Chapter 10
The Lilacron AI and I raced to its ship as fast as we could, tore up the ramp, and started to unplug the next stasis tube. We had to be careful not to break any of the connectors as we did so, but we didn’t have time to be ceremonious about how we handled the AI’s creators.
The moment the tubes were disconnected, I wrenched it down the ramp, across to my ship, and into my storage compartment. I put the tube next to the first two and then got to work hooking all of the different wires and tubes up to it that I had only just installed. The Lilacron AI stayed back in its ship and started to get the fourth one ready to transfer, so I had to work extra fast to get the tube wired in before the next one arrived, because the Lilacrons could only be disconnected for a short period of time before they started to either wake up or die. My hands worked at double speed, but I also made doubly sure that everything was wired in perfectly. The last thing I wanted was to have one of the Lilacrons die on my watch on my ship because I’d made a mistake in my haste.
Thankfully, the task kept my mind from drifting to other topics, like the fact that the Karaak were now close enough to send a message to the city. And, unfortunately for us, the message was that whoever caught us and brought us to the Karaak was going to be awarded a very large number of credits, most likely enough credits that none of the people down here, even the nice alien behind the dessert stand, would refuse it.
This city was brimming with thieves, murderers, merchants, and criminals, all of whom were here to make money. So I knew that it wouldn’t be long until the gang of angry villagers arrived with their torches and pitchforks to take us. I wondered if the bounty on our heads specified if we needed to still be alive when we were delivered to the Karaak, or if it was more of a western-style ‘dead or alive’ situation.
I decided that I didn’t wanna stick around to find out. I had to admit, though, it was a clever idea to have the citizens of The Crossed Swords do all the dirty work.
This way, the Karaak didn’t have to come down and do anything personally, which might expose the evil creatures to a personal attack, and then they could just swoop in once the job was done, pay a few measly credits to whoever claimed the bounty, and take off with the few Lilacrons that were left. The Karaak clearly knew their audience, and that was what scared me.
Not only were the Karaak ruthless, thorough, and murderous, they were also intelligent and calculating. They didn’t seem to have any weaknesses whatsoever, which, I supposed, explained how they had been able to wipe out so many civilizations already. They were stronger, faster, more technologically advanced, and more powerful than almost every race they came up against, and so far, they’d always come out on top.
I tried to work out why they had gone on this genocidal rampage against certain species, and also how they selected which species to murder and which to leave alone. They didn’t seem to have any interest in The Crossed Swords at all, and yet they had gone out of their way to destroy everything on Lilacron and chase after the survivors. I couldn’t for the life of me work out a method to their madness, but a part of me wondered whether there was a method or not.
Maybe they had just made a list of some random planets and had decided there and then that they wanted to play God. But no, that didn’t feel right. They had a strategy, a detailed plan, and so far, it had been carried out quickly and efficiently by their forces.
That is, until now. The Lilacrons had managed to get some of their people off-world either before or during the attack, which meant that the Karaak hadn’t been able to kill them all in one go. Sure, they’d killed most of the population, but not all of them, and it astounded me that they were going to this much trouble to finish the job.
I imagined their ship floating above the planet somewhere as they aimed their sights and readied their boulders to launch. But a quick glance at the sky didn’t reveal any hovering ships. Well, all that meant was that the Karaak ship hadn’t gotten close enough to land. About the only thing I knew for certain about its location was that it had to have crossed the threshold of the dust cloud in order to send a message, and that meant it was close.
I finished connecting the third tube and hurried back to the Lilacron ship to grab the fourth. As I crossed between the ships, I looked up at the dust-filled sky again to see if I could spot the Karaak ship above us, but there was nothing but darkness. I knew in my heart that if I could see the ship, it was too late, and I tried to convince myself that it was a good thing that I couldn’t see the approaching enemy.
“Come on, Will,” I urged myself as I ran up the ramp of the Lilacron ship.
