The Day to End All
A Seaportian Chronicle
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(Note: This does not take place on Earth. The characters are human, but the planet is not Earth)
So it had finally happened.
It didn’t come as total surprise to him. He had been expecting it, more or less, to happen one day. However in his mind, one day was never today.
Chail Fitch watched as the world burned above him. And below him, and around him. The whole daje world was burning everywhere he looked.
He was clutching the sides of the flier with white knuckles, fear stamped across his face. This was his city, Ous. The grandest city this half of Seaport, a population of roughly two million give or take a few. Known for its exquisite arts and foods and of course for the Dar Theater.
Chail knew it as his home. Where he had grown up, where he had learned. There, just over there was his home in the tenth district. Just beyond that stack of crumbling, blazing buildings was Cordon University where he had earned his degree in Foreign Cultures . And just over there, inside the gutted police station that had crashed into the ground, was the mangled corpses of his father.
The world burned around him.
The sky was a burnt orange and streaked with raging pillars of fire and acidic smoke that bellowed hundreds of meters into the air, kilometers into the dying air. The flier he was in suddenly jerked hard to the right as the pilot screamed out a curse, sending Chail flying into the window hard, pressing his grimy face against the partially melted glass. Pulling himself back off, he shook his head and brushed his dirty blonde hair out of his face, resulting in a cloud of ashes being brushed off.
The flier was in a partial dive downwards, the pilot had his hands locked on the controls, trying to evade something that Chail couldn’t figure out. Holding on tight to his safety restraints Chail gritted his teeth as the dive increased in steepness.
Come on, pull out, pull out! He though desperately. As if his plea was heard by Ka himself, the flier snapped up thirty degrees and doubled its speed. G forces shoved the helpless Chail to the back of his seat; it felt as if an anvil was crushing his chest.
As they shot for the sky, Chail’s blue eyes wandered outside the window, scanning the dying city, his dying home.
And there in the sky was the source of all his pain, all his friends and families’ pain. All of his father’s pain.
The Cortalan gun ship floated in the sky like the evil omen it was. A black, blocky shape six hundred meters long held aloft by its reverse gravity generators. Almost lazily, it cruised slowly across the scorched sky, daring the defeated Seaportians to challenge its looming presence.
As if in reply to its unspoken taunt, a wing of four I-39’s streaked out of the clouds, Chail guessed two thousand feet above. The sleek fighters rocketed down for a moment, then leveled out and spread out some before barreling down on the intruder.
One flashed fire, then two, then all four as missiles unlatched from their carriers and streaked towards the invading vessel with frightening speed. They shot towards it, snaking their way through the battered air and leaving ghostly white vapor trails in their wake.
With an almost casual reaction, the Cortalan ship lazily turned around to meet this threat. It didn’t even flinch, not as if ships could anyway, as the four high explosive warheads rammed into its hull and detonated in tremendous flashes of brilliant orange. For a moment Chail’s heart leaped, was it hit badly?
Nothing happened. As the smoke cleared, several black scorch marks were visible in the hull, but nothing more. The Seaportian fighters saw this, and immediately began to break off.
Too late for them, there was a brilliant flash of sapphire blue which radiated from the gun ship and three of the I-39s detonated in blinding flashes of light. Their remains plummeted down to earth in burning fragments; there were no parachutes.
Chail’s heart sank into his stomach as slowly, with an almost malicious attitude, the Cortalan vessel slowly turned towards the last fighter, charged its pulse laser, and blasted it out of the sky. The last of the Seaportian resistance fell to the ground as burning shrapnel. Chail’s hopes fell with it.
Then as a cry of triumph, the vessel turned its primary weapon on the already ravaged city below. High-velocity fenton smashed into once-noble sky scrapers with brutal force, tearing vicious holes through and through them. The proud structures held for a moment, raised high in defiance, before slowly tipping over and piling towards the ground far below.
Chail sank into his seat, despair flooding his mind. What in Ka’s name can we do now? We’re doomed. Our army’s gone, our air force is gone. My daje family’s gone, everything’s bloody gone! The pilot’s voice from up front interrupted his moping, sounding as haggard and tired as ever Chail had heard.
