Borderworld

Introduction

I look at her, completely puzzled. "What do you mean, what happened?" I ask her, and her face seems pained.

"I woke up not too long ago to the ship being overrun by a bunch of Pirates...they called themselves 'The Asgo.' Somehow I managed to get back in here before they found me!" She looks around. "I have no idea if they're still here or not. I don't want to find out." She pauses for a moment then looks at me dead in the eyes. "We have to get off this ship, Felix."

"Are you sure that wasn't som-"

"I know it isn't, Felix. I saw it. I felt the air. It was very, very real."

"Well, we should wake the others and-"

"No, we don't have time. We have to go." Down the corridor I hear a small clanging sound. "They're still here! We have to go!" Jesse grabs my hand and begins dragging me along behind her as fast as she can take me, until:

"HEY!" They've spotted us. "STOP RIGHT THERE!"Jesse starts running faster and lets go of my hand, and I sprint after her. Gunshots ring from down the hall and the bullets fly past our heads, colliding with the walls. Jesse turns around the corner into another, more brightly lit corridor and runs until she reaches a room with a white sign bearing the word 'Armory.' She runs into the room and grabs herself a M402A pistol and a small knife then walks out into the hall. When she leaves, I look around the room quietly for a moment; the Asgo must have come here on some kind of looting mission, as the walls that were once stocked fully with weapons, ammunition, and various other equipment items, are now barren and house only a few weapons. I take a moment to decide before grabbing a CX-325 4- round burst rifle - military grade, manufactured back in 2273 on Earth for the war against the Inhabitors, a group of ancient, precursor aliens who got tired of us destroying their planet, so they decided to destroy us by destroying the planet. In the corner of a room sits a crumpled up duffle bag. I go to grab it and begin loading all of the remaining weapons and ammunition into it.

In the hall, I hear gunshots ring through the hallway and the room. Quickly, I sling the duffel over my shoulders and burst through the doors and back out into the hallway and immediately a bullet flies only a few inches in front of my face. I pivot to my left and look towards where the shot came from, raise my rifle, and pull the trigger twice. The first group of bullets misses, but the second hits one of the men square in the chest, knocking him onto the floor and forcing his comrade into cover. I turn around and meet eyes with Jesse, who simply nods to me and begins to run. I take the nod as my cue to follow.

As soon as we turned the corner, the emergency siren begins to blare loudly throughout the ship and on both sides, you can hear the thuds of bodies and clanging of pod doors. Someone woke everyone up.

"Do you have any idea where we are?!" I call out to Jesse. I'd be surprised if she heard me over the siren, but somehow she responds "No."

She goes through a thick steel door where we're immediately met by a large group of the Asgo pirates, all armed with guns. Jesse pauses, looks around at our surroundings quickly, then rolls over to a crate. The men begin to open fire at our position, so I quickly crouch down and walk over to a large metal barrel.

"They have to run out of ammo sometime," Jesse calls out to me through the stream of bullets. "I count ten!" Quickly, she reaches around her cover and takes a couple of potshots at the men and a small grunt comes from the other side of my cover. 'I have to think of something. They're between us and the escape pods.'

I drop the duffel full of weapons and begin to shuffle through it, hoping to find something of use. My hand hits something that doesn't exactly feel like a gun, so I grab it and pull it out from under the pile, revealing a small, black grenade of some sort. I look at Jesse.