The AI had already started to unplug the next stasis tube, and we quickly had the last wires disconnected.
“If you are comfortable finishing the installation on your ship, I will begin disconnecting these final stasis tubes,” the AI robot said as I started to wheel the tube toward the ramp.
“That would probably be best,” I replied.
The AI gave a slight nod as I started down the ramp, and it took everything I had not to run across the uneven surface with the stasis tube in tow. It wouldn’t do to tip the tube over in the middle of the parking lot, and the AI would probably start to have doubts about our plan if I did.
Rayne emerged from our ship as I scurried across the lot, and she was armed to the teeth with basically every weapon she had brought with her. She had her gun in its holster by her hip, her makeshift fireball shooter slung over her back, and an abundance of knives strapped to various parts of her body. She moved to stand beside Bob, who had extended his new laser gun, ready to defend us, and she turned to give me a thumbs up as I approached.
Her blonde hair seemed to float around her face as she moved, and her bright green eyes pierced through the dust and the dark as she watched the edge of the city. At first, her glance was soft and caring as she watched me move the stasis tube, but then a shadow came over her face, and her eyes darkened.
I looked beyond her toward the city, and that was when I saw the small figures in the distance as they emerged from the edge of the city. At first, there were only a few aliens, but then the rest of the swarm emerged. They all came to a halt at the edge of the city while they tried to pick out our ships, but that wouldn’t last long. The bounty had worked. The merry band of thieves were here, and they were looking for blood.
“Bob and I will hold them off as long as we can,” Rayne called out. “You two get those tubes into the ship and get us out of here!”
“You don’t need to tell me twice,” I replied as I brought the fourth tube up my ramp.
Now that I had done three tubes, I had become quite the expert at plugging them in. I had it connected within a few minutes, checked my work over, and then rushed out to grab number five.
I hurried into the Lilacron ship and collected the fifth tube from the Lilacron AI, who had already started to unplug the sixth tube.
“The bounty hunters are coming,” I announced. “We need to go.”
The AI nodded, and then together, we wheeled the last two stasis tubes down the ramp and started to push them toward my ship.
We both turned to look toward the city once we were outside, and to my dismay, the horde of murderous bounty hunters was almost upon us. They had set their sights on our ships and were careening across the parking lot. At the front of the group, I could see the friends of the goon who had pushed Rayne and whom I had taken out back in the city. They looked especially determined to take us down, not just for the reward, but also to get revenge for their friend. Some of the aliens ran with their weapons drawn in their hands, while others bounded toward us on all fours.
I saw Rayne pull the fireball launcher off her back, and she raised it at the snarling crowd.
“Go!” I shouted at the AI beside me.
We dragged the stasis tubes up the ramp of my ship and moved them into position in my storage hold. It was a tight squeeze to get all six of them in beside one another, but we had just enough space to move around the tubes in order to wire them in. My hands moved in a frenzy of speed as I connected every wire, tube, fuse, and circuit. The AI moved just as fast as I did, and I was painfully aware that we only had a few moments left before the bounty hunters were on us, and it probably wouldn’t be much longer after that before the Karaak descended upon us, too.
Suddenly, right as I was about to connect one of the feeding tubes, I heard the first shot, though it didn’t sound like any of Rayne’s weapons. A second later, there was a familiar hiss as Rayne sent off a blast from her fireball launcher. There was a moment of silence, and then it made impact. Screams echoed around the landing pad as the fire consumed some of the bounty hunters, and I heard thuds as bodies dropped, and lighter thuds as pieces of other bodies landed on the ground as well. Rayne had done some damage, and the bounty hunters weren’t going to be happy about it.
“Your friend has some interesting weapons,” the Lilacron AI said.
“She sure does,” I replied. “The fire-launcher’s awesome.”
“It is unconventional,” the AI said. “But, yes, it is awesome.”
“Are you sure you’re alright with this plan?” I asked as I plugged a wire into the wall of the ship.
