by David Aries
“Not if I fix it, it ain’t.”
“If. That’s not a chance I’m willing to take.”
“But—”
“But nothing!” I yelled. “Fuck this ship! Nothing matters more to me than keeping you girls alive.”
I’m not sure if it was the force of my voice, or if my words got through to her, but Trez stopped struggling. Her shoulders dropped as her resistance faded.
“Dammit,” she mumbled under her breath. “Damn it all…”
“Sorry, we’ve got no choice,” I replied as I held her in my arms. “Let’s go!”
We didn’t head toward camp. Instead, we bolted the other way as fast as we could, with Casella hitching a ride on Faris’s back and Vay holding Akko over one shoulder and DD under her arm.
It was the best method we had for maximizing our speed, yet it was nothing compared to how fast our mounts could move: Rocket especially.
I hope Sylvetty and the others are putting her to good use…
Those were thoughts for when we were out of the firing line. Getting out of the forest was tricky enough. We took the shortest route possible, bringing us out near the junk-filled river leading away from Ulium. From there, it was a straight shot toward the horizon.
As we bolted over flat grassland, I glanced at the sky where a red twinkle broke through the blue. “DD, how long?”
“Two minutes remain,” she said.
“And how are we looking?”
“I cannot say for certain, Master Brandon, but I fear our current speed may not be enough.”
“I’m going as fast as I can!” Faris said, huffing and puffing.
She wasn’t the only one; my calves were on fire.
“Shit!” I snapped. “It can’t end like this. There has to be a way to go faster!”
“How?!” Vay replied. “I’m giving it my all!”
“There just has to be!” I refused to believe there wasn’t a way to get out of this mess. What was I missing? There had to be something!
“S-sweetie!” Akko said as she bounced on Vay’s shoulder. “The river!”
The raging rapids swept by, flowing in the same direction we were heading.
My eyes widened, and my instincts flared. “That’s it!” How hadn’t I noticed it myself?
Akko, you genius!
There wasn’t time to get everyone’s approval. I grabbed Faris’s hand, ordered everyone to hold onto each other, then dove into the river.
Sure enough, the disturbed current whisked us away.
It was as if we’d been turned into a runaway raft. However, that still wasn’t quick enough. It barely surpassed how fast we could run.
We needed more speed.
While I tumbled helplessly through the water, Akko shot ahead like a torpedo, dragging Vay, Faris, and myself behind her. Add DD, Casella, and Trez to that list, and Akko was carrying the weight of six people, yet she pushed ahead like a motorboat racing for a checkpoint.
It was a stark reminder than when it came to water, Akko wasn’t to be underestimated.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t let her push herself too hard. Dumped to the back of the pack, I kicked my legs to help propel us forward and take some of the weight off her shoulders.
Together, and with the current’s flow acting as our support, we shot forward at a speed we couldn’t have hoped to match on foot.
But would it prove enough?
Through the screen of water, something pricked my ears drums. The next thing I knew, we weren’t swimming; we were flying. It was like we were being carried away by a tidal wave before everything turned white.
***
I jolted awake with a gasp.
Air! I could taste air… sort of. There was a bit of water where it wasn’t supposed to be that coughing alone wasn’t enough to clear. I rolled onto my hands and knees, both sinking into the boggy grass below, and choked with all the force I could muster.
W-what just happened?
Was that what I thought it was?
I tensed.
What happened to the girls?!
They were all a quick turn of the head away, laid strewn across the waterlogged grassland.
I scrambled to Trez, who was closest, and shook her shoulders. “Hey! Are you okay? Talk to me!”
She groaned and started coughing up water.
“That’s it,” I said as I thumped her back. “Let it all out.”
“M-Muscles?” she replied between retches.
“The one and only.” My eyes wandered around the area. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” There were other girls who needed my attention.
Waking Faris and Casella was an almost identical tale, while Vay, Akko, and DD managed to recover on their own.
The sight of them all alive and well eased my turbulent heart.
Faris grumbled as she wiped her chin clean. “That… was it the orbital cannon?”
“That is correct, Lady Faris,” DD said as droplets dripped down her watertight body.
Casella gasped. “Which means we survived, yes?”
Akko exhaled like she’d never been so relieved.
I squeezed her close. “And it’s all thanks to you.”
She squeaked as her cheeks burned red. “I-I didn’t do anything special.”
“Are you crazy? First, you made the suggestion. Then, you dragged us out of there.” I rewarded her with a big kiss. “Seriously, you saved our bacon.”
“N-no. That’s…”
Vay laughed and gave her back a thump. “Take the compliment, little one! You’ve earned it.”
Akko squirmed on the spot. She could bashfully resist one of us, but two was a force she had yet to learn how to overcome.
“So how bad was it?” Trez asked DD. “Do you think the ship might have survived?”
Faris marched forward before coming to a sharp stop. “No.”
I followed her lead and froze at the same point she had. My eyes bulged so hard they almost popped out. “Holy…”
The area where we’d escaped from was… gone. That was the easiest way to describe it. Everything, from the grassland, to the river, to the trees dotting the area, had been wiped off the face of the planet. In their place was a brutal black crater which spanned both as far and as deep as my eyes could see.
