Free The Rising Sun: Episode 1 by J Hawk Page A

chilly night sky, fighting. Twenty feet below, the
rural sprawl of the village was coming to an end. The familiar
barren terrain, unblemished by buildings or structures, spread
forth beyond.
     
    Time to end
this…
     
    Ion steered his
bike closer to the fighter ship, blocking one final shot, and then
sending his blazing sword in a neat, horizontal slice through the
fighter’s body. The ship glided on in an unbroken inertial flow for
one fragmented second. And then, tearing apart in two worthless,
metallic chunks, it tumbled to the ground, spewing smithereens over
the village’s houses as it crashed.
     
    Ion slowed
down, landing a hundred metres away from the village on the earth’s
unleveled floor. Dismounting his bike, he doused his sword and slid
it back into its sheath. His chest rose and fell as he stood by the
side of the bike, panting for a few seconds. Glancing back at the
village, he saw nothing. No more of the Naxim’s forces pursuing
him. Not yet, that was.
     
    Wiping the
grease coating his face, he stood there for a second, feeling one
thought blare above all else within him:
     
    How the hell
did they find me?
     
    The Naxim
seemed to have known exactly where to find him, right in the middle
of nowhere. He felt an initial spell of panic that made him wonder
if there was some unseen aspect of this planet which could detect
and monitor mystics. But he calmed himself and carefully ran over
everything he had done since exiting Grando’s base. He had kept
moving all along, without sticking around anywhere. He hadn’t even
made contact with a civilian here, had he?
     
    Wait a
second…
     
    He frowned. A
rising sense of suspicion crept up inside of him. Digging his hand
into his pocket, he drew out the compass, staring at it deeply. He
shook the compass, holding it close to his ear.
     
    Seems slightly
heavier than a normal compass should be…
     
    Using his
powers, he dismantled the pieces of the compass, making them float
in the air before him. And then a growl broke from his throat.
     
    This isn’t a
compass, this is a tracker! He thought, infuriated. So
that’s how this happened. The village headman I talked to sold me
out!
     
    He channeled
his anger out of him in a focused, gushing stream, and the compass
disguised tracker’s dismantled pieces caught fire in mid air, and
then fell to the ground in ashes.
     
    For a moment
Ion wondered how Novio had found him to be a mystic. But he cast
the doubt out, knowing he had a more pressing issue to tend to.
     
    He took a
moment to gather himself and analyse the options available to him
now. He looked sideways at his bike, and felt a sliver of smug joy.
Dangerous and near fatal as it might have been, his meeting with
the Naxim had rendered him something useful after all: a vehicle.
There was no longer the need to travel to that hangar, to leave
this planet using public transport.
     
    But Ion frowned
at the bike, sensing the hindrance in this plan.
     
    If he wanted to
use the bike for space transport, there was something he needed for
it.
     
    A power
drive.
     
    And Ion was
aware that getting one right now might prove to be a problem: he
was literally in the middle of nowhere, with the Naxim on his
tail.
     
    While full
scale ships were designed for interplanetary space transport, hover
bikes and hover ships were not designed such. In the case of hover
bikes, cars, and other simple transport vehicles, the power
required for space transport did not come inbuilt in their machine
system. An external source was used for these vehicles, to grant
them this immense power required for space transport. Known as the
power drive. Without this, hover bikes, cars and boards were
grounded to a single planet, to be used only for short distance
transport and nothing more.
     
    Power drive or
not, Ion knew that the first thing he needed was to put as much
distance between himself and the Naxim’s forces in that village,
before they called in reinforcements.
     
    First, I