When Forever Ends (Part 2: The Place with No Name)

XLVI

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F o r t y - S i x

I was stunned speechless. I had never seen her as mad as she was now. And I didn't understand at all why. Wouldn't it be natural to hug family I hadn't seen for five years? So why had she reacted in this way?

It hit me like a brick. Oh, I realized. I haven't told her yet. So far only Erin and I know. But then another thought came to me.

"You're jealous," I said.

"Of course not!" Maya snapped, but by the slight reddening of her face, I could tell that I was spot-on.

"...Of my sister," I continued.

Now it was her turn to be speechless. "What...? I..."

"If I know you, you'll ask me something like: 'Why haven't you told me before?' And my answer would be that I didn't know before."

There was a long pause as Maya tried to take in what I was saying. "How could you not know?" she said finally.

I sighed and put my hands in my lap. "I honestly have no idea. It's like someone sucked the memories out of my head. I don't even remember much about where we lived before..." I trailed off and put my head in my hands, silently crying.

"What was it?" Maya asked. "What happened?"

"He destroyed it," I said, looking up at her. "He wiped Sarentino from the face of the planet. And everyone but my dad and I, and Erin, apparently, was killed."

"He?" she repeated."He who? What's Sarentino? And how do you know all this now? You said yourself you can't remember."

"I-" I couldn't meet her eyes and looked away.

She moved around in front of me and looked me directly in the eye. "You seem... I don't know... Different," she said. "What, exactly, happened?"

"I... can't tell you," I replied.

"Yes. You can."

"No, I'm serious. I really can't get my mouth to form the words. And he said I can't speak of it..." I realized I had already said more than I meant to.

"He?" Maya repeated. "Who said this? Tell me."

I really wanted to tell her, but I feared what might happen if I somehow managed to.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I just can't."

As if to punctuate my words, there was a huge explosion. BOOM! The room shook and threw Maya to the ground.

"What now?!" she shouted, picking herself up off the floor. "Can't we get any rest around here?!"

BOOM! An alarm began wailing. Cabinets banged open and medical supplies spilled out. I was pitched forward onto Maya and a terrible shrieking sound came from the direction of the corridor. The metal lining the round doorway was twisting and sparking, and smoke poured in along the ceiling.

I pulled Maya up and dragged her towards the door. "Come on! We have to get out of here!"

I felt the floor lurch beneath my feet just before I crossed the threshold.

BOOM! The whole sickbay twisted sideways and the metal screeched louder than before. It was going to tear!

I called to Maya to help me and together we strained to shut the door. When it was flush with the frame, I turned the handle with all my strength and the locking pins slid into place.

BOOM! Another explosion filled the small window with flame and smoke and knocked my feet from beneath me. When I pulled myself up again, the smoke had cleared, revealing that the sickbay was just attached by a few small seams. There was a final wrench and the whole room broke off and went spinning away into the background of stars. I suddenly found myself looking out at a huge shape I knew only too well.

A flash of light from the underside of the ship and I whirled around, shoving Maya and myself to the floor face first, just seconds before there was another, much louder BOOM! I cautiously lifted my head up and looked behind me. The door had a huge dent dead center and a few of the locking pins had bent, while others had snapped clean off. The door creaked ominously and I knew we couldn't take another hit like that.

I stood, a bit unsteadily, and helped Maya to her feet. "That was too close!"

She wrapped her arms around me and, without a moment's hesitation, I drew her close. "Let's not lose each other again," she said into my shoulder, and I realized just how much I'd missed her during my time in the Place with no name. I stood there, breathing in the scent of her thick braid, soft and flowery and full of memories of home. I felt the rhythm of her heart and all other happenings became background noise. There was just Maya and I, locked together in embrace.

After what seemed like a small eternity, another tremor threw us apart and the moment ended.

We have to do something! I realized, peeling myself off the floor. "Come on! We've got to get to the cockpit!"

We dashed off down the corridor to the ladder and scrambled up it to where everyone else was. There was chaos. Will was looking back out the curved window to the other ship, urgently shouting unintelligible things. Erin was in the pilot seat, strapped in, and Sofie was beside her, hurriedly trying to explain some of the controls.

"Stop!" I shouted and the room instantly stilled, everyone looking expectantly at me.

"Erin," I turned to her. "I need you to increase our speed. Give it all we've got." She looked at me with a puzzled expression so I continued. "And if you don't know how, you had better figure it out fast. Will, can you-"

"But Ryan!" Erin interrupted. "Don't we want to turn around?"

"Trust me," I said. "We need to get away from that ship and the fastest way to do that is to simply speed up."

"Why?" she asked.

"That is Last Hope," I told her. "The experimental vessel our dad was working on. Tarron weaponized it and took over. Somehow, he must've survived falling out of this ship, and is now pursuing us with a craft extremely superior to ours. He has already taken a huge chunk out of our ship, so I suggest you punch it."

"Okay." She turned back to the controls and grabbed a large silver handle jutting out from the panel and thrust it forward. The acceleration pressed she and Sofie into their seats and sent the rest of us staggering and struggling to keep upright.

When he had regained his balance, Will looked back out the window and immediately recoiled in surprise as a flaming missile rocketed past and vanished into the distance. He cautiously peeked out again. "They're keeping pace with us!" he cried.

"We can't go any faster!" Erin shouted back. "This thing wasn't built for speed!"

"Keep us straight!" I called. "We can't let them catch us while we figure out how to lose them!" Even though there was no need to shout, the tension of the situation made us raise our voices.

Luckily, Tarron appeared to have run out of missiles. Or he was saving them for later. Either way, Dawn wasn't hit again, and we didn't see any more streak past. He seemed to be intent on chasing us down until he caught up.

Why won't he destroy us? I wondered. And why had he set up this rocket to take him off Magnus if he had Last Hope? Wouldn't the other ship be a better escape vehicle?

"Ryan!" Erin's shout brought me back to present occurrences and I dashed over between her and Sofie.

"What?" I asked.

"We're approaching something!"

I peered out the window ahead of us and saw a small pinpoint of light rapidly growing. We were arrowing through the emptiness straight at it.

Sofie held up a sleek pair of binoculars and took a closer look at the object. "It looks like a... city!"

[END of Part Two]