Chapter 6

There is a familiar heaviness in my chest, filling my lungs with pain like lead. I find it hard to breath, let alone think. My gaze is fixed on the white floor, I don't know how long I've been staring at it. 

All I know is that I don't want to feel this pain anymore. I want it to end. 

My nails dig into the floor and I feel the sting of pain reverberate through my fingers. 

They're all dead. Rosie, Matt, Jade, Josephine.

My mind draws dangerously close to thoughts of Lucian but I quickly shut him out. I can't think of the possibility. It would break me. 

I barely blink. I don't feel the officer forcing a needle into my veins, filling me with liquids to keep me alive. 

All I can do is lie against the wall and stare at the floor. I've seemed to have lost all function. I don't know how much time has passed but Rachel eventually unlocks my cell and walks inside. 

"You need to eat," She says. Her voice tinged with remorse. 

Food? I chuckle softly and then a laugh escapes my lips. What's the point?

She forces a piece of bread into my hands but I don't react. Instead I let it fall to the floor. 

I remember General Lyra's last message to us in the freezer about needing to save Earth. Why did she help us escape if she knew this was going to happen? 

What happened to the Generals and Luna? Surely Lazarus wouldn't have killed her.

I ignore Rachel who hoists me to my feet which isn't so easy with my dead weight. She struggles to hold me up and it doesn't help that she is about a foot shorter than I am and smaller sized. 

"We're taking you three to the air base," She tells me. "They're coming to pick you up."

Although I should have known this was coming, this makes my feet freeze and Rachel sways backward at the impact. 

"You mean we're being taken back to Pluto?" Joon asks her. "I thought Lazarus was coming here." 

"Sole General Lazarus is busy preparing for the shift of Central Command to Earth. He doesn't have time to pick up criminals," The Deputy Director joins us as we are lead down a long corridor. 

"We're being taken back just to be executed?" Remulus wonders out loud. "Why not just get it over with here?"

I shoot him a look. Why is he giving them unnecessary ideas?

A trip doesn't sound as bad as being killed here. Maybe we'd be able to crash the ship and burn ourselves into oblivion. At least then Lazarus wouldn't have the pleasure of killing me. 

"General Lazarus plans to broadcast your execution's throughout the universe. To make an example of you," Rachel says and the Deputy glares at her. 

"Do not entertain their questions Major," He shakes his head and walks ahead, leading the group of us out of the building. 

The harsh sunlight nearly blinds me when we walk outside. I squint at the barren lands around us and the light brown landscape. The heat hits my face and for a moment it makes me smile. 

I blink a few times and pretend my eyes are like the cameras on Pluto, recording our every movement. I want to capture this image, I want this to be the last thing I see before I'm executed. 

I'm shoved forward as an officer locks my arms behind my back in a secure metal contraption. They do the same for Remulus and Joon and force us into another large green military vehicle. 

"Goodbye you three. It was nice meeting you," The deputy director says sarcastically and then the door slams shut.

"Any ideas?" Joon murmurs and I can see Remulus sizing up every officer in the vehicle with us. There are three of them sitting behind with us, all heavily armed. Rachel is one of them and she sits across from me with her hands clasped firmly around her gun. 

Two others sit in front and there is one jeep tailing us from behind while another one leads in front. 

It doesn't take a genius to see how outnumbered and outgunned we are. 

I sigh and lean back as I stare out at the vast nothingness around us. Every now again I catch little speckles of green, a plant or a lonely haggard looking bush.

The journey feels longer than the one we took to reach the military base and after a while I lose track of time. 

It is so easy to lose myself in my thoughts as I watch the clouds gather over the horizon. The sunlight hits my face and I relish its warmth. 

I squint my eyes so that I am able to see the sun and that is when I see it. 

I try not to react but my heart begins to beat furiously in my chest when I see something dark over the horizon. From this distance it just looks like a dark spot in the sky and it seems to be heading our way because the dot slowly enlarges. 

It happens before any of us can react, even the officers in the jeep in front. 

Our jeep swerves off the road just as the jeep in front of us is blown into bits. My head hits the window and my ears ring from the explosion. Shards of metal fly all over the place and some of it lodges into our windows, cracking them. 

"Don't stop!" The officer sitting in front shouts and the driver struggles to get us back on the road. 

I look behind at the remains of the jeep that was leading us. All I see is fire and chunks of metal. If we were travelling any closer we would have joined those officers in the afterlife.

The jeep behind us does it's best to catch up with us but another shot booms from the sky and I watch it explode into pieces as well. The after effects of the explosion ricochets off our jeep and it sends us hurtling off the road again. 

The officers in front of us shift around in panic and I watch them fondling with their guns strapped around their chests. 

Remulus moves as fast as the wind and none of them see it coming.

His long legs shoot out and lock around the officer's neck, he twists it, snapping his neck immediately. The man next to him takes out his gun but Remulus kicks him unconscious within the next few seconds. 

Rachel sits in front of me and she pulls out her gun and points it at him. 

"Don't." She shouts and then she turns around and shoots the officer in the passenger's seat. 

