Galactic Arc Online

Chapter Three

Invasion:

We both leap to the side as a missile flies past and explodes what seems to be the Apocalypse's third engine, at least, based on the giant "3" painted on the side. We run to the bottom of the ship where our racers lie.

When we arrive, we take in our surroundings. Daylight falls to his knees when he sees the wreckage that used to be his racer. I stand back, trying to picture what had happened here.

While Daylight and I were raiding the ship, the fleet was attacked by another fleet from a larger planet. The enemy fleet planned to destroy the whole fleet, and targeted the innermost ship, like we had. As the smaller fleet fought back, we must have triggered an alarm that sent the ship into lockdown mode. The ship was unable to fight back as a result of the seemingly new "surprise attack" from the inside.

I shake my head, I can't get distracted now of all times. I drag Daylight to his feet, and pull him over to my racer. He limps along as if injured, but he has no physical injury besides the ones he sustained in the ship. It's as if losing his racer had broken something inside him.

We climb into my racer, and despite being very cramped, we take off towards a small, nonexistent gap in between the ships currently gathering around the severely damaged Apocalypse.

We're going to have to blast through, I think. I reach for the trigger, knowing fully well that the attack would reveal our location, and probably make us a target. But we fly straight at the nonexistent hole. As I raise my hand to fire, the ships part. Just enough for us to slip past. I shake my head. Not believing my luck.

Five minutes later, Daylight looks up and says, "Don't worry. I can take it from here." He gently takes my hands off the controls and picks me up off the chair. I nod weakly and relax my tense muscles. I close my eyes.

---------------Log off---------------

I get off my bed and take off the headset. I press a button on the side and it compresses itself into a cube. I get back up and go downstairs to eat. My house seems empty now that my parents are on vacation and my sister left to live with her new husband. I make myself a small meal and eat it quickly. My phone rings in my pocket. I pull it out and answer the call.

"Hey. Midnight." Daylight said.

"Yeah" I answered quietly.

"You may want to log on for a bit." There is an edge of fear in his voice that scares me. I nod, not knowing he won't see, and end the call.

I walk upstairs, preparing myself for what I may see. I walk into my room and sit on the bed. I put the headset on my head and take a deep breath. Back to the world of destruction and adventure.

---------------Log On---------------

I open my eyes. I shake my head, clearing the multicolored stars floating in my vision. I stand up and hit my head on the top of my racer. Rubbing my head, I step out of my racer into the middle of a war zone.

"Where did you take us?" I ask. Daylight turns around. Another feature of Daylight's character. His hair changes color to match his feelings. An upgrade he'd bought. Up till now, he had kept his hoodie up so it won't show, but now, his hood was down revealing black hair. Unlike the blond color I had noticed earlier. He looked me in the eye.

"I took us back to camp." He says, delivering the deathblow.

<•>

I spend the next ten minutes on the ground. Seeing that I was unable to move, Daylight gently lied me down on a blanket he found in the ruins.

What did I do wrong, I think. What could I have done to change this.

Though unsure how, I knew that I had brought the attack on the camp. I scan the mini-map in the corner of my vision. The map of our planet. As I do, my feeling of hopelessness grows. Half of the planet, the eastern half, our half, had completely fallen. Even as I watch, parts of the western hemisphere are falling. The light blue places inhabited by our clan slowly getting covered in an ugly, blood red color. There's only one word for this.

Invasion