“Hey, we’re clear of the blast radius now, and the radio is coming through and telling anyone still alive to get the daje over to Tshar, they’re trying to launch evacuation ships while the military keep the Cortalan’s tied up.” He tried to sound confident on the last part, but Chail could detect the emptiness in his voice , the hopelessness of it all. He knew as well as Chail that the Seaportian lines of defense were collapsing under the sheer weight of the attack.
A billion soldiers, more actually. That was the Cortalan attack; they’d marched right across the border without a second thought about stealth or anything. Their advance had been partially unnoticed because of the Tequis incident. A Cortalan cargo ship had been offloading their cargo when, either by the crew of a remote, their nuclear reactor overloaded, went off and carved up a third of the city. While this had been going on, the Cortalan’s just marched through the borders and attacked.
They had literally walked over defenses in numbers alone. The Seaportian Defenders had actually run out of ammunition before being charged again.
So now everyone was getting as close as they could to Tshar, Jereen and Makirin to try and board the evacuation ships and get off planet.
That’s what Chail had been doing, was doing. With his family until they had been killed of course, gored to death by Cortalan Raquila soldiers. They’d taken their time too, letting them almost bleed out before patching them up, pumping them full and starting all over again. Then had been the grenade, the explosion, and the Seaportian soldiers charging through.
So in the end, the Seaportians killed his family trying to save them, not the Cortalans trying to kill them. Funny, if you were a sick dashda.
Everything else was a daze until now. Running, hiding behind ruined cars, ruined buildings. The small squad of Seaportian Defenders getting cut down one by one, two by two until they were all dead. Then that flier, and the pilot, they’d picked him up, flown him out.
Seaport was doomed.
Their friends and allies were incapable of attacking or already dead. Now Seaport was being beaten mercilessly, and being forced to flee their own planet just because of some dajed Cortalan power mongers.
Chail looked out the back window, at the rapidly retreating city behind him, his home. There were more of them in the skies now, more and more Cortalan ships slowly coming out of the burnt clouds to join their brother in burning the city. Their bad .
In the front the pilot was silently counting down. Counting down until the fusion reactors powering the city were overloaded and destroyed the invaders ahead. A small victory in the face of defeat.
Three, two, one.
Chail looked on eagerly, a small sliver of hope gleaming in his eyes as he waited for the nuclear fireball to consume the evil things overhead.
Nothing happened.
He waited for two minutes. Still nothing happened. The reactors were offline. Chail didn’t say anything. He just slumped into the worn leather seat with a sigh. They were done for good. It was over.
The flier flew off through the sky. There was no hope of victory or revenge now, just survival.
Behind them, the sky burned. And their hopes burned with it.
Left Behind
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Tucked away in the relative protection of the collapsed building, the man considered himself fairly difficult to see. Squinting as he aimed down the sight of his long-barreled rifle, he carefully swept the street ahead of any signs of danger. He didn’t bother switching to his thermal view though, the bevy or raging fires all around rendered heat vision useless.
Besides, Raquila armor had the heat signature of a piece of wood. The man kept sweeping the streets for danger, shifting every once and awhile to try and get comfortable in the rubble he lay in. Finally satisfied that they were more or less alone, he craned his head and called back to his hidden comrades.
“All clear, come on out.” The dead landscape came alive as a dozen figures began working their way out of a piles of assorted debris they’d covered themselves with before quickly scrabbling up the mound of destruction to rejoin their comrade who kept an ever-vigilant eye on the street in the form of a wireless camera which sent a direct feed to his Tactical View Display (TVD). As his comrades settled into various positions in their temporary shelter, their commander gave the lookout a curt nod before explaining their situation.
“Ok guys, listen up. I’ve been going over those layouts we found in City Central and I think I might have found a solution for us.” The others gathered around in closely to hear better as the commander pulled out a small metal frame and expanded it so it was a one meter square before tapping a control on the side. Immediately the frame flashed to life and a hologram of the city blazed before them, complete to the last detail. Pristine buildings and installations shined in their artificial glory, bringing a frown to the commanders face. “Computer, update.” He ordered. The device went blank for a moment while it collected satellite data, and then quickly flashed back to life as a scene of destruction, the city they stood in now.
