There aren’t a lot of executions anymore. When you have chewing gum and electronic mail, public executions stop feeling contemporary. But I have a feeling they’re going to bring the old ways back for this. It’s going to be a brutal, bloody spectacle, and we all know it.
“I’m going to let you go,” I say. “I’m going to get the key, and I’m going to make sure you can run.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Drako says. “You’re sweet, but there’s no need to be concerned. I can take care of myself.”
He’s being stupid and male about this. He doesn’t want to acknowledge how vulnerable he is, so he’s concocting some kind of fantasy where he doesn’t need help escaping Vikar justice.
“Survivors. Prepare for extraction.”
The radio crackles an announcement that tells me it is over for Drako. I hate this. This can’t be how this ends. They’ll hang him, for sure. My eyes fill with tears as I desperately try to think of some way to save him.
“They’re here. Let’s go out and meet them,” Thor says.
He grabs Drako by the arm and escorts him out of our cave. I have been going through numerous arguments to ideally help Drako’s sentence be as minimal as it possibly can be.
We stand in the clearing between the cave and the forest, and we watch as, true to Thor’s words and the radio’s heralding, a dark dot that at first is nothing more than a speck in the sky quickly grows.
It comes down close enough to the planet that we can see the massive white underside of the vessel. It is the size of a small town. I’d forgotten how large spaceships are.
It is just inside the atmosphere when a spark appears on the horizon. At first I don’t pay much attention to it, assuming it is glinting off the rescue ship or something similar to that.
“What the…”
The light is growing fast. Impossibly fast. It’s getting bigger and swifter, and all of a sudden it slams into the side of the ship and the whole thing explodes in a gigantic fireball. Bits of ship start to rain from the sky, trailing dark clouds behind them as the whole thing loses structural integrity.
I watch, jaw dropped, as a second ship is blown to pieces. More explosions follow the first explosion, abam bam bam bam bamof destruction as the rescue vessel detonates over and over.
It crashes down horrifically close to the field of the terrible horde, and we watch as that mass of creatures surges into activity, awakened from their slumber. They start to feed on the remnants of our rescuers.
“Wow,” Drako deadpans. “That was unexpected.”
Thor turns to him. “You did that. How did you do that?”
“Of course I didn’t do it. I’m your captive, Golden Boy. There’s no way I could have done that.”
I’m too shocked to have a lot of feelings about what just happened. I know that I have just witnessed my second mass tragedy of what feels like a week or so. There’s only so many times you can see terrible things before the part of you that gets upset when you see terrible things goes numb.
A dark ship is moving across the horizon. It is black, with red insignia that are all too familiar to us. It slides over the broken remnants of our rescue vessel and pauses for a moment.
“See that, Golden Boy? That’s a Vikar warship.”
“You told me they wouldn’t come and rescue you,” Thor croaks.
“They haven’t come to rescue me. They came to attack your vessel. Just as they did the first time you were shot down.”
“So it wasn’t you who gave that order?”
“No,” Drako smirks. “It doesn’t matter, though. I would have given the order if I were a war captain. I am still guilty by association, so you can continue to blame me, Golden Boy. You can blame me for what will likely happen next, too.”
While the horde feeds on those who would have saved us, a port on the Vikar ship opens and it sends out a smaller vessel, an arrow-shaped ship that orients itself to our position. The moment the sharp tip of the still distant vessel points to us, I feel a bolt of fear like none I have recently experienced. Facing the troll gave me less anxiety than this ship does. A troll might have pulled my limbs off and eaten them. I know the Vikar are capable of far, far worse.
“Run,” Thor says to me. “Run now.”
We bolt, leaving everything behind besides the weapon still slung around Thor’s shoulder. We run for our lives, knowing that what would become of us if a Vikar ship were to capture us would be a fate worse than death.
“There’s no point!” Drako shouts. “They’ll find you!”
We disappear into the thickest part of the forest and run in what I assume is a direction we have never gone before. I certainly haven’t. I am running faster than I knew I could, keeping up with Thor, or at least seeming to. I hope he is not slowing his pace on my account. He would fare even worse with the Vikar than I would, given all the shit he’s been giving Drako.
