The Hunted

by Andrew Wichland

  Face hardening behind his helmet, Robin growled in frustration at her persistence. His eyes then fell on what was coming up behind her. “I prefer to think of it as liberating!” he snapped as he drew his bow once again.

  After it snapped open, he took aim and fired. Out of reflex, she ducked as the arrow shot past, impacting with the gun ship coming up behind her. The resulting explosion shook the air ship, sending it back a little before it tumbled forward into the tower. Robin raised his arm to activate a shield to block the shock of the exploding crash, which sent their pursuers tumbling over the edge.

  They were surrounded by the flames and the twisted remnants of the gun ship that littered the ground around them.

  “Maybe you overdid it,” Adam muttered, looking around them, and Robin glanced his way.

  At a sound of scraping metal, he looked over and saw the other Knight push wreckage aside as she emerged from underneath it. Clutching one arm, she glanced around before she looked in his direction.

  A groan reverberated up their feet, and the tower began to tilt to the side. Losing balance, the three slid through the debris and toward the edge. After hitting the railing, Robin barely managed to hold onto the rider as he was sent over the side of the machine. To slam against the side of the tower the rider the only thing keeping him from falling.

  The other Knight hung from the railing as she glanced over and met his gaze.

  “You have ensured the destruction of this water source for these people, but I will save what’s left!” Planting her feet against the tower, she kicked off it, sending her into the air. Robin watched her fall, but then her wings extended and she flew off toward the other tower.

  Rolling his eyes, he started pulling himself up with Adam grasping him by his wrist—and then the railing snapped.

  “AAAGGGGHHHH!” They screamed as they fell.

  With the ground rushing up to meet them, Robin managed to pull himself back onto the rider. “Nice to see you behind the wheel again!” Adam barked. “Now, get us out of here!”

  “Not yet!” his brother shouted back as he headed toward the control bunker. “Take over!”

  “What?” Adam barely got out before Robin threw himself forward.

  Chapter 30

  I’m Coming

  As he had been trained, Robin kept his limbs tucked close to keep him streamlined, eyes locked on the screen, which told him how high he was. Above him, Adam pulled up and peeled away.

  When he was a couple hundred feet above the ground, Robin flipped forward and deployed his wings. At once, they filled with air and his head was snapped back hard. He came down on the roof, landing on one knee with one fist on the ground to keep his balance, and his wings retracted.

  Rising to his full height, he opened his hands and his plasma sabers shot into his palms. Activating the blades, he spun on the spot, cutting away a circular section of the roof before falling to the floor below with a loud crash. Looking up, he saw the room was deserted.

  Sighing in relief, he raced for the controls. “Come on,” he said under his breath as he looked them over and rushed along the console. “Which one? Which one?” At more sounds of metal groaning on metal, he whipped around and looked up at the tower as it tilted closer to him.

  He turned around and drew back a fist to drive it into the console before his eyes fell on his bracelet. Quickly lowering his hand, the thin strands extended and attached themselves to the console. At once, he was interfaced, and the flush sequence was brought up.

  “STOP!” At the shout, Robin looked over his shoulder and saw Savic standing in the threshold, outlined by the dancing flames of the fires outside.

  “Just who do you think you are,” he demanded, “coming here and taking what is mine? Thinking to kill me as so many have?”

  Robin was silent, and then, at his command, what lights remained switched on. At once, Savic blanched at the sight of him.

  “I know who I am,” he answered. “I am Robin Hood, and I am a Dragon Knight!” he declared. “I am returning what belongs to the people—not a tyrant like you!”

  He activated the flush sequence, and as the sound of rushing water reverberated through the building, Robin spun around and launched himself at Savic, knocking him out the door. After extending his wings, they launched him into the air, where Robin held the man by his clothes.

  Savic shook in fear as he looked into the masked face. “I hope you live, so you can tell people what happened here. And you tell those like you I’m coming for them!” Diving low, Robin dropped him to the ground.

  Chapter 31

  A Savior’s Voice

  Streaking through the sky, Robin quickly located the rider and dropped low over it. “Move back!” he snapped at Adam, who quickly did so, and his brother dropped in front of him.

  “Now what?”

  “We’ve done enough!” Robin said, turning the sky rider. “Let’s get back to the others!”

  He dived down to the streets toward the entrance, and when they leveled out near the ground, he was relieved to see all the people below running to safety out of the towers range. At more groaning sounds, Robin glanced over his shoulder and watched as the nearest tower slowly started toppling over.

  Faster it fell until, with an impact that sent the ground shaking below them, it crashed, sending sand and parts of buildings into the air. Everything beneath it was crushed.

  “Whoa!” Adam barked, watching as the second water tower fell, as well. “That’ll show ‘em!”

  “Let’s just hope we minimized the civilian casualties!” Robin replied, eyes on the giant fountain he had seen earlier as water shot from the spouts.

  “Tell them that,” Adam countered.

  For a second, he wondered what his brother meant, but then he heard it: cheering.

  Glancing down, he gasped. The people who had been running had now slowed or stopped and were looking up at them, cheering. For a second, Robin was stunned at the sight; then, with a grin growing across his face, he brandished a fist in the air, and the crowd roared.