Situation remedied, the commander began to explain. “Ok, now we’re here in the remains of the Shrilen Industry headquarters.” He jabbed his finger at a part of the map which reacted and enlarged the ruins, spouting off statistic beside it. The commander waved them away irritably before continuing. “Now we want to go here, Causen Hospital.” He pointed at another building about a kilometer away from their position which also sprung to life before the commander waved it away. “Since Causen is an emergency treatment center they would have a communications relay patched through to a military satellite in case they had to make an emergency transmission. The Cortalans have more or less left the building unscathed, aside from some superficial damage its fine. Now if we can get there without being blown to atoms, we stand a fairly good chance of getting in touch with HIGHCOM and maybe, just maybe, getting a ride outta here. Of course once we turn that thing on it’ll be a beacon to every Cortalan unit in a hundred miles.
There was a moment of silence as they all took in the plan, distant gunfire crackling in the distance. Then one of the soldiers raised a timid arm in question,
“Sir? What happens if Command doesn’t feel like sending in a ship to snag a couple of grunts like us?” The commander grinned wickedly at this.
“Well then we all go down swinging? Anymore questions Fis?” He addressed the soldier who’s shoulders sagged some before sighing.
“No sir, that ‘bout sums it all up for me.” The commander turned to the rest of his unit, his Lance.
“And you guys? You got it all down?” A chorus of “Yes sir’s” rippled through the gathered soldiers. He smiled, “Good! Then let’s get going!” He pointed his finger at a pair of soldiers, singling them out. “Patch, Payel! You’re on point, and Parskin!” You picked out another man. “You cover our oh-six hundred, got it? Now the rest of you, move out and start heading down the street, and remember to stick to cover and keep spread out. Now let’s move!” The men gave casual half-salutes before standing up and checking their weapons and sliding down the pile of rubble to the war-torn streets below.
As the lookout picked up his gear, the commander put a beefy hand on his shoulder causing him to turn around in question.
“What is it sir?” Pulling his closer, the commander pointed out a row of largely bombed out buildings on the other side of the street.
“Marks, I want you to head up to the second floor there and follow us, but use your AvCam, stay hidden, got it?” The helmeted man gave a half salute before taking off to carry out his bidding, his vice coming in loud and clear over the radio.
“Got it Chorci, I’ll keep an eye on you.” Chorci watched for a moment with a grin, he sure would watch out over them, he knew that for sure. Then with a grunt he slid down to the waiting street below to join his troops.
Fis kept an eye on marks for as long as he could before the stealthy man slipped out of site, literally into thin air. With a wishful sigh, Fis turned around and followed the rest of his lance, keeping to the sides of the roads as much as possible. At times like this, he really envied the sniper. Or at least he envied his equipment. As the squads Designated Marksmen, Marks was equipped to give suppressive fire from cover wherever necessary, hence the reason of his AvCam suit.
It was lighter than most; less pronounced armor plating allowed for more speed and maneuverability. The secret strength of the weaker armor was its photo reactive plating which allowed it to copy and mimic its environment quite successfully, even when moving the man looked like a mirage, a wavy piece of air. And when he stopped, well, only the occasional flicker could give him away.
Rubble crunching under his metal boots, Fis kept himself occupied with checking the street before him and around him. Every hole could hide a Raquila troop or a Harkoni ambush team. Rifle held out in front of him, he made sure to keep his sights trained on any potential threat.
At least cover was plentiful in the likely case of an attack, crashed fliers lay scattered everywhere, burned out by a massive electromagnetic blast that the Cortalans had used. It didn’t affect the shielded military craft, but the unprotected civilian ships fell like rocks.
Ruined fliers aside, plenty of thick chunks of a duranium metal were scattered all over the place, fallen from the shattered buildings that towered all around them. Hurdling over a smaller chunk, Fis kept his rifle up and his ears open. Nothing sounded asides from his own breathing and the distant thumping of Cortalan fenton weapons, sometimes followed the returning fire of Seaportian rail guns. Sometimes the Seaportians stopped responding and Fis clenched his teeth, hoping they’d just retreated.
