst that slammed into the door and blew it away from the chassis with a loud
tearing of metal.
"Thanks Yoda," I said with an astonished smile, looking down at my hands in amazement at what I'd just done. Suddenly, a pained groaning from the driver's seat caught
my immediate attention.
"Darren!" I said as I yanked myself out of the car, moving to the front and dropping to one knee next to the newly exposed driver section, quickly reaching in and ripping
the hippy's mangled seatbelt off his chest. A stream of blood was trickling down the side of his head from within the folds of his shaggy blonde hair, his purple-lensed
glasses having gotten thrown from his face during the crash. Several small bleeding cuts and abrasions travelled up the side of his left arm and pectoral region, mostly
thanks to the many tiny glass shards that had stuck into him after his window had smashed apart.
Darren groaned again, his eyes remaining closed and chest barely moving.
"Darren? Darren! Come on man wake up! Don't you die on me now!" I ordered sternly, slapping the flat of my fingers against his cheek while shaking him by his un-injured
shoulder. Immediately his eyes snapped open and he latched a hand onto my shoulder.
"That…was fucking awesome!" he announced to me with a wide grin, showing several bloodstained teeth before he began chuckling happily. I gave a wide grin of my own
after seeing he was okay, despite his bloody appearance.
"I'm glad you think so, your car's kind of trashed to shit now," I said as I swept a hand to the wreckage we were sitting in. But Darren only waved it off.
"Ah forget the car man, the insurance will cover it just fine. Just being able to trash it like this was what made it all worth while," he said as we both looked at the roaring
flames engulfing the back area of the vehicle. As I was about to say something else, I heard the humming screech of Mantis repulsors begin to echo closer and closer
toward us. Standing up, I wasn't surprised to quickly see the three gunships that had been chasing us earlier B-Lining it directly to the crash-site.
"Come on we gotta go!" I said as I began trying to pull him out of his seat, but he only grimaced in pain from some unseen injury.
"Nah man I'll just slow ya down. You go on without me, I'll try to hold em' off when they come to make the arrest." My eyes widened and my face scrunched in horrified
confusion.
"What? Darren you can't," I said in protest. The hippy only gave a wince as he leaned back in his seat, grabbing my arm and pulling me back down onto one knee next to
him.
"My part in this journey's over dude, its up to you now. For whatever reason the Great Spirit brought you here, be it to topple a corrupt government, free the oppressed,
or save this galaxy from an Armageddon, you go and you fulfill that plan. I believe in you! Besides, this won't be the first time C-Sec's slapped me in handcuffs," my fellow
Canadian said with a smile that seemed to contain wisdom beyond his years, grabbing and firmly squeezing my shoulder with his other hand. I was dumbstruck as a smile
of my own crept on my face.
"Dude, that's deep," I said after a moment. Darren nodded enthusiastically.
"Dude," he agreed in his laid-back voice.
"DUDE!" we both drew out in unison just like before when we had first met, laughing heartily as we embraced each other in a fond hug.
"Thanks for all your help Darren. Keep what's left of the fifty thousand as a gift from me," I said with a nod as we broke from each other and I stood up.
"I will brother, thank you," he said with another smile as we both grabbed and shook the other's hand in farewell, taking an extra second to flip them upward so that we
were holding on to each other's palms in the Bro-Grip style for a moment before letting go.
"I'm gonna miss you, take care of yourself," I said with another smile and a snap salute before turning and dashing away from the taxi wreckage, the harsh beams of
Mantis searchlights travelling quickly over toward us from the approaching gunships.
"Not as much as I'll miss you! We love you man!" Darren's voice called after me as he waved goodbye.
"Haxon, is the cloaking device repaired enough to conceal me again?" I asked quickly
as I pressed two fingers against my tiny earpiece, sprinting down the massive
Docking stretch in the direction of the Corsica.
"Partially, but I'll only be able to sustain it for about five minutes."
I nodded as I maintained my pace as best as possible, bringing up my left gauntlet.
"That should do, we've only got less then a quarter of a kilometer to cover," I stated before tapping the activation button, vanishing from sight in a pixeled flash before
several armed platoons of Human and Turian marines began running past me, streaming out from their docked ships on their way toward the wreckage of Darren's taxi.
For the entire five minutes Haxon was able to give me, I ran as fast as my body could maintain, only altering my path to avoid running into patrolling marines or docking
obstacles such as machinery or loading crates scattered across the platform. Eventually my time limit ran out after I had closed to within a mere handful of piers from the
Corsica, the cloaking device giving a final dying sputter before causing me to become visible again in a sporadic flash. As this happened I had to quickly duck behind a set of
crates, just managing to avoid being seen by a large squadron of Human marines that were marching down the platform.
"…C-Sec now says that Axel is on foot and most likely headed this way, they want us to set up a defensive checkpoint across the span of the Docks and halt any
unauthorized personnel from advancing further," the squadron's commander was saying, walking alongside them as each man or woman activated their weapons.
"Don't worry captain, that scum bag isn't gonna get past us. Am I right marines?!" one of the other officers in the squadron said before loudly calling back to the rest of
the unit.
"OORAH!" they all roared in unison. Even while quietly huffing and puffing from my intense run, I could only shake my head with a blank expression as I peeked out of
hidding to watch them continue marching farther and farther away from me.
"Jarheads…" I muttered before turning and stealthily continuing on toward the Corvette.
After another few minutes, I finally came within sight of the Corsica, pleasantly surprised to find the immediate area mostly deserted of marines and several of the piers