Chapter 4
“So…” Rayne said. “How do we do this?”
“By crossing our fingers, hoping that luck is on our side, and running very fast,” I replied as I stared longingly at my spaceship on the other side of the town square. “Mainly the second part.”
“Can she fly to us?” Rayne asked.
“Too dangerous,” I replied. “They don’t seem to know where she is, and if she starts moving, they’ll know.”
“Great,” Rayne sighed.
“Do you have any better ideas?” I asked.
“Running and finger crossing it is,” she said. “Although, you’ll have to explain what crossing fingers is later.”
“If we make it to the ship, I’ll go into as much detail as you want,” I chuckled.
“Deal,” she giggled.
The momentary light mood was destroyed when one more flaming ball of rock powered into the ground, and this time it was dangerously close to the citadel entrance where Rayne and I had taken cover. I had my hand on the doorframe beside me, and I felt the stone start to crack and crumble under my palms, and small chunks of the wall came away in my fingers.
It wouldn’t be long until the rest of the place came down on our heads, and while I had a protective suit that would keep me safe, I still didn’t want to test it under a pile of bricks. We needed to move, but there was no other cover between the doorway and the ship. That meant that as soon as we took one step out of the shadows, we would be sitting ducks for the Karaak to fire at.
Still, if we stayed here, we were going to be turned into two-dimensional versions of each other in the next few seconds. So, I opted for the lesser of the two evils. If we ran, there was a chance that we would get to the ship before the Karaak got a good shot at us, but if we stayed, there was a hundred percent chance we were toast.
I heard another crack come from the wall I had my hand on, and I quickly withdrew my hand and moved to the center of the doorway. I turned to look at Rayne again, and I could see in her eyes that she had come to the same conclusion. She had locked her eyes on the spaceship like the sights on a gun, and the nervous energy in the air was palpable.
“Shall we?” I asked as I held my hand out to her.
“We shall,” she said as she slipped her hand into mine.
Then, we took off across the town square toward the spaceship. We leaped over the bodies and broken AI bots that were strewn across the ground and skirted around the blood-filled fountain in front of the citadel. I felt a creeping feeling slither down my spine, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. It was as though I could feel the Karaak’s fiery eyes on the back of my neck as they took aim at the two humanoid intruders trying to escape below them.
I thought about the body of the Karaak soldier I had examined inside the citadel, and it was way too easy to imagine a shipload of live ones pointing and snarling at us from their vantage point in the sky above us. They were clearly a rageful, relentless, cruel race, and they weren’t about to let us slip through their fingers without a fight.
I pushed my body as hard as I could to cover as much ground as possible. I kept a tight hold on Rayne’s hand as I ran, although she didn’t need any help when it came to speed. She was impressively fast, especially since she didn’t have the aid of a suit like mine, but we kept one another going as we sped across the courtyard.
And then I heard the familiar, hair-raising rush of air above us. I looked up to see a small dot hurtling toward us, which quickly became a larger dot, and then a massive one. The rock was coming straight toward us, so I yanked Rayne’s hand and pulled her to the right with me. We stumbled to the side, and a moment later, the rock crashed into the ground just a few feet from us. Pieces of rock and earth exploded around us and we both flew through the air from the force of the impact.
We hit the ground with a thud, but we were back on our feet in seconds. My ears were ringing, but that didn’t matter. We were about a quarter of the way across the square, and we weren’t out of commission just yet.
We scrambled to our feet and tore across the square again. The ground was cracked and uneven, but we leaped over the holes and piles of rubble in front of us as we sprinted toward the ship.
Two more blasts hit the ground behind us, each of them closer than the other, and both shook the ground so much that we nearly lost our balance again.
But we were almost there. The ship was so close that I could practically see the shields shimmering around the metallic frame.
“Come on!” I urged. “Francine, open the doors and get the ship ready to fly!”
“Already done, Will,” the AI replied, and I saw the door slide open ahead of me.
Rayne had fallen behind slightly, but only by a few paces. However, in this sort of situation, a few paces were the difference between life and death.
Suddenly, another boulder hurtled into the ground and sent Rayne flying away from the ship. It was as though time slowed to a crawl as I watched her limbs flail as she soared through the air, and then she landed in a heap on the ground.
“Rayne!” I shouted as I started to run back toward her.
I watched her scrabble to her feet again, and she began to run toward the ship. I could see a small glimmer of doubt in her eyes that she could make it. The rocks were falling like rain by then, and she was much further away from the ship than I was. But, she was nothing if not determined.
We met in the middle, and then we latched onto one another’s hands again and raced toward the ship. Both of us panted heavily and swung our arms to propel ourselves toward it until finally, the doorway was within our reach.
As soon as she was close enough, Rayne leaped through the open door and slid on her side across the floor of the cockpit. I jumped in after her, and the door sealed shut a moment later.
