Not Today, Princess!

I was now aboard the carriage ride to my doom. The princess had procured transport to a Johnston Company mining base, but unbeknownst to her, those guys wanted me dead. It was time to weasel my way out of this.

“Um, princess…” I stared downwards like the scared merchant I totally was. “You really shouldn't bring me there...” The princess tilted her head. I continued, “Do you know what they do to someone who destroys their ships? They’ll kill me!”

Cecilia glared at me like an attorney cross-examining a suspect. “Your ship wasn’t destroyed by your own recklessness. You said it yourself didn’t you? You just got caught in some crossfire.”

“Oh, how I wish it worked that way.” I sighed theatrically, hoping she’d take pity. “All they care about is money. Not the person who loses it.”

“Why would they kill an innocent bystander such as yourself?” she questioned, growing eager to disprove me. “If they should kill anybody, it’d be the pirates that destroyed your ship.”

I gulped, considering the implications of that statement. She really didn’t know, did she? I cleared my throat and responded, “You are far too naive.”

“Ad hominem.”

“What?”

She leaned back, smirking. “An attack on the opponent’s character, as opposed to their argument.”

“I know that much,” I grumbled, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “Things work a bit different out there, y’know. These big corpos don’t care about who works for them—all the people they exploit,” I explained, clenching my fists. “All your talk about them being reasonable is completely false.”

Cecilia must have noticed my growing anger before I did, because she promptly ended the conversation:

“Get some rest. We’ll be there by morning,” she said, laying down on her side of the carriage with her back facing me.

I moved to grab her shoulder. “Didn’t you hear—!”

“I’ll talk to them,” she snapped, waving me away with her hand.

I crossed my arms as I stared at her. I wasn’t going to persuade her, was I? My gaze shifted towards the back of the truck. The sky grew darker. The first few stars twinkled. Meanwhile, shadows enveloped the destroyed city below.

Xios was unfamiliar to me. Perhaps even dangerous. I couldn’t just find a spaceship laying around either. I had hoped the princess, with whatever authority she had, could procure a convenient solution for me. That was why I remained here. I needed her help.

However, I realized right then that that wouldn’t work out.

I glanced around the transport truck for anything useful. There was nothing that would help me. Even Cecilia was empty-handed.

I patted myself down, taking stock of what I had. All I had in my pockets was the knife I used to cut my parachute cords after landing here. My coat was what I always wore: an old leather garment embedded with layers of graphene to absorb laser fire. Useful in my line of work.

I glanced at my boots. They were made from an aluminum alloy and aerated steel around the ankle. They had vents to take in air, store it, and blast it from the soles for movement in zero gravity. It wasn’t too useful here, but I wasn’t exactly expecting to be planetbound.

I tip-toed to the back of the truck and glanced back at Cecilia. She wasn’t looking, so I hopped onto the gravel below. The vehicle continued without noticing.

I sighed in relief before scanning my surroundings. The buildings blotted out the stars, creating jagged silhouettes in the sky. Steel skeletons of buildings climbed upwards, halting where the beams were melted by photon cannons, or were dissolved by chemical barrages. A breeze elicited the groans of metal, and the crumbling of eroded stonework.

The squeal of the transport truck’s ancient brakes cut through the ambience. I turned to find the carriage had stopped. Cecilia climbed out.

“Get back here at once!” she commanded, stomping towards me. No way! I wasn’t letting myself be apprehended and executed!

I darted off the street, climbing over a pile of broken cement and rebar, and into an abandoned alleyway. Scattered on the ground were long-forgotten electric signs; probably advertisements for ancient shops and services. They must’ve fallen off the walls surrounding this place. The power cells were already scavenged, leaving panels of busted lights and cracked screens that would forever remain black.

I slid down a particularly long sign and vaulted over some forgotten crates. The princess entered the alley in pursuit. I turned a corner, and burst through a nearby door. I had seen similar places to this. This had been a makeshift market lane: a place to profit without the investment of buying an actual storefront. Shops were crammed into the back of businesses in unused storage closets and utility rooms.

