AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"Let's hope," I say.
We cut through the air, heading fifty miles a minute. I watch as our honeymoon palace disappears from the rear camera, replaced by the bright green forest cities of Ryuka.
Here, scholars write history books under inspiring marble statues of alien elders that stand hundreds of feet tall. Their armor hugs around their massive outer scales. A rifle is in one hand. A blade rests firmly in the other. After the invasion led to the bombing and destruction of many city centers in the province, many aliens wanted to honor the soldiers that tried to help. The statues were constructed so that people would never forget their sacrifice.
A fairly large portion of the Ruyka population can now apply for integration. If they pass a series of tests, they can receive the same benefits as many humans. If I was born elsewhere, this is where I would have wanted to end up. But I wasn't, so I have to find freedom somewhere else.
I hit the radio on. "We're getting closer," I say.
She nods and switches the dial to radio Clara. We're both quiet, but I'm more alarmed than ever. Something doesn't feel right, but I can't put my finger on what it is.
"Clara, can you hear me? It's Anna. Come in," she says.
The frequencies shift loudly. "Anna! Please tell me you're on your way. I've been out here for far too long. I'm worried I've been followed," she says.
I throw a stare at Anna. "Followed?" I mutter.
"Are you alone?" Anna asks.
Clara pauses. She sure sounds alone. "I think so," she says. "But I can't be sure. I thought I was getting tailed for a while."
"By who?" Anna asks.
"I'm not sure. There were three green lights. Maybe I'm losing it, but as soon as they appeared, the craft's systems went haywire. My maps dropped out. All the cameras died. Particle velocity nearly fell to zero. It shot back up at the last second, but I almost smashed into some trees," she says.
"Three green lights. I saw the same thing before I was taken," Anna whispers.
“Syndicate,” I mutter under my breath.
My adrenaline spikes and crashes. As soon as I can, I cut the non-directional thrusters. We start to drop immediately, heading for the trees below.
"Ax, what are you doing?" she asks.
I hit a button to charge the reactive armor, but I fear it will be too late. "We have been followed," I growl.
"Who has?" Clara shouts.
"Tell your friend she needs to get to safety," I roar.
Anna holds on as we cut through the center of the forest, whipping violently through the green leaves. We stabilize and snake through the large branches, soaring vertically when the forest grows too dense to fly horizontally.
Suddenly, my alarms turn erratic. An explosion turns at least thirty trees in front of us to dust. Someone is targeting us, but I can't see anything in any of the cameras. There's no sign of the enemy at all.
I turn left and feel the craft's wing catch against the dirt. Recalibrate and zip through another set of trees. Hold my breath as the shrubs grow thicker.
I hear another set of blasters and recognize the tech as alien. Bounty hunters looking to claim their delicious reward from the Syndicate.
I pull up and do a barrel roll. One of the following crafts crashes into a large trunk and explodes.
I pull back on the thrusters and zip toward one of the massive alien statues, twisting through the large trigger near the monolith's fingers. Another craft crashes and explodes. I let out an exalted laugh as marble crumbles around our ship.
"Two down," I call out.
"Yeah, but how many are left?" she asks.
I glance at the mapping systems, but no dots show up on the screen. "That might have been all of them," I mutter.
A large portion of the forests outside of the cities haven't had time to recover from many of the wildfires that spread from the earlier bombings. The trees turn sparse. We keep flying through the noticeable destruction until we reach a long row of abandoned fields.