“Don’t move everyone down now.” Fis dropped to the shattered ground without a word; everyone knew that Marks knew what he was talking about. Sure enough, he laid out the situation for them in a calm and professional manner. “Harkoni patrol fifty meters ahead at the intersection crossing horizontal to your position. I count, lets see, that would be twenty Harkoni with assorted weapons; I can see five fenton rifles and ten C-37s, that’s the worst of it.
Fis let himself a little smile. The one nice thing about fighting the Harkoni’s Cortal grunt soldiers was that they were so irrelevant to the Cortalan command. They were given very basic training and supplies and usually used whatever weapons they could scrap up for themselves. A few had modern fenton weapons while some had older but still somewhat effective powder-based automatics. Some more still used black powder based muzzle-loaders, antique and inaccurate rifles that bounced harmlessly off Seaportian body armor. Fis had even once seen a group of Harkoni’s armed with crossbows and spears.
At least they weren’t lead by a Raquila. If one of those killers was present it would mean bad news. Marks voice came in over his headset once more, smoothly informing them. “Ok, they’ve passed. Get on up and keep going.” Fis didn’t doubt him for a moment, and neither did anyone else. They slowly rose and kept moving.
The fact of Cortalaln ground forces in their area were however forcing them to move much more cautiously, and it took five minutes to cover three hundred meters. Running from cover to cover, skittering across the street only when Marks gave them the go ahead.
Fis was crouched behind a burnt out flier, his back pressed tightly against the scorched metal and his boots shifting against chips and pieces of shattered concrete that lined the ground now. The acrid smell of burnt metal filled his nostrils; he wiped his nose irritably before giving up with a sigh. A Harkoni group was just ahead, eating food or getting orders or something like that.
Whatever they were doing, it was taking a daje long time and the Seaportians were getting annoyed with the dullness of the situation. He held onto his rifle tightly as he waited for the dawdling Cortalans to move on, and hopefully not move on towards their direction. With only a dozen soldiers the Seaportians did not want to get into a firefight with fifty plus Harkoni’s, it would probably just be a waste of their bullets anyway.
“Ka, you think the little dashdas would hurry up and move along! If they don’t move along soon we might have to do something.” A quiet by terse whisper came from beside him where Patch was also bunkering down. The lithe man always had difficulty waiting around during this kind of thing and it never usually took long for him to start talking to relieve his boredom. Fis turned and gave his friend an eye roll and a rather sarcastic reply.
“Oh, and what would you propose? Throw caution to the winds and charge them?” Patch gave him a look like he was explaining something to a child.
“Don’t be stupid, we’d just pick them off from here! They’d never even get close enough to hit us.” Fin sighed as he calmly pointed out,
“They have fenton guns you know?”
“Yes and a terrible aim! Since when has Cortal given though to actually training Harkonis?” He emphasized the word trained with mock disbelief. Fin had to admit he was right though, usually over ninety percent of Harkoni grunts were just people plucked from the crowd and handed a weapon and assigned to a unit. Very few of them ever had any form of actual military training or combat experience, the fatality rate for recruits was somewhere in the eighties. Still, Patch was missing the real danger of his idea. Looking him dead in the eye, Fis calmly explained to him,
“Look, if we open up on those grunts the sound will attract every Cortalan in a few kilometers, including Raquila.” Usually the mere possibility for having to fight those Cortalan demons would send most men quaking in their boots. But Patch, this almost convinced Fis he was insane, just quietly rolled his eyes as he casually blew off that threat.
“Pah, we can handle ‘em.” And before his shocked friend could react, Patch earnestly added. “I’ve been up against Tobis’s before and I’m still here.”
Now that was just funny. Fin cracked a slight grin at this; Patch’s overconfidence could definitely be amusing at times. Humorous disbelief clearly in his voice, he questioned him,
“You, against a Tobis?” Looking plenty serious Patch nodded casually.
“Yep. A few days ago when I got cut off and picked up by another lance, we got ambushed by a few Raquila and a Tobis, managed to clean them up but he shot at me, the little dashda missed every time.” Fin shook his head in disbelieving mirth, remembering what an old veteran had told him about Tobis’s a week ago. A grin in his voice, he repeated those words to his overconfident friend.