“Of course,” it replied. “It is the most logical plan we have.”
“I know it’s logical,” I said. “But what I’m asking is if you’re alright with it?”
“Like I said, I do not value my existence the same way that lifeforms do,” it replied. “It will be a shame that I will not be there to assist my creators going forward in the battle against the Karaak, but it will be an honor to sacrifice myself to keep them safe and to allow them to escape.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” I said.
We finished wiring up the stasis tubes at the same time, and as soon as we were done, I told Francine to turn the last two of them on, and then we hurried down the ramp.
I threw myself to the ground as a projectile blasted the ramp nearby and I took cover behind the ramp. Rayne and Bob were busy holding off what looked to be the entire population of The Crossed Swords, although, as I looked over to the city edge, I saw that there were still more coming.
Rayne let off shot after shot and alternated between bullets and fireballs. Burning bodies lay on the ground around us, and the smell of burning flesh filled my nose and made my eyes water. Bob shot his laser at anyone who got too close, and the deadly beam cut bodies in half as though they were made of nothing.
I drew my gun and hurried over to join Rayne and Bob. I set my gun to Electro-Launch and started to fire at the thieves and money-hungry killers coming toward us. Rayne didn’t look at me as I arrived since she was preoccupied with not getting shot, but I knew she had noticed my arrival.
“We’re done,” I said. “The tubes are in. We can go.”
“Good,” she replied. “Because I’m running low on ammo for my launcher.”
We started to back away toward the ramp together as a group. The bounty hunters didn’t seem deterred by their fallen competition, so they just kept on coming, and as we got further away, they started to close in.
“We won’t have time to get up the ramp and take off before they’re on us,” Rayne said.
“We can’t have them getting into the ship,” I replied.
“Perhaps I can help with that,” the Lilacron AI said from behind us.
Suddenly, I became aware of some movement by my feet. I looked down to see all of the little worker robots that had been on the Lilacron ship and had helped me transform my cargo hold into the perfect compartment to look after the stasis tubes. The little bots flooded past us and tore toward the bounty hunters like a swarm of giant spiders. The robots had their own lasers, torches, cutters, and other tools that they could use against the aliens, and they had the added advantage that if they got left behind, it wouldn’t matter.
“Get in the ship!” I shouted at Rayne and Bob.
She and the robot turned and ran up the ramp. Before I followed them, I quickly turned to the Lilacron AI, just as it extended its hand to me.
“You’re a fast learner,” I chuckled as I shook its hand.
“Good luck, Will Ryder,” it said. “Keep my creators safe.”
“I will,” I said. “I promise. And thank you for doing this. We won’t forget your sacrifice.”
“It is for the greater good, and the good of the Lilacron race,” the Lilacron AI said. “It is hardly a sacrifice to me.”
A bullet broke up the moment, as it whizzed through the gap right between our heads.
“Well, that ruined the mood,” I said. “Good luck!”
“Goodbye,” the robot said, and then we both turned and ran up our respective ramps.
The ramp started to rise even while I was on it, so by the time I was climbing the ladder up to the living compartment, the ship was already sealed.
I raced into the cockpit and strapped myself in. Rayne was already in her seat, and Bob was in the corner, so we were ready for lift-off. I looked out of the front window as I readied the ship, and I could see the Lilacron bots working their way through the bounty hunters. They cut at ankles, fired lasers at heads, and climbed up the bodies in order to get a good shot in. However, they were clearly outnumbered, and a couple of the aliens had just managed to get past them.
I hit the thrusters, and my ship began to rise off the ground just as the Lilacron ship took off as well. The force from our ships taking off flattened some of the bounty hunters while others flew backward in the wind. Dust swirled around our ships like tornados as we lifted off the ground. A couple of the thieves took some shots at my ship, but I barely noticed as the shields easily took care of the bullets.