Bob beeped happily when he saw that both of us were back, but I didn’t have time to greet him. The ship was in its final stages of powering up as Rayne and I buckled ourselves into it.
Another rock hit the ground just in front of the ship, and suddenly, an enormous chasm opened up in front of us. Rayne and I both gasped as the ship tilted forward toward the enormous void that had appeared before us, and I peered into the dark, seemingly endless hole below us. Debris rained down on the ship, and the shields fizzed as they repelled the onslaught of rocks that pounded the ship. I checked one of the screens on the control panel, and I could see the Karaak ship above us getting ready to send off another rock. They had gotten close the last time, and I knew they wouldn’t miss again.
“Time to get us out of here!” I said as I grabbed hold of the joysticks with both hands.
“Really?” the AI said. “I thought we might stay and explore the pit that’s opened up underneath us.”
“Francine!” I shouted.
The thrusters kicked in, and the ship roared to life. We seemed to hang over the gaping hole for a moment, and then the ship threw itself toward the sky. As relieved as I was to be off the ground, we weren’t out of danger yet. We were out of the frying pan, but not the fire.
As we flew up through the Lilacron atmosphere, we were getting closer to the Karaak ship. That only made us an easier target for whatever other weapons the ship carried, so once we were clear of the debris that still spun through the atmosphere, I pointed my own ship away from the alien vessel.
Strangely, the rocks hurtling through the sky made me think of Francine’s arrival on Earth. The AI had encased itself in a meteor that had landed in my backyard. It was crazy to think that it had been just a few months ago that we had met and that all of this insane, terrifying, and wonderful stuff had happened since. Honestly, it felt like I’d been doing this forever.
There was no doubt the AI had turned my world upside down, and as I flew my spaceship through the atmosphere of a planet that no other human being had ever seen, let alone set foot on, I realized that I couldn’t have been happier that Francine had come into my life, even if we were being chased and shot at by deadly, evil, alien murderers. But hey, I’d always been the glass-half-full kind of guy.
I had to push aside the fond memories, though, when one of the rocks scraped the top of my ship, and it was only down to the shields that the ship wasn’t stripped of its roof. That seemed to kick me back into gear as I realized just how close they had come to hitting me, Rayne, and now, my ship as well.
This was personal.
“Is your seatbelt on?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Rayne replied.
“Good,” I said. “Because this isn’t gonna be a smooth ride.”
I yanked the joysticks and turned the ship around. I was miles above the ground, and I could just about make out the Karaak ship hovering above us.
However, it appeared that the Karaak had decided not to wait for me to get any closer. Instead, they shot down through Lilacron’s atmosphere and started to soar toward my ship like a vulture toward a carcass. A game of chicken seemed like a bad idea against the much larger ship, so I hauled ass in the other direction and shot off around the planet.
“Thank God for that uranium we got from Wildern,” I said through gritted teeth. “They would’ve already caught up with us otherwise.”
“Suddenly, being chased by a load of creepy mutants just to get my hands on some uranium seems so much more worth it,” Rayne said.
“You’re telling me,” I replied as I flew us over mountains and huge expanses covered in crops.
“Will, the Karaak ship is gaining on us,” Francine said.
I checked one of the sensors on the control panel, which confirmed what the AI had told me.
“Can they catch us?” I asked.
“They may match our speed,” Francine said. “But they will not be faster soon.”
“That’s good enough for me,” I replied.
As the Karaak ship inched closer to us, I was able to see more about its shape, size, and specs. It was around ten times the size of my ship, which was still fairly average for a spacecraft of any kind. Still, it was obvious that it was in no way one of the larger ships in the Karaak fleet.
I was pretty sure that my theory about these soldiers being one of the extra ships left behind to tie up any loose ends was correct. I also noted that they had stopped firing the enormous rocks at us, which probably meant that they had limited storage space for such large cargo. The ship itself was shaped like a disc with a section that jutted out at the front, sort of like one of the vertebrae in a spinal column. It seemed very technologically advanced, from what my scanners were able to pick up, and judging by the tech that the dead Karaak soldier had been surrounded by, I was quite certain that was a fairly accurate assumption.
However, I didn’t have long to geek out over the layout of the enemy ship, since it had really started to gain on me now. But Francine managed to keep our ship just ahead so that the other vessel never managed to overtake us. I was sure that it infuriated the Karaak, and it certainly left me feeling just a bit smug.
Still, our close proximity meant one other thing. My ship was within firing range of their other weapons.
Suddenly, yellow, glowing blasts started to shoot out of the front of the Karaak ship, and the weapons they were using were like nothing I had seen before. They weren’t like the lasers, the plasma blasts, or the rail gun that I had at my disposal. Instead, they shot out like bullets, but as they hit the shields, I heard a sizzling sound that was different from the usual hiss as the shields expelled any foreign bodies from the ship.