  “If you can hear me, pay attention!” a voice Robin had never heard before sounded, and he paused. “A squad of the Black Dragon’s forces have assembled at the gate to ambush you!” He froze, eyes on his bracelet, as it started flashing rapidly. “GET OUT OF THERE NOW!”

  Quickly going over his options, he turned toward the crowd. “Get out of here! Go!” he shouted.

  Then, grabbing the handlebars, he gained altitude as quickly as he could. He had barely cleared the top of the roofs when he was surrounded by laser fire.

  “HOLD ON!” he shouted at Adam as he pushed the sky rider to go faster.

  A few hundred feet off the rooftops, Robin was beginning to think they would get away when a few lucky shots hit the rider, taking pieces with them. Bit by bit, more shots hit home, blowing off more pieces of the sky rider; in no time, the only thing keeping them up was air.

  Yelling, the two fell to the ground, limbs flailing, unable to deploy their wings with the blasters still firing on them.

  Suddenly, something large streaked out of the sky, and Robin came to a sudden jolting stop before gaining altitude again. After eyeing the large claw holding him, his head whipped around and he gaped at the purple-scaled dragon flapping its wings as it soared over the desert.

  “What the…” Robin started as Adam gasped.

  “You two sure know how to leave your mark!” the dragon said as the civilians on the ground gazed up in awe.

  Chapter 32

  The Power of Three

  They flew over the desert, which seemed endless from high up. Soon, the Odysseus came into sight, and the dragon glided down to it. Close to the ground with a few flaps of its wings, it touched down on its hind legs, dropping Robin and Adam into the sand.

  They whipped onto their backs in time to see the dragon come down on its forelegs and fold its wings. All they could do was gape.

  It looked down at the pair as it walked around them, as if it were studying
them.

  Robin studied it just as closely, from its long snout with wide nostrils to the two large horns sprouting from the side of its head and sweeping back. A smaller line of horns ran from the top of its head to the tip of its tail, and it had three-clawed feet.

  Slowly, Adam leaned close to Robin. “Is it going to eat us?” he asked quietly.

  “If it was going to do that, we’d be dead already.”

  “Your brother is correct,” the dragon said in a feminine voice. “What you did, the people will never forget,” she continued.

  For a second, all Robin could do was blink. “Thanks,” he was finally able to say. “I take it that was you who warned me about the ambush?”

  The dragon tilted her head. “It was the least I could do after all you did for these people,” she said, and then her head whipped around toward the way they came.

  A sound caught Robin and Adam’s attention, and they saw a large force heading their way.

  “If you don’t leave now, you don’t leave at all,” the dragon snapped, looking at them again.

  Nodding, the pair rushed up the ramp. Pausing halfway, Robin looked back.

  “Will we see you again?” he asked over the roar of the engine as the Odysseus lifted off the ground.

  “I hope so,” she replied before she opened large, leathery wings and, with a few mighty flaps, took to the sky and soared into the desert.

  As the Odysseus climbed higher, Robin stood on the ramp, watching her go, before he bolted up into the ship.

  After closing the ramp, he raced for the cockpit through the sea of kids, which Freya and Adam tried to coral into some kind of order.

  “Willa,” he barked into his bracelet, “I can’t get to the cockpit right now!”

  “We’re okay for now,” she replied, “if you can get to the gunning station above or below!”

  “Got it!” he said as he reached the ladder that would take him to either one and started to climb.

  Reaching the top, he opened the hatch with a press of the button, and it slid into the frame. After pulling himself inside, he climbed into the gunner seat and started activating the weapon.

  “Robin, so far, we’re clear of fighters!” Adam said over the comms.

  “It’s not the fighters I’m worried about!” he said as the screen in front of him lit up as they cleared the last layer of the atmosphere and he gripped the yoke. “It’s that!” He eyed the Black Wing cruiser still in orbit.

  “Missiles loose! Missiles loose!” Willa barked over the comms, and Robin turned his guns to target them.

  Opening fire, he blew them out of the sky, and then saw the ship was turning. “No! Stop!” he shouted. “Head right for them!”

  “Are you crazy?” Willa demanded.

  “That’s what they’ll think when they see what we’re doing!”

  “Yeah, they’ll think we’re playing chicken with them, and they are not going to blink!”

  “They will, if we go right for the bridge!” Robin retorted as he shot more missiles. “Put everything you can into the shields and engines, and act like you’re going to ram them!”

  For a second, the Odysseus held its course, and then it turned on its side. “If we get out of this alive, remind me to kill you!” Willa barked as she turned back toward the cruiser.

  Before he could answer, there was a clap of thunder, and Robin was thrown against his seat as the ship shot forward.

  As they weaved left and right on each side, Robin shot virtually all the missiles fired on them; those that slipped through were repelled by the shields as they appeared to go under their enemies. With a roll, they flew up and over the edge of the lower section of the cruiser.

  Robin opened fire, hoping to knock out a gun, and was rewarded by small explosions in each corner of the ship and a couple farther along the edge. Coming fully around, they headed for a square, raised section above the hangar doors ahead of them.