Soon, we were out of range of their guns, and I let myself take a deep breath as I prepared for the next step in our plan. The other Lilacron ship was still next to us, and if everything went the way we hoped, it would soon draw the attention of the Karaak and any bounty hunters who made it off the ground. I thought another silent thank you, and then we shot off in opposite directions.
I streaked through the planet’s atmosphere and out into the pocket in the dust cloud. I kept my eyes peeled for any sign of the Karaak ship, and Rayne kept her eyes locked on the scanners in the control panel so she could warn me of their presence, but it appeared that the Karaak hadn’t reached the planet yet.
That should have made me feel better, but it didn’t. Clearly, the Karaak had some impressive scanning and transmitting equipment, which meant they could find us and call for backup while we were still blind. The only chance we had was to get the hell away from The Crossed Swords before anyone realized who and what we were.
It was tense inside the ship as I flew toward one of the tunnels out of the pocket. All I had to do was keep us out of the Karaak’s range long enough for the enemy ship to find the Lilacron AI first. Once the Karaak had their sights set on the decoy ship and not mine, then we would be in the clear, but until then, it was anyone’s game.
A small voice in my head wondered if maybe I should have taken only three of the Lilacrons and left the other three in the AI’s ship. That way, even if one of us got caught by the Karaak, three of the Lilacrons would definitely make it. But then I reminded myself that it was a surefire assumption that the Karaak would go after the Lilacron ship over mine, so I decided it was for the best that all six of the Lilacrons’ lives were in my hands.
No pressure.
I flew into the nearest tunnel, and as soon as I did, the amount of dust in front of me tripled in density. We shot out of the other side a moment later, and it was as though I had just taken a dive into a bowl of soup. I couldn’t see anything at all.
I was back to flying blind. The scanners didn’t work in this amount of dust, so I could only avoid the broken ships and jagged asteroids at the last minute when I was able to see them. It was like driving down the busy freeway at night with a flashlight taped to my hood. My muscles were so tense that someone could have cracked an egg on my bicep, and my eyes were sharp as I dodged and weaved around the different obstacles and obstructions in our way.
“That was close,” Rayne said. “Those bounty hunters were going to stop at nothing to get us.”
“It was a bit too close for comfo--” I said, but I shut up as I had to swerve manically around a large asteroid that appeared out of nowhere. “And so was that.”
Rayne laughed, but I could still hear the tension in her voice as we raced through the dust.
“Francine, how long until I can jump?” I asked.
“Thanks to the upgrade that the AI made to the engine and the energy transfer, the five-hour recharge time will be complete in two minutes and fifty-eight seconds,” she replied.
“Two minutes fifty-eight seconds,” I said. “We just have to avoid the Karaak for that long, and then we’re out of here.”
“I wish we knew where they were,” Rayne said as she checked the scanners again. “But all this stupid dust makes it impossible to find them.”
“I don’t think we need the scanners,” I said.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Why?”
“Do you see that?” I asked as I pointed into the dust cloud.
Right in front of us, through the wall of particles, a large shadow had begun to form. At first, I hadn’t even noticed it, but then the shape of the ship had started to form as we had flown closer. It was the ship that had chased us back at Lilacron, or one that looked a hell of a lot like it.
It was still a good distance away, but the Karaak ship wasn’t reacting like it had seen us yet. Maybe their scanners were still having trouble with the dust as well.
“Francine, scanners off,” I said. “And cut propulsion. No big moves unless we have to avoid something.”
A second later, the running lights at the front of my ship shut off, and we were plunged into darkness.
“What do we do?” Rayne asked quietly.
“We hope they haven’t seen us yet,” I said. “I’m worried that if we keep using our engines, they might pick us up on their scanners. If we just float along, though, we’ll look like one of the other abandoned ships.”
Even though they hadn’t launched any massive rocks or shot any yellow acid at us yet, I was still kicking myself that we had been unlucky enough to run into them on our way out.
“Two minutes, Will,” Francine said.
Two minutes felt like a lifetime at that moment.