“You don’t get shot at by a Tobis; you just get shot by a Tobis. And then you die.” Fis hadn’t been up against one of those infamous Cortalan war machines, otherwise he wouldn’t be still alive. Patch just gave him a pitying stare and dropped the subject.
“Well we’ll just have to see then.” Fis gave him a curt nod and turned his back to him, ready to move again.
“I guess we will.”
“Ok guys, we’re all clear up ahead. Get up and keep moving, yours truly will keep an eye out for yah.” Marks voice burst in over his helmet speakers, giving the soldier a slight start before training and instinct took over as he stood to his legs and propelled himself across the street to the next available cover.
Ten agonizingly slow minutes later, their hard work had finally paid off, kind of. They were now only two hundred yards from the hospital which was in surprisingly good shape compared to the devastation around it. Fis presumed that since it was such a low building surrounded by a skyscrapers, it had been pretty well shielded from the bombardment.
Crouching from behind a hunk of rubble though, Chorci was not going to assume it was unoccupied. If the Cortalans were staked out there they would not be just idling around. Well, Harkonis might, but not Raquila. They would be hiding under magic blankets, tarps plastered in artificial rubble and such to perfectly blend in with the ruined city.
Shifting uncomfortably on his feet, Chorci squinted at the distant building as if trying to spot the hidden enemy. Useless, he’d know soldiers who’d walked right past magic blankets in broad daylight, only to be decapitated from behind a moment later. It was really amazing what you learned if you survived a week of field operations against Cortal.
They had thermal shielding too, so heat-vision wouldn’t spot them. And Raquila could sit stone still for hours on end, so waiting for movement wasn’t a very good plan idea. Really there was only one way to check for Raquila. Stand up. Chorci sighed; he would have cut off his right arm for air support now. He flicked on his radio and whispered to the others scattered about.
“OK fellahs, time to go fishing for Raquila, any takers?” An on-queue collective of moans and curses of “Daje it!” sounded throughout the collected soldiers who had no wish to literally stick their necks out. Chorci felt a pang of guilt for what he was about to do, how he hated himself at times. “Well someone’s gotta do it, Fis you’re up. Marks, give him cover.” Fis groaned quietly and Marks coolly responded in a matter-of-fact tone,
“Of course.”
Well here went nothing. Swallowing on nothing, his throat suddenly very dry, Fis slowly began to push himself up, on wobbly knees, out of cover.
“Hey Fis, ‘f you die, can I get your L-rations?” Patch not-so jokingly referred to his chocolate rations, the last sweets in the entire lance. Gritting his teeth and gripping his rifle, Fis hissed back,
“Over my dead body.”
“That’s kind of what I mean buddy.” Fis ignored him, merely flipping him a rude three-fingered gesture before, with a gasp of anticipation, yanking himself up and into broad view, eye and teeth tightly clenched shut in terrible anticipation.
Nothing happened.
His heart pounded, the wind whistled. He breathed heavily, and then slowly opened his eyes to the sight before him. A blowing breeze skidded a piece of paper across the long, seemingly narrow road. The hospital lay there like a light at the end of the tunnel. Still nothing happened. Gunfire crackled in the distance, but not near him.
A smile slowly spread across his relieved face. He turned around, relief washing all over his fatigued face, and was about sound off an “All clear” and fire off a belated comeback to Patch when his head exploded.
The thundering gunshot exploded the still air, rolling down the street like a thundering tidal wave. Everyone immediately ducked back down for cover as Fis’s headless corpse slowly sank to the ground into a bloody mess. Patch was rapidly backing up in horror from what just was his friend, eye bulging out of his skull and his face deathly white.
Up in his perch, Marks silently cursed himself repeatedly. He’d let him down, he’d let his teammate, his friend down for a second and this was the result. Dead killed by that daje Cortalan sniper.
“Marks, where did that come from? Do you see it?” Chorci’s demands broke in through the helmets speakers, talking in that un-caring tone that occurred when trying to bottle up his grief. Marks swung his rifle around, fervently searching the area for the enemy shooter. Nothing, bloody magic blankets.
