Explore chapter22

Through the darkness my senses returned to me one at a time. First it was my sense of touch which slowly transformed into discomforting, numbing pain localised to the back of my head while everything above my elbow was sore and even my ankles ached something fierce. It felt like some top-heavy person stood on my ankle for a whole minute. Even with my eyes shielded shut, my sense of sight was returning to me. I sensed the dim light breaking through to reach my eyes, I started squeezing them shut to give me more time to rest, I wanted to sleep. But alas my efforts were found to be futile and I opened them hesitantly, what I saw proved to be more shocking than I had expected. This is when my memories decided to come back to me in my shocked state. The demon, Thomas; I remembered he placed something over me before I was surrounded by darkness while those baleful crimson stare staring deeply into me long after the world had faded into darkness. Everything around me was shaded in a bright

The captain jumped out of the shuttle craft and into the void of space and narrowly avoided a large serrated piece of hull that had jagged ridges on its surface. Alex looked around him searching for his rescue team. He found them on his left, they were grouped together and hovered above the cargo shuttle which could have been used as some sort of auxiliary escape craft. The cargo transport’s bulky body was held by its abnormally wide wingspan which had its thrusters situated at the very tip of each wing. Alex placed Alistair, the Lykan officer in charge of this rescue effort in an attempt to give the inexperienced crewmember some leadership skills. So far, to Alex’s own satisfaction, he was proven right and Alistair was performing well so far. He led the team around the transport’s frame and searched for an opening. He ordered a Naga to search the cockpit in the front while he ordered another party member to prepare the laser cutting equipment. He reached into the magnetic case that

When Alex had called the senior staff for dinner, he had done so to test the patience of the dragon on his ship. After two days of being on his ship there were no major medical emergencies which had brought relief, however, Alex had secretly wished there was one so he could see the young doctor under pressure and gauge out his level of expertise. From the reports the nurses have sent to him: Liyurch had untainted generosity, a passion for life, keen intelligence. All necessary qualities in his profession, however, what had angered Alex was the report from those same nurses who pointed out that some of the onboard luggage Liyurch had brought with him contained terrariums of particular insects and jars of parasites which had turned the spare storeroom into a bug house. Alex watched the camera intently as the senior officers walked in one by one and had let them be for nearly an hour now; he thought it had been long enough to see if the Dragon’s patience had worn thin and proceeded to

For a while, the cool lighting from inside the terrarium facing him kept Alex conscious for an uncomfortable amount of time long before sleep finally pulled him in. Its presence crept through his eyelids stimulating his brain into a sustained state of awareness of his surroundings ranging from the gentle hum of the gravity plating beneath him or the muffled sounds of fluid rushing through the pipes hidden behind the walls and ceiling. It was only after he had rotated his entire body towards the mattress and buried his head underneath the pillows that Alex was able to block out the light and finally get some rest. He remembered very little of the dreams he had when he woke up. Sequences of flashes of memory and kaleidoscopic colours dazzled what little he could remember. However, there was one thing that stood out more than the memories to him. Behind the blurriness of his attempts to recall the memory back, he saw a dark room surrounded by a warm orange glow, darkened shapes that

The ship thrashed about with a violent thrust sideways, nearly throwing Alex to the floor; had his reflexes not been as fast then his head might have collided with the computer console.He felt something deep within him claw its way to the surface, it felt like it was angry and burning hot with an intensity matching that of even the most powerful of magnetar stars. His jaw clenched tightly together and he shot up to look at the monitors as the alien ship was charging up for another shot. “Alright,” he muttered to himself. “You wanna do this? Then let's do this!” Alex tapped on his wrist pad before bringing it to his face. “All hands, all hands. This is Captain Rowan speaking; I am declaring Condition Black! Get to your combat stations.” Almost as if his announcement had commanded it, the lighting in the CIC shifted to a dark blue hue while the alarms continued to sound off. He saw the alien ship power up for another shot Just gotta keep it a distance he thought to himself. His

The thundering sky grumbled softly along with dull flashes hidden behind the thick blanket of cloud cover. The air around them alive and filling their lungs with the strong presence of petrichor and ozone as Alex and Lyrus stared blankly at each other for what had felt like ten minutes of still silence. He couldn’t believe what he had heard from the dragon ‘fix you’? What could possibly be needed to fix he would think aggressively to himself. The thundering activity in the sky above them became more active; the sound of thunder had gone from a low grumble to sudden cracks of electrical energy cutting through the air while the dull flashes infrequently lit up the entire landscape. A single bolt of lightning struck the ground far away from the two commanders yet the boom it made rippled around them and just as it had started the thunder subsided to its fading state that it was before. What was all that about? He wondered to himself. “You should probably relax your mind, Captain