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

need
to get out of here alive while I still can.
     
    Mounting the
sleek bike, he launched off again, streaking across the barren
land, away from the village.
     
     
    __________
     
     
    “How can I help
you?” asked Palor.
     
    He forgot to
smile this time, as a slight ripple of disturbance passed him.
     
    With untamed
red hair and fiery orange eyes, the boy stood tall and thin, with
what looked like a long black instrument slung around his back. He
seemed to have oil smeared by the side of his face, haphazardly
wiped off the front. His orange eyes were hardened with focus.
Something about his appearance left a note of slight
disconcertedness in Palor, who, in all his days as a provision
store owner in the semi urban town of Faoris, had never come across
someone quite so…
     
    Strange.
     
    “I need a power
drive.” said the boy, sounding slightly hasty. “And fast.”
     
    Palor took a
step backwards from the counter, feeling his disconcertedness
rise.
     
    “Err, of
course, sir.” He threw a quick glance below the counter. Where lay
the stack of small, cylindrical glass bottles that glowed with a
greenish liquid within. Power drives.
     
    Bending down
below the counter, Palor picked one of them up and slid them over
to the table above.
     
    He then rose
back above the counter. “That would be -”
     
    … But he
stopped abruptly, as he realised that the boy was gone. And so was
the power drive he had placed on the counter.
     
    It was as
though the boy had just snatched the power drive and
disappeared.
     
    For a long
moment, Palor gaped into empty space, wondering what had just
passed.
     
    __________
     
     
    Ion stared at
the small cylindrical object, seeming to be filled with a glowing
green liquid.
     
    He had traveled
at least a hundred or so miles on the bike before finding a decent
town, where he could get his hands on this. He felt a slight pang
of guilt for the provision store owner he had just had to steal
from. But he wasn’t going to let himself be captured by the Naxim,
tortured and killed just to adhere to a code of righteousness that
served little avail in such a twisted world.
     
    He rammed the
small cylinder into the empty slot at the front of the bike,
fitting the power drive into the vehicle. As the engine revved to
life, Ion pressed a button and a bubble like encasing materialised
to wrap the bike and its rider. It was transparent, seeming to be
made of the thinnest layer of glass.
     
    Known as the
Plasmon shield, this was required in all modes of open, unshielded
space travel such as this one. The Plasmon shield protected the traveller on the bike
from all ghastly effects of outer space travel. It rendered the air
within the shield breathable by manufacturing oxygen within for the
traveller.

    All set,
then.
     
    Ion drew out
his z-com, producing a holographic screen over it. The z-com
displayed a list of planets and moons that were nearest to him. He
placed his aim on a moon of Sacrogon, known as Hadri. Although it
came under the republic of Sacrogon, it was almost uninhabited,
making it far looser in the grip of Naxim and the Sacrogon
authorities. It would be the perfect place to hide in for now. Ion
knew that he could find shelter somewhere in the planet for time
being, before making further plans…
     
    As the hover
bike floated just over the ground, encased in the Plasmon shield
and ready to soar, Ion punched in the co ordinates on the vehicle.
A moment of steady vibration gripped the vehicle, and then, with a
loud, sonorous crack , the bike blasted off into the starry
chasm stretching across the sky overhead.
     
    __________
     
     
    Millions of
miles away, in a dark cave, a man in a deep black cloak sat cross
legged on the ground. Zardin’s eyelids shielded the ghastly lack of
eyeballs beneath them as they lay half closed.
     
    The large, dark
cave that he was now in formed a deeply peaceful place for people
like him. People who were moulded in darkness.
     
    He slowly slid
a