He jumped to his camera footage, rewinding and checking through it for a sign, any sign of his comrades murderer. Cortalan guns, anything using fenton actually let out a burst of radiation when fired so it didn’t take long to find the source.
“Found it.” His voice was cold, hard and calculating, even to him. Without a word from Chorci, he zoomed in on the source of the radiation burst and zeroed onto what looked like a pile of debris.
Resting his finger lightly on the trigger to his rifle, he adjusted his scope and checked his distance. Hardly necessary though, the electromagnetic rails in his gun would hurl the thirty millimeter slug at around mach twelve, and at two hundred yards nothing would halt its progress. Lining up, he squeezed the trigger and fired.
The recoil was light; shock absorbed took most of the impact. A sonic clap split the air as the tungsten bullet broke the sound barrier, slicing through the air and into its target with pin point accuracy.
A seemingly inconspicuous pile of debris exploded into a crimson red spray as the Raquila suffered the fate of its victim. The corpse slumped to the ground, and the tip of its rifle poked out of the edge of its magic blanket. Marks coldly reported the kill, “Threat eliminated, running shape sifter.” He flipped on the shape sifter machine, a little device which analyzed the shape of a certain something before searching the area of anything remotely like it.
It beeped for a moment, analyzing the dead sniper, before humming as it searched the area with incredible intensity for anything like the Raquila. It beeped negatively, nothing detected. Marks let out a slight breathe of relief, good. He reported his findings to Chorci, “Got nothing else. We’re clear, give the go ahead.”
“Copied that Marks, we’re moving in, keep us covered please.”
“Copy that sir, go ahead.” There was no reply as the soldiers below began a quick rush for the hospital. Marks followed up behind them, his near-invisible shape blending in with the blasted surroundings. He tightly gripped his rifle; he would not fail them again.
Chapter Two
Chail slept fitfully in the back of the flier, his too-tall frame somewhat crunched uncomfortable into the too-small back seat. Fading in and out of restless sleep, he could scarcely tell being awake from being asleep. Exhaustion overwhelmed him, drowning his senses in waves of fatigue and he so desperately yearned for a rest that eluded him.
For what seemed like hours he drifted in and out of shallow sleep filled with burning memories and scarring nightmares that brutally reflected the horrors he had experienced. Being awake was no better; his filthy clothes, the course seating and the acrid smell of fire permeated the air around him, making it almost impossible to get back to a sleep in vain search of rest.
But sleep he finally did, dragged down into inky black nothingness of unconsciousness by the thick tendrils of pure exhaustion. With the droning of the flier’s engines and the humming of its null gravity generator swarming in his aching ears, he finally fell asleep.
He could feel his heart in his throat, the terrified organ pounding away like a machine gun. Wide-eyed, Chail cowered back in the closet, trying oh-so desperately to make no sound. His breathing though was heavy and labored, like he was forcing something dreadfully heavy from his lungs that refused to leave. His skin was clammy and his hands were freezing cold, no matter how much he tried to warm them.
Just behind him were his mother and father, both as wide-eyed and terrified as he was if not more so. Grasping the door knob with a grip of iron, Chail could only pray desperately that the people outside wouldn’t open it.
It was dark in the closet; and terribly hot and stuffy which added to the ka-awful reek of terror made a frightfully awful atmosphere and Chail desperately wanted to open the door and gulp in fresh air, but to do so would be a terrible mistake.
It was still quiet from beyond the door, and Chail was hoping fanatically that possibly the brutes outside had maybe left, maybe they could now leave the closet-
The sound of the door to their room suddenly being kicked down dashed his hopes to nothing. Chail’s heart skipped a beat as he heard the noise of dozens of boots thundering in through the door and some crashing through the walls. Oh please don’t let them find us! He prayed desperately!
Chail would have never dreamed this could have ever happened to anyone in Seaport, much less him and his family. But when the news had reported the entire Cortalan fleet advancing towards Seaport they’d murmured surprise to each other, hoping it was just more sword-rattling. But when Cortalan gunships crossed the border and began pounding forward towns to dust, their surprise turned to fear.
