Amateur Author

Jaydon and his anonymous female companion ran down the hallway. Just as the doors of the lift had closed, Jaydon had pushed her back into the hallway, and had jumped after her.

‘In here,’ he hollered as he suddenly stopped at a door and tried to open it. They were in luck; the lock down hadn’t intervened with the ability of this particular door to open and close itself.

‘What is this?’ the woman asked as she was pulled inside the tiny room.

‘Maintenance room,’ Jaydon answered and opened the bag he kept with him at all times. He quickly searched for a certain object he desperately needed to get himself out of one of the worst jams he had ever gotten into. It would probably be easiest to hand the girl over to the Vanguard, but his instinct told him she was innocent of whatever reason they were looking for her. Besides that, Jaydon wasn’t a big fan of the House of God. He was never a very religious person, and he strongly felt the religious leaders abused the teachings of their prophets to get their hands on as much power as possible. To him, church-related groups like the Vanguard were the embodiment of all that was wrong today with this religious movement which preached love, peace, and harmony, but in reality often did the exact opposite every single day.

The young woman quietly sat down next to him. She didn’t bother him with her curiosity, but allowed him to do whatever he was doing without distraction. She was slightly distracting, though, even if she didn’t realize it at the time. She had pressed herself against him which gave her a safer feeling, and allowed him to feel her perky breasts pressed against his upper body, the latter completely unintentionally. As she was now so close to him, he could whiff up her scent. It was a completely natural scent, unspoiled by perfumes or other artificial ways people use to make themselves smell nicer. He closed his eyes for a brief moment to collect his thoughts. Concentrate, moron! he thought to himself. If you don’t get this right, both of you are screwed. You don’t have time to linger on her. Hell, you know nothing about her. Just do what you must and worry about the rest of it later, when you have time for it.

With renewed concentration, Jaydon opened his eyes and grabbed the piece of equipment he had been looking for. The young woman was still nestled up against his body, but he refused to be distracted by it. He put on strange looking glasses and held an equally strange looking device in his hand.

The woman’s curiosity was burning a hole in her mind, but she kept quiet. If she were to speak at the exact moment someone passed the door, they could hear her and they would get caught. She valued her life a lot more than the urge satisfy her curiosity. She actually wasn’t even sure if her life was in danger, but she figured with two armed groups on her tail – one in long dark robes, one in shiny military uniforms – there was a good chance of getting killed because of a minor or major slip-up. This in mind, she put some extra effort in breathing as quietly as possible, although she was convinced her pounding heart could be clearly heard within a ten meter radius.

Jaydon attached the device to his arm through the means of several straps and clamps, grabbed the stick at the end of it and pressed a few buttons.

In one of the hangar bays, several key systems of the spaceship Concordon were activated. It kept its engines off-line, but the central computer gave the sensors a few start-up kicks and they too sprung to life. The external visual sensors made a sweep of the bay the ship was in. All data was relayed to the remote control unit; the device in Jaydon’s hand.

Jaydon stared at the visual data which was displayed on his goggles. There were several platoons in the bay, being unloaded onto the landing platforms. He punched in another set of keys, turned his sensors towards tunnel leading outside. He waited, praying to no deity in particular.

After a few minutes of complete silence, he whispered to his present company: ‘Get ready to help me through the door and into the hallway. We need to get close to the window. Whatever happens, Stay as close to me as you can. It’s our only chance, you see. Do you understand?’

She nodded, biting her lower lip in anticipation. She was shivering slightly, uncertain about how they would get out of the trouble they were in. Trouble she had no explanation for.

He thought it made her look kind of cute. He waited another few minutes, the silence and tension remained. Then he slowly got up. ‘Any minute now…’ he murmured. Then, his face expressed both relief, excitement as well as utter concentration. His fingers started to move rapidly, seemingly punching random keys and buttons.

In the hangar bay, another ship filled with ground troops arrived at the station. From the control room, the outer doors were opened and the ship slowly approached the entrance. The Condordon jumped to life at Jaydon’s whim and all of its systems went from standby to fully active. Before anyone realised what was going on, the ship rapidly turned its nose towards the entrance, ripped itself free from its anti-gravity field and bolted towards the open entrance. With a degree of manoeuvring only a very skilled pilot could muster, the ship left the station, flying dangerously close to the approaching troop transport, and without slowing down at all, flew even more dangerously close to the outer hull of the station.

Inside, baffled and panicking soldiers relayed what they had just seen to the control room. Of course, closing the entrance was no longer an option to detain the vessel; it was already outside.

Because it was so close to the hull, the Vanguard ships in control of the space surrounding the station could not blow it out of the sky; the risk of severely damaging the station was too great. Not that they were afraid to kill a few people to reach their goal. They had counted on a certain amount of collateral damage, but in this particular situation it would be a Public Relations nightmare. That is, if they would have the time to realise what was going on, and react accordingly.

The anonymous woman had helped a highly focussed Jaydon outside. Jaydon had to let nothing disturb him, because one error would crash his ship into the station, probably killing dozens if not hundreds of people, destroying his ship and annihilating their one and only shot at escaping.

‘There they are!’ someone cried from the end of the hallway. A very similar cry came from the other end. On one side were the well armed and ruthless members of the Brotherhood of Ragnarok, on the other the equally well-armed and equally ruthless soldiers of the Vanguard of God. In the middle of the two parties stood Jaydon and the woman he was helping to escape.

She yelped, and looked up at the slightly taller man. He didn’t look back at her. Drops of sweat pearled down his face, finding their path down along his sideburns.

She looked back. Vanguard soldiers ran towards them, ordering them to stand down and surrender.

She looked past Jaydon. Brotherhood members screamed for the death of the Vanguard soldiers and pointed the weapons in their trigger-happy fingers into the hallway.

She looked at Jaydon again; tears of fear and desperation welling up in her eyes. She felt completely helpless.

With his free arm, Jaydon grabbed her and pulled her towards him. The gesture made her put her arms around him as tightly as she could muster. She closed her eyes. She heard guns go off, and bolts of energy sparkled through the air. A strange sensation engulfed her body, but she lacked the courage to open her eyes and see what it was.