Where’s the Designated Driver?

I awoke to find Cecilia pacing the room. I sat up and rubbed my eyes—it was everything I could do after the worst sleep of my life—and watched her. She was biting her nails, and when she noticed me, she jumped with a little squeak.

“O-oh. You’re finally awake! Let’s get going!”

I guessed her impatience from last night had continued. I pushed myself up and massaged my aching back.

“Going where, exactly? We lost the carriage, remember?” I groaned, still trying to wake up. I wished I still had my ship’s built-in coffee machine.

“Huh? You do know I’m a Yanta right? I thought our telepathy was common knowledge,” she said, as if teasing a flunking student. But that was right! She had originally summoned the carriage with what seemed like a telepathic ritual. She must have done that again while I slept. After yesterday’s events, and what felt like negative two hours of sleep, it had slipped my mind.

“However, last night I thought to contact the chauffeur and explain our situation. I asked him to stay where he was. He said he would,” she explained. I tilted my head. This didn’t explain her current demeanor. However, she started wringing her hands and growing anxious, so an answer was probably incoming. She continued, “But this morning I found his presence had disappeared.”

She was acting like the driver was killed. What a wild assumption! I raised my hand like a schoolboy before asking, “Uh, Yantas’ telepathy has a maximum range, doesn’t it?” I asked. “What’s stopping him from, I don’t know, going back to the palace for resupply or someth—”

“A chauffeur is in no position to disobey a princess.”

She had a point. I considered this, but she soon pulled me up by the arm, and dragged me out of the room. I stumbled to keep up with her.

“We have to see if he’s—!”

Suddenly, crunching glass. Voices. I yanked her behind the corner she almost crossed, pushing her against a wall with a hand over her mouth. She momentarily panicked at the sudden move, but she seemed to understand when I put my finger over my lips. Her breathing slowed, and I peeked around the corner, down the staircase leading up here.

There were two people in the dilapidated hotel lobby. They wore Intergalactic Police uniforms. Their shoulders had a green and yellow badge though: the same colors of the Johnston Company.

The company did have money to hire an in-house police force. Considering their stance on pirates, the excessive personnel didn’t surprise me either. I clicked my tongue. Of course they wouldn’t have assumed I died!

As we watched, a policewoman with an air of authority entered. She commanded the officers, “You’ll be inspecting this block, starting with this building. That man has taken too much from the company. We have full permission to dispatch him.”

As they began searching the first floor, I snuck back towards the hallway of hotel rooms with Cecilia in tow. A couple rooms had collapsed back walls. We entered one, and I peered over the ledge, finding a one story drop into the courtyard we entered the hotel from. It wouldn’t be pretty, but it was our only means of escape.

“W-what’s stopping me from just reasoning with them?” Cecilia asked, seeing me consider the fall from this height.

“Those men will shoot me on sight.”

She stared at me, then towards the drop. She considered the options, but she must have noticed my fear, because she eventually agreed to the plan.

I began by inspecting my boots. I could’ve had them blast some air right before I landed, cushioning my fall. However, their usual light hum as they took in air was absent. Figures. They probably broke after escaping the jackals.

I gulped, eyed the drop again, and backed up to give myself a running start. My heart pounded out of my chest. My palms were sweaty. But I heard the police officers climbing the stairs, so I gritted my teeth, ran forward, and jumped.

I hit the hard ground below, rolling as I landed to lessen the impact. Despite that, a pain sprung from the bottom of my foot and up my leg, and it took my entire being to stay quiet.

I limped towards a spot below the ledge. Cecilia clung to the wall beside it.

“I’ll catch you!” I exclaimed in a hushed tone. She shook her head. “I’m alive, aren’t I?” I continued, trying to appear confident despite the pain in my foot.

She looked back. The policemen would’ve been exploring the second level now. I continued persuading her to follow me. The authorities must have only been a couple rooms away now.

She eventually squatted down, grabbed the ledge, and hung herself from it. After a moment of preparation, she let go. I nearly collapsed as I caught her, wincing as my foot radiated pain. From above, I heard someone say that they thought they saw something.

I set the princess down, and continued with a limp. She paused.

“You’re hurt.”

I ignored her, simply asking, “When you telepathically communicate, do you get a sense of where the other is?”

She frowned at my wounded state before answering with a nod anyway.

“Remember what direction we gotta go?”

She sighed before taking point. He hugged the hotel wall so the ones exploring the second level wouldn’t see us. As we slinked into a neighboring alleyway, I looked back to find a troop entering the courtyard. Phew! They just missed us.

This back lane was once used for storage for the surrounding companies. with piles of crates atop pallets. Some of them had fallen, blocking the alleyway. Above us, there was also a metal catwalk attached to the neighboring building’s second story; probably access for some important system.

We then heard more policemen idly chatting ahead, around a corner. I climbed atop a nearby pile of crates, and then to the catwalk above. Cecilia followed, and I helped her onto the catwalk. Soon after, the authorities rounded the corner of the alley. Luckily, they didn’t think to look right above them!

We navigated through destroyed buildings, climbing up and down to avoid the police. Me and Cecilia eventually returned to the main street the carriage was originally driving down. It was a wide road with a median in the middle. Any rubble blocking the road had been pushed into the alleyways and sidewalks neighboring it. We summited a pile of debris from an alleyway feeding into the main street, and luckily, the carriage wasn’t far. Cecilia’s navigation was perfect!

She ran ahead, and I lunged to grab her before she revealed our location, but I was too slow. I grumbled, following her over the rubble, telling her in hushed whispers, “Hold on, hold on! We’re out in the open here!”

She continued anyway, and I begrudgingly followed her to the carriage. The oversized jackal pulling the defunct military truck was still there, but there was nobody else. Cecilia called out to her chauffeur, but the city only offered the same eerie quiet that it always did.

She desperately climbed into the truck, trying to find her chauffeur inside. I advised her to lay low before we got caught.

Right then, policemen climbed over the rubble surrounding the main street, with their guns pointed at me. One of them yelled, “Lay down your arms and come with us!”

I hopped into the transport truck and pushed Cecilia to the driver’s seat. “You know how to control these things right?? Go, go—!”

“What?? No I—!”

She was cut off by laser fire hitting our carriage. It burned through the tarp above the truck. Despite Cecilia’s panic, she tried to get the jackal running.

“Go?? Hyah!!?”

The jackal was already scared, so at the command, it started sprinting back home. I was thrown sideways as the transport truck spun around.

I kept my head down as the laser fire pelted our carriage. A stray laser singed the back of my coat. I was so thankful that it was graphene-infused!

Luckily, the pace of the jackal outmatched the soldiers pursuing us on foot, and eventually the laser fire stopped.

“Why were they shooting at us??” Cecilia screamed, just barely keeping the jackal under control.

“Didn’t I tell you??” I yelled back. “Those were Johnston goons! They have it out for me!”

We continued down the road at full speed, hoping to avoid any more conflict for the day.