I know something with the title ‘orbital cannon’ causing damage shouldn’t come as a surprise, yet it did. After all, I knew this area well.
All of a sudden, it was gone.
This has to be… what? A mile?
A mile’s worth of land destroyed in a second.
It went without saying that the ship hadn’t survived this; nothing could have survived this. The hillock was the biggest thing in the area, and there was no trace it had ever existed.
If we hadn’t left, we would have been eradicated.
I didn’t know what to say. My lips moved, but not a sound came out.
“No,” Trez said, falling to her knees. She punched the floor. “Dammit!”
“How could they do this?” Akko said, covering her mouth. “T-this was our home.”
“Forget Ulium! The ship!”
I ground my teeth as I looked between the giant crater and the hole in the clouds where the laser had punched through.
So this is how far you’ll go to stop us from escaping?
You damn bastards…
But the worst thing was, I couldn’t even make some confident declaration about how this wouldn’t stop us. How were we supposed to overcome something this destructive?!
I thought I was strong, I thought I had become someone with enough power to protect those dear to me, yet this cannon outclassed me so completely I may as well have been an ant.
“What are we going to do now?” Casella mumbled.
“We’re still not safe,” Faris said. “There’s no reason they couldn’t attack again.”
“If the cannon is of the model I presume, it will require time to recharge,” DD explained. “However, there is no reason it cannot fire
again in due time.”
“Which means we can’t stay on the surface,” I grumbled.
“Could we move to The Core?” Casella said. “It would be safe there, yes?”
“I believe so, Lady Casella,” DD replied. “The long charge time would suggest the orbital cannon meets ACW restrictions. The Core should be able to withstand its attacks.”
“Then that’s our next move decided,” I said as I gave one last look at the remains of what had been our home. “Come on… let’s regroup with the others.”
I could only pray they’d gotten through this calamity as well.
Chapter 16
Our heavy feet trudged around the perimeter of the crater.
It felt like we’d been walking for hours, yet there was no sign of anything surviving the attack. The cannon had destroyed everything it had hit without fail.
My only solace, apart from the girls following my lead, was that my senses detected life—a very special one at that.
After far too long, something flew our way… and it wasn’t a metaleater.
“Sylvetty,” I said, voice crumbling halfway through her name.
She shot toward me like an arrow and thudded into my chest. “Brandon!” she said, wrapping herself around me. “Lassies! You’re okay!”
I spun her around to keep her momentum from cleaning me out. “That we are.”
“Thank feck for that,” Sylvetty replied as we stopped twirling. “I worried… I almost thought ya guys had gone to see…” A single hiccup popped from her lips, triggering the start of a storm of tears. Her hands went from holding to battering my chest. “Ya fecking eejit! Where do ya get off worrying me like that? Do ya know how scared I was?!”
I pulled her closer and stroked my fingers through her raven-colored locks. “It’s okay. We’re safe.”
“What he said, sweetie,” Akko added as she rushed closer. “There’s no reason to cry.”
“I’m not crying,” Sylvetty insisted as she mopped her tears away. “It’s just… ah, forget it. I’m just glad you’re all safe.”
“What about everyone else?” Faris asked. “Did they make it?”
“Oh, aye. It was a close one, but somehow we managed to drag everyone outta there.”
I exhaled.
Some good news at last.
Sylvetty wrested herself from my grasp. “Come on. I’ll take ya there.”
Continuing along the curve of the crater wasn’t exactly a journey that needed a guide, but it took us to where a crowd was gathered all the same.
“Bro!” Keith said before rushing over and embracing me. “Damn, dude, you totally shat me up. For a second, I thought you were toast.”
“We made it out of there somehow,” I replied. “But there was no saving the ship…”
“Shit…”
“Our home and the ship,” Millith mumbled. “What are we going to do now?”
It was a question everyone was wondering, if their bleak expressions were anything to go by.
Everyone was accounted for, yet nobody was able to celebrate.
I ignored my own sadness and clapped my hands. “Everyone, listen up! We’re moving to The Core. It’s a long journey, so make sure you’re prepared.”
It wasn’t a big ask. After all, nobody had any luggage to worry about…
We took off as soon as possible before our cowardly attackers decided to fire again. As we traveled, I kept my eyes on the sky in search of both the laser’s flash or any incoming metaleaters. Fortunately, neither showed themselves… but that didn’t make our journey a comfortable one. Nobody was in the mood to speak. We were like a funeral procession trudging to the morgue, carrying the memories of what we’d lost.
Venturing down a dark winding path didn’t do much to improve the atmosphere, although the grav lift at the bottom did manage to earn a few curious glances, even if our mounts weren’t too keen to ride it down.
We made them anyway. After all we’d lost, we couldn’t afford to let them go.
The Core had more than enough room to store them. In fact, it had ample space for everyone. It was like moving into some fancy sci-fi hotel, except the views were non-existent, the breakfast menu was beyond lacking, and there wasn’t a bed to be found.