I weaved through some hallways, eventually climbing through a destroyed wall into another alley. I heard Cecilia’s voice echoing. “Where are you?! Get back here!” she yelled.

I eventually found a secluded lot in some leftover space between buildings. There were large piles of metal that vaguely resembled parcel delivery drones. Their circuitry was ripped out and their frames were mangled though. They wouldn’t be flying anywhere.

Cecilia’s voice grew closer, so I hopped onto a defunct drone, climbing atop its broken propellers. Next to it was a wrought iron fire escape, clinging to a building whose first stories were somewhat intact. The city wouldn’t have needed something so primitive, considering the high-tech fire prevention systems they would’ve used, so it was purely decorational. A remnant of the “neo-art-deco renaissance” that became popular before Xios was destroyed, perhaps?

I clung onto the iron railings. The scratching of metal on metal pierced the air. I winced, knowing Cecilia probably heard it. I scrambled up the steps, feeling the stairs shift as the rusted metal keeping them together fell apart. I vaulted through a busted window on the third floor as the fire escape collapsed, hitting the ground a clang. Cecilia definitely would’ve heard that!

Now inside, I saw the building’s further half had collapsed. Its melted steel beams and incinerated walls created a pile of slag and debris almost reaching the second floor. The princess was scaling it, having neared the top of the pile. She was faster than I thought!

We made eye contact, and she pleaded, “Please get back here!” She didn’t sound angry now, but I ignored that and ran to my right. I thought I heard something animalistic in the distance too, though I wasn’t sure.

I darted towards a bridge leading to a building across the street, subsequently skidding to a stop as I found that half the bridge was gone. Figures, in a destroyed city! I turned to backtrack, but Cecilia just finished climbing a surviving stairway that connected the second and third floor. She trudged towards me. Her once-pristine white dress was now covered in dust and rips. She caught her breath and stared at me. She seemed… anxious?

“We need to get out of here now.”

“You’re not taking me to the Johnston base!” I retorted.

“You don’t get it! It’s—”

She was interrupted by barking. I peered over the ledge to spot a pack of jackals below the destroyed bridge. They appeared like the one pulling the transport vehicle, except more vicious. They climbed through the building’s crumbled walls.

I ran past Cecilia, into the previous building. The jackals were hopping up the pile of rubble below. The fire escape had collapsed. There were no other escape routes. The barking grew more frenzied as the jackals reached the second floor.

We backed onto the bridge. Soon, the beasts climbed the stairs, populating the building’s third floor. We were now cornered. Me and Cecilia glanced at each other.

“H-hey Cecilia, didn’t you tame these guys?” I asked, trying to maintain a lighthearted smile.

Her breathing had quickened, and she was nearly panicking. “N-not all of them! The wild ones must be so hungry. They’ll eat anything!”

Our gazes returned to the jackals. The pack leader entered the bridge they backed us into with the rest following close behind.

As a last ditch effort, I waved my arms above my head, and started screaming. Cecilia turned towards me, bewildered.

“What are you doing?!”

“I’m trying to scare them off! They’re just jackals, right?”

She paused, as if to parse the stupidity of what I said, before snapping back, “These ones aren’t that dumb!”

We backed towards the edge of the bridge. A piece of cement crumbled off, falling to the ground, exploding on impact. A grave reminder of what that fall meant for us. I craned my neck, trying to spot anything to save us. There was nothing to land on, and the building across was too far to jump to. Unless…

I paused to consider an idea before twisting a knob on my boots. The whir of micro machinery increasingly intensified as the boots began sucking up air.

“You said these guys aren’t stupid, right?” I asked, grabbing Cecilia by the waist. She squeaked as she looked towards me, completely panicked now. She nodded fervently.

“Great! They won’t follow us then.”

Before she replied, my boots reached the pitch of a tea kettle. The lead jackal pounced, and just as its claws were about to sink into us, there was an explosion at my feet. A violent blast of air sent us flying backwards, straight towards the eroded wall of the building across the street. I held Cecilia close and braced for impact.