Starborn: Origin of the Stars

In the outskirts of Seka, in the middle of huge greenhouses and production plants, two small spaceships raced along. In the front was a sleek, black ship that radiated a promise of speed and power. Even with one of its thrusters disabled, it darted between the facilities and through the narrow streets with great agility. Sticking closely was a ship of the same size, but with a much bulkier frame.

In that situation, the most noticeable feature of the gray multipurpose vessel in pursuit, was its turret at the front that always aimed at the fleeing ship. It didn’t shoot anymore, now that they navigated between all the greenhouses owned by the authorities, but with each straight line they flew, it caught up a few meters.

Robin, piloting Melody II, obviously tried to gain a few meters with each corner he took. He had pulled back the throttle even more to increase the agility through better reactions from the control vents at the front and back of the ship.

“Patience, you need to increase the power to the vents some more. I want to use the overhead energy from the failed thruster to put them under strain and give us better mobility. I cannot think of any other way than to hope that they’ll make a mistake before we do.” He gave his copilot new instructions, “Top right display, second slider down to 30%, sliders for vent one, two, seven and eight up to 85%.”

“Ahhhh okay, I’ll try…” Patience was clearly way out of her comfort zone by now and could only do her best to assist Robin.

A few moments later, he could feel the increased capability of the ship, but he could also hear the vents screeching even louder. That definitely was a bad sign, but hopefully not yet on a critical level. Jerking the right joystick around, the Melody II once more tightly shot around a corner.

‘45 meters, that's too close.’ he thought and went through his options, after the new distance between them appeared on one of his displays.

‘Fuck, burn in plasma… I have to lose them or, more likely, outmaneuver their ship. Hiding isn’t really an option. They could just fly up and search for us again. Right now, they probably try to ram us, but if they lose their patience and discard all caution, they may even reactivate the damn turret. We would have no chance to avoid that in this narrow environment.

The new street they entered was also empty, just one more straight line in the orderly network of roads that connected all the structures. Occasionally they passed under a crossbeam that stretched between two buildings a few meters above them.

“Come on, come on,... there must be some other obstacles around. Who cleans up this shit with such care?” Robin cursed under his breath and maneuvered around the next corner, before the Sentinel could reduce the distance.

“Empty… 55 meters, next street!”

“Empty… 62 meters, next