  “Come on, come on,” Robin muttered as Willa weaved to avoid as much fire as possible. Just as he was beginning to think he had gotten his friends killed, the ship started turning. “Now, Willa!” he shouted, and again they went into a roll, shooting above the bridge.

  “Now where?” she demanded as Robin fired again on the surface and on the bridge.

  “Head back for Charybdis!” he barked, hoping the explosions he saw were more guns being taken out. “We’ve been through it before, and they’d be crazy to follow us!”

  “You’re the boss,” LJ replied over the comms.

  “Yeah,” Robin said, powering down the guns, “and I’m coming down!” He slipped down the ladder as they were enveloped by the nebula.

  Once in the cockpit, Robin and Willa switched. “Are they following us?” he asked when she took her station.

  “What do you think?” she answered. When a warning alarm sounded, Robin cursed.

  Thinking quickly, his eyes landed on a sensor before he banked the handle to the side.

  “Robin, what are you doing?” LJ demanded.

  “Either saving us or killing us.” He killed an alarm as it sounded and then pressing another button. “Freya, Adam, tell our passengers to strap in! It’s going to get bumpy!” he said over the intercom.

  He did his best to keep ahead of the cruiser pursuing them through the nebula while the reading he watched drew more and more toward the red.

  “Willa, load a sensor beacon in a tube!” he barked as the ship began to shake from an invisible force.

  “Why?”

  “Just do it—and make sure it looks big!”

  “Robin, what are you planning?” LJ demanded. “Micro fractures are starting to appear! We’re being shaken apart!” he reported.

  “LJ, on my call, put everything we have into the engines!” Robin barked.

  Giving in, his friend moved his hands over the controls. “On your go!”

  “Firing beacon!” Robin shouted, and he watched it disappear into the clouds.

  “Robin, the cruiser picked up speed!” Willa reported. “They’re in firing range!” Large laser cannon blasts shot past them.

  “Not yet! Not yet!” Robin said, and they burst through a cloud of the nebula to see a trio of stars awaiting them. “NOW!” he shouted, pulling back hard on the yokes, and LJ threw the switch and the engines roared.

  In a vertical position, they backed away from the stars, and through the view screen, they watched the cruiser shoot past them. Righting the ship, Robin headed the other way, and his eyes shot to the rearview screen.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell us what you were planning?” LJ demanded as they watched the cruiser fight the gravity of the three stars to turn around.

  “Thought you might have tried to stop me,” Robin answered, and his friend rolled his eyes. “Remember what our old flight instructor told us about flying through space?”

  Willa nodded. “The bigger you are, the faster you burn or get crushed.”

  “The Black Wing is too big,” Robin said as the engines of the big ship gave all they had. “Charybdis has her!”

  They watched as the ship seemed to come to a standstill. Then, the rear section of the ship was torn away and pulled into the star behind it; a whole section to one side was ripped away by another star. Piece by piece, the ship was torn apart by the three stars like it had been caught between three starving dogs.

  Looking away, Robin eased back on the engines as they slipped into the cloud of the nebula again. “Let’s get out of here.”

  A couple days later, after coming out of the other side of the nebula, the Odysseus exited Hyperspace on approach for landing on Tortuga.

  After they landed and disembarked, people stared at the kids who’d accompanied them.

  “I see you’ve been busy,” Robin’s mother said before embracing him, relieved to have him back alive. “Did you find him?” she asked, stepping back.

  “What do you think?” he asked, turning as Adam came down the ramp with Freya. Chikako beamed.

  Whe
n he saw the slack-jawed look on Tuck’s face as he gazed up at the state of the Odysseus, he said, “Uhh, Mom, I’ll catch up with you later. Right now, I need to run!” Turning, he bolted.

  “RYUU!” Tuck’s angry voice called after him as he fled through the doors of the hangar.

  Dragon Knight Chronicles

  The Search

  He pressed the button to close the inner airlock door just as the others slammed against it. Stepping back, they crowded around the view port to look at him.

  “Robin! Robin!” they shouted, pounding their armored fists against the door.

  “ROBIN! OPEN THIS DOOR!” Adam called out.

  “ROBIN! DON’T DO THIS!” Willa cried, pounding her fists harder.

  “I have to,” he murmured in return.

  “No, you don’t!” Freya cried, pushing herself to the front of the crowd.

  “Tuck, open this damn door!” Willa barked.

  “I’m trying!” he snapped back. “He engaged the override! I’m trying to bypass it!”

  Stepping forward, Robin pressed his palm against the forcefield. Locking eyes with him, Freya placed hers below his.

  “Why does it have to be you?” she asked quietly.

  With his free hand, he reached for the outer door release. “Because I already lost someone I love”—he pressed the release, and the thirty second delay started—“and I’ll be damned if I lose another one, especially if I can do something to prevent it.”

  “Damn it!” Tuck barked, springing up. “He engaged the outer airlock! Nothing can open those doors now until it recompresses!”

  Before they could protest any more, he turned his back to them and dropped to one knee while his wings extended from his back. With a snap, the outer door opened, and he was launched through the vast vacuum of space beyond.