My mouth falls open in shock when she threatens the driver to stop the vehicle by placing her gun to his temple. 

"What the hell Major." He says angrily but he brings the jeep to a screeching halt under her instructions. She shoots him in the head the moment he stops the vehicle. 

My head is spinning, my brain ringing from deafening explosions that destroyed the two jeeps that were escorting us to the air base. I want to press my palms against my ears but my hands are still locked, keeping me in an uncomfortably painful position. 

Rachel leans forward and pulls me towards her. She unlocks the contraption holding me in place  and then she does the same for Joon and Remulus. 

"Impressive," She says to him and then she kicks open the jammed door next to me and steps out. 

"You think she was flirting with me?" Remulus asks Joon. 

"I don't know. My head hurts too much," Joon berates. His eyes are squeezed shut as he winces in pain. I stagger out of the vehicle after Rachel and my breath stills when I see a spaceship hovering above us. 

It doesn't look like any signature Plutonian spaceship that I am familiar with but it does remind me of a disc spacecraft. It's outer ring spins furiously as it slowly lowers itself to the ground. 

Rachel looks at her watch and then she smiles. "Right on time." 

"What's going on?" Joon stutters as a door to the ship slides open and a ramp lowers to the ground. 

"Come on, we don't have time. They are probably sending back up our way," Rachel pushes me up the ramp but my feet are unsteady and I fall to the floor. 

"Where are you taking us?" 

"We can't hover here forever. Get in." I hear Remulus gasp and instinctively look up to see a tall Elcian with light blue skin and pale pink hair that falls to his waist. He holds up a very large laser gun and points it at Remulus. "Get in now or I shoot you for wasting our time."

Rachel helps me inside the ship while the Elcian drags a swaying Joon onboard. 

Remulus follows us as well, he is able to walk up by himself, seeming not as affected by the explosion as we are. The ramp seals shut the moment we are in and we are taken to the control room where an odd combination of aliens sit around watching us. 

There is a Taygetian sitting by the control board, another much shorter alien with long ears and a human like face but my gaze falls on the woman standing behind them. 

She looks human. 

She smirks when she catches me staring and straightens up. Her skin is a warm brown and her hair has been shaved off on one side of her head. There are markings carved into her skin and her piercing dark eyes are alight with excitement. 

She stands up straight, her broad shoulders and towering height making her look as tough as the others in the room. 

My chest tightens as I continue to stare at her. She reminds me of Rosie. 

The Taygetian fiddles with the control board and we take off into the air, back towards the atmosphere. 

"Aren't you the rebel boss we met on Taygeta? How did you escape?" Remulus asks the Elcian standing by the door with a gun in hand. 

"That was my brother you met. We lost contact after he was taken," He replies, his voice laced with bitterness. 

"You're with the rebels?" Joon asks the odd group of aliens.

"We are the rebels," The girl standing at the back steps forward. "And we are all over the universe."

"Are you human?" I stutter, feeling both confused and curious. 

"Yup, Native American and proud of it," She smiles at me.

"How? I thought humans didn't travel in space," Joon asks.

"We don't. Some of us were military whistleblowers who needed protection, some of us managed to crack the lies fed to us by the governments. Most of us were killed but not all. The rebels were able to reach out to us and we joined them without question," The girl answers with such conviction, I can't help but admire her. 

She reminds me of myself before I joined the pits. Before I lost everything. 

"There's no way I'm letting a bunch of war hungry aliens take over my planet. Not on my watch," She puts a fist in the air and her body trembles with rage. She then holds out a hand towards me. "I'm Catori by the way. You can call me Cat. Heard a lot about you Bone Breaker." 

I shake her hand hesitantly. "Thanks for saving us."

The Elcian chuckles softly. "It was a calculated move on our part. We needed you." 

My eyebrows crease together as I stare at him in confusion. 

"You three must be starving. Come and eat," Rachel drags me to the pantry and prepares some food for us. Thankfully it is some canned food instead of algae. 

Remulus and Joon dig in immediately, even I take a bite as the realisation slowly sinks in that I might have escaped Lazarus's wrath. 

"What do you need me for?" I ask her. 

"Why don't you explain Cetus," She says to the pink haired Elcian. 

He takes a seat and Cat joins in as well. 

"To cut a long story short, we rebels never really stood a chance against the Plutonian empire. Despite trying for years and years. Not until you escaped from Pluto and the empire split in half. Lazarus still holds the majority support so he's taken over Pluto but there is another smaller side that broke off, deserting their planet because they were outnumbered," Cetus says.

"We didn't expect them to reach out to us but our leader said they might be interested in an alliance against Lazarus and his followers," Cat takes over and continues animatedly. 

"We heard you were their leader's lover and we're hoping your presence will sweeten the deal. If we work together with Commander Lucian, we might actually have a shot at winning this war." 

Remulus, Joon and I all freeze when we hear this piece of news. My spoons drops on the table with a loud clank and my throat constricts like she just squeezed it. 

"He's alive?" I stutter. 

"Very much and with any luck we'll be meeting him very soon." 





Good news for you guys finally lol. Hope you enjoyed the chapter :) 



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