“What is that stuff, Frankie?” I asked as I dove down to get some distance between us and the other ship.
“I am unsure, Will,” the AI said. “I am sensing a high level of toxic acidity, as well as some organic matter.”
“Organic?” I asked. “Meaning it’s alive?”
“In a way, yes,” Francine said. “I believe the function is to burn through shields and the walls of ships. After that, I am unsure of what else it may be able to do.”
“Is it burning through ours?” I asked.
“The shields have held,” Francine said. “You were not hit with enough of a blast, though I would not recommend being hit in the same place again.”
“Understood,” I replied.
The ship had followed me down toward the ground, and even as I pulled up sharply, it matched me every step of the way. It continued to fire, so I followed suit and let them have a spray from the lasers I had mounted on the turrets at the top of my ship. I saw most of the lasers bounce off their shields, but I was pretty sure that a couple of the shots might have done some damage.
I also knew that would only make them angrier, so a quick escape now seemed essential.
It was time to abandon Lilacron, so as I dodged around the remnants of a mountain chain, I finally pulled back on the joysticks and sent my ship straight toward space. I saw the flames start to lick the nose of the ship, and a moment later, the ship started to shudder. I saw Rayne grab hold of the arms of her chair as tightly as she could, and even Bob let out a worried beep.
But a moment later, we shot out of the atmosphere and back into space. I immediately had to veer out of the way of a large chunk of debris, and from then on, it was like navigating a deadly labyrinth with a bunch of psychos hot on my tail. It took some very precise flying to veer out of the way of the floating remnants of the Lilacron’s AI-controlled army ships, but luckily, I’d had the practice recently.
I continued to fire at the Karaak the moment they joined me outside of Lilacron’s atmosphere, and my immediate onslaught meant that they backed off just enough for me to gain some momentum and put more distance between us. Still, not many of my shots landed, because even though the Karaak ship was huge, it was agile and moved far quicker than I had initially anticipated.
They began to fire at me, too, and I had to barrel roll out of the way of a number of very close shots that only narrowly missed my ship.
“That was close,” Rayne gasped.
“I’m pretty sure that last one only missed us by a hair’s breadth,” I panted as I felt a bead of sweat drip down my brow.
“I don’t see another ship yet,” she said.
“What?” I asked as I was momentarily distracted by another neon yellow attack, which I countered with a few shots from my lasers.
“Well, you said you thought that the ship might be one of the smaller ones in the fleet,” she said. “If that’s the case, then surely it’s possible it came out of another, much bigger ship.”
“Let’s just hope that’s not the case,” I said, as the thought of coming face to face with a second, much larger ship sent a shudder through my body.
“Fingers crossed?” Rayne said. “Did I use that right?”
“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Fingers crossed.”
The Karaak ship fired several more shots, and then it tried to maneuver itself so that it was above me. However, it was still not quite a match for my speed, and while its pilot focused on gaining height, I spun the ship around and took off in another direction, away from Lilacron.
“I need to lose them,” I said. “We can’t get hit by that yellow stuff too many times or it’ll damage the ship.”
I started to fly blindly through the star system and silently prayed for some kind of cover that I could use to get away. The folding engine still had about eleven hours until it was recharged, and the thought of keeping this kind of cat and mouse chase going for another eleven hours made my skin crawl.
“What about there?” Rayne said as she pointed to something on one of the screens on the control panel in front of her.
“Francine, bring that up on the HUD,” I said.
A moment later, the green map of the star system came up on the front window and then zoomed in on the object Rayne had spotted.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It appears to be a large mass of dust,” Francine said.
“I’m not totally sure,” Rayne admitted. “But it’s big enough to hide behind, right?”
“Correction,” Francine said. “It is big enough to hide inside. It is thick enough that the Karaak’s sensors will not work within the cloud, meaning they will not be able to locate us. However--”
“Perfect,” I said. “Good find, Rayne. How far away is it, Francine?”
“It is right up ahead of you,” the AI said as the map disappeared, revealing the gigantic dust cloud that spanned as far as the eye, and my sensors, could see in all directions.
“Holy shit,” I said.
The Karaak ship was almost on us. There was no other choice but to fly straight into the dust.
“Will, I should warn you…” Francine said. “It is true that the dust will incapacitate the Karaak ship’s sensors, but it will also block yours, which means--”
“I’ll be flying blind,” I said.
I glanced at Rayne, who had a serious look on her face. I saw on the control panel how close that Karaak ship was to us now, and as I looked through the front window, we were practically touching the dust cloud.
“Well, it doesn’t look like we have much choice now,” I said, and then I pushed both of the joysticks forward and flew us into the void of dust.