Cozy.
While the majority made themselves at home in a complex that hardly allowed it, I continued deeper to meet with the woman in charge.
“There’s no sign of a follow-up attack,” Demi said as her subordinates checked the Inner Core’s computer.
I grumbled. “It’s not like they need to. They’ve destroyed the ship; that’s our escape route gone.”
Trez ruffled her hair. “Dammit! Why did I reroute the engine? If I’d kept it hooked to the flight systems like it should’ve been—”
“It would have been destroyed by the woodcutter,” Faris said.
“She’s right,” I said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“If I didn’t, then why is the ship gone?!” Trez replied before rubbing her tired eyes. “If I’d been better… if I’d fixed the ship properly…”
“You did an amazing job; you couldn’t have predicted what was going to happen. DD’s one of theirs, and even she didn’t see it coming.”
“I apologize once again,” DD said with a bob.
“Don’t. If you hadn’t given us a heads up, we wouldn’t have had time to escape.”
“Too right! How else would we’ve known those feckers were about to blast us?” Sylvetty said.
It was a rather scary thought—all this time, we’d been living with an orbital cannon hovering overhead. They could have fired at any moment, and we wouldn’t have known it was coming until it was too late.
I curled my hands into fists.
Shit! If they’re capable of causing so much damage in an instant, how are we supposed to resist?
And it wasn’t like we could just make a new village and go back to living ignorantly. Now that we knew what our enemies were capable of, the surface offered nothing but terror.
Escaping to The Core was all well and good… but what were we supposed to do from here?
“Beep boop,” DD said. “I do mean to alarm anybody, but I sense an incoming transmission.”
I tensed up. “What?”
“She’s right,” one of Demi’s herix helpers said. “We just received a communication request from an unknown source.”
“My sensors indicate the origin to be the satellite station that destroyed the ship,” DD said.
A chill clawed the back of my neck. “You mean we’re getting a call from the bastard who shot at us?!”
“I can only speculate.”
My mouth fell open. Seriously? First, they tried to blow us up; now they were attempting to communicate with us?
What the hell was their problem?!
“S-sweetie?” Akko said, tugging my waistband. “What are we going to do?”
I bit my bottom lip. “As much as I hate to say it, we should probably answer.”
“Agreed,” Faris said. “Ignoring will do us no good.”
“Understood,” Demi’s subordinate replied. “Answering now.”
The Core’s central computer opened up a hologram screen I presumed was supposed to be a video link, but the thing was completely black. Just before I brushed it off as some sick joke, a synthesized voice buzzed through the speakers. “Can you hear me, interlopers?”
My blood boiled. I bared my teeth and growled, “Loud and clear! How about you? Can you hear the voices of the people you tried to kill?!”
“Brandon,” Faris whispered.
“Killing you wasn’t my objective,” the voice continued. “It was simply a byproduct caused by the necessary actions you forced upon me.”
“What?!” I snapped.
“I wouldn't have used the orbital cannon if you had allowed that shuttle to be destroyed as the proper procedures dictated.”
I snarled. “Are you seriously trying to blame us for trying to escape?!”
/> “Yes. Your behavior has been unacceptable and has compromised this experiment. You had no right to infiltrate that facility.”
I tripped over my words. There was so much rage inside of me it left my whole head bouncing, fueled by the idiocy coming through the speakers.
We’re to blame for this?!
Is he insane?!
How could we be blamed for doing what anyone would try to?
“Erm,” Casella began. “Did he say experiment?”
“Aye, I heard that too,” Sylvetty said.
So it wasn’t just me…
“Oi!” Trez yelled. “What the fuck is your problem? What’s all this about?”
“That information is classified. However, my experiment cannot continue as long as you occupy The Core. I implore you to see reason and surrender.”
“Are you out of your mind?!” I said. “You blew up our home and our ship. There’s not a chance in hell we’re doing you a favor.”
“What he said!” Vay added. “We will never surrender!”
“I was afraid that would be your response,” the voice said. “I understand your reluctance, but I would prefer a handover without confrontation.”
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it,” I snapped.
“It’s simply a matter of taking the optimal option at any one time. Then, it was to respond with action. Now, I propose a deal.”
“Not interested.”
“If you surrender, I will grant you freedom.”
I froze… as did many of those around me.
In an instant, the room’s atmosphere changed. It was like someone had thrown a bucket of water over our smoldering hotbed of anger.
“What?!” Akko squealed.
“Explain yourself!” Faris said.
“It’s as I said,” the voice replied. “If you surrender yourselves and The Core in a peaceful manner, I will grant you safe passage off this planet.”
For a moment, nobody could say a thing.
I could hardly think.
“Bullshit!” Trez said. “Are we supposed to believe this crap?”
“Aye,” Sylvetty said. “I can tell when someone’s pulling me wings.”
“It’s no lie,” the voice said. “It’s a price worth paying to take back what is mine.”
I scoffed. “You seriously expect us to believe that? You blew up Ulium to stop us from escaping. Now you’re offering it up on a silver platter?”