And when ten Cortalan ships appeared overhead and burned the Seaportian planes from the sky before setting upon the city itself, their fears had turned to total panic. They had watched in horror as tens of thousands of personal fliers, many flown by close friends, flocked into the skies. Without the massive AIs to guide and organize them safely, hundreds had collided and smashed into buildings or the ground.
And the others, the lucky majority who avoided one another were coldly blasted from the sky by Cortalan fighters who treated it like some sick game, allowing some to nearly escape before firing a missile. So Chail and his family had tried to hide, tried to get to the military base five miles from their home. Running for the University in hopes of getting an old car, they stumbled into the home of Chail’s close friend Rijen. They had been trying to figure out how to reach the university safely when a pair of Cortalan Raquila smashed their way in. Rijen didn’t hesitate, and using and arcane and ancient revolver of his, shot one right in the head.
The Raquila didn’t hesitate either. The other one turned, far faster than Rijen could ever have been, and shot him all over the wall. It must not have seen Chail when it turned on his parents who were shrieking in the corner. Chail was operating on a mix of pure terror and adrenaline when he grabbed the gun from his friends remains, he managed to get it on the Raquila before pulling back the hammer and firing, sending the soldier to the ground in a heap.
Then dragging his still-screaming parents with him and moving almost on instinct alone, he opened the back door and fled with them down through the back yard and onto the main road, running non-stop until they met a group of twenty-or so Seaportian marines also on their way to the University for transportation.
Morn, that had been his name. A nice strapping big marine assigned to protect them. A new guy apparently, top of his class in the Academy and eager to get into action to kick the Cortalans back to their holes, always talking about blowing them down before heading back to get married to his girlfriend in Tshar. He had still been talking about it when an artillery shell hit and blew pieces of him all over his buddies and Chail.
They were suddenly on the run, dodging and trying to dodge a sudden hail of explosions landing all around them. Oh Ka, don’t let it happen! Don’t let them hit me, Chail screamed without his knowing as a trio of marines ahead of him were cut to pieces.
And then the firefight. It was just as they had escaped the bombardment, the rounded a corner and the two point marines were shot down by thirty-plus Cortalan’s at a disused intersection ten meters ahead. They’d all taken cover behind a smashed flier while the marines traded bullets with the enemy until they were all dead. As the Cortalan survivors began to move up, Chail plucked a grenade from nearby body, armed it, thrown it and ran with his parents trailing behind.
Through numerous alleys they ran, but with the Cortalans still behind them. Ducking behind a pile of recycle units, they smashed open the window of a floating police station which had hit the ground when its reverse gravity generator was taken out. They ducked inside, trying to ignore the various shattered police bodies which lined the facility. Then they found the closet, largely intact, and squeezed in, shutting the door behind them.
Now they could hear the Cortalans outside, getting closer. Chail pulled the door tighter, as if he could weld it into place through sheer force. Step, step, step. They got closer and Chail could hear the occasional grunt and mutter from the odd one of them
Step, step, step. Chail’s hand clenched around the worn revolver and he pulled back the hammer, his teeth clenching and his heart pounding.
“Fire!” He heard a ragged voice devoid of Cortalan accent shout from a distance down the hall their closet was in. Immediately the sound of gunshots split the air and he could hear one of the Cortalans cry out in their dialect as bullets pinged off its armor. There was a scream of pain from one of them, then the rapid chattering sound of their rifles.
The gunfire stopped from the end of the hall, the few resistors dead. Chail let out a sob. Immediately the footsteps increased, then he felt the door being ripped open from the outside, he held on tight as his terror sky-rocketed and was dragged out into the open into the wall. He started to turn around, the ****ed pistol held in an iron fist.
A lightning fast hand flashed down and snatched the gun from his hand and flipping him over at the same time. Now he saw his killers for the first time.
Clad in dull grey armor from head to toe and holding a menacing looking rifle in his hand, the Raquila gave him a look or irritation before checking the closet again. Screams radiated from within and Chail leaped to his feet with shout for his parents. A vicious kick floored him, knocking the wind from his lungs with a gasp.(Yes, WIP, I know. But more coming tomorrow!)