All we could do was stare at the shadow as it crept through the dust like a lion through the brush as it hunted its prey. It was slowly making its way toward us, and I knew it wouldn’t take it two minutes before it reached us.
So, I eased back on one of the joysticks, and my ship began to retreat as slowly as it could without giving away our status. I had my fingers crossed that it would just look like the ship was floating, but we couldn’t stay this close to the Karaak for much longer before they realized we weren’t some shell of a ship, but rather, the people they were hunting.
“Shit, this is intense,” I whispered.
I barely allowed myself to breathe as we crept backward. Rayne had her hands tightly wrapped around her seatbelt, and even Bob didn’t dare to move.
A minute went by with nothing happening. The Karaak were probably waiting for news from The Crossed Swords about whether or not the bounty hunters had succeeded before they moved closer to the planet. It made sense, since they wouldn’t want to risk someone slipping by because they’d approached the city too quickly, but at some point, they would realize that too much time had passed and so the mob probably hadn’t succeeded.
Rayne reached over and put her hand in mine. We turned to one another and shared a look that spoke a thousand words.
But the moment didn’t last long, as suddenly, a blindingly bright light flooded through the front window into the cockpit. Rayne and I squinted and looked toward the source of the light, and we saw that the Karaak ship had illuminated the area around us.
“Oh, shit,” I said as I grabbed the joysticks.
“They might not know our ship,” Rayne said. “Are you going to move?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Will--” Rayne started to protest.
“I don’t know!” I shouted.
“Will, do not move,” Francine said.
“But--” I said.
“Trust me,” the AI pressed.
It went against everything every cell in my body was telling me, but I didn’t move. My hands were wrapped tightly around the joysticks, ready to move at any second, but I stayed still. The Karaak ship loomed in front of us, and I wondered if this was what a small fish felt like right before the whale’s mouth opened and they were consumed in one gulp.
“What are we waiting for?” I hissed. “We should go.”
“One moment,” Francine said. “I have made contact.”
“With who?” I asked.
“You will see,” the AI replied.
“I don’t have time for this, we need to…” I began, but I trailed off when another, cream-white ship appeared out of nowhere and came to a halt right in front of us.
“The Lilacron ship,” Rayne gasped. “Will! It’s the Lilacron ship!”
It slotted itself right in between us and the Karaak, and I saw the Karaak ship focus the beams of light on the Lilacron ship instead of ours. I could imagine the Lilacron AI in the pilot’s chair as it stared down the Karaak one last time.
This was the moment we had planned for, even if the circumstances weren’t exactly what we had wanted. If this worked and the Karaak followed the Lilacron ship, then we could make our escape before the Karaak even figured out what had happened.
Rayne and I held our breath and stared first at the friendly ship, and then the Karaak ship beyond it. Nobody moved for a moment, and it felt like we were suspended in our own tiny part of the universe where time stood still.
Then, the Lilacron ship shot off into the dust. The Karaak didn’t waste any time and took off after it. It was like watching a shark chase a seal, and I felt a pang of sympathy for the AI ship.
But the other two ships were soon lost in the dust, so I switched the engine back on and flew in the opposite direction.
“Francine, how long?” I shouted.
“Five,” the AI said.
I swerved around an asteroid and ducked under the wing of a broken ship.
“Four,” Francine said. “Three.”
Rayne gripped her seatbelt and braced herself.
“Two,” Francine said.
I took a deep breath.
“One,” the AI said.
This was it. We’d done it.
“Launching the folding engine,” Francine said.
There was a moment’s pause that felt like a year. I turned to look at Rayne again, and as my eyes met hers, she smiled. The tunnel of light stretched out in front of us, and the dust around us was sucked in before us. The colors spiraled as space and time bent around us, and there was a beautiful moment of calm as the stars glittered like diamonds before they slowly extended out into glowing stripes.
And then Rayne and I were thrown back in our seats by an invisible force that held us there as the space in front of us warped, and then we shot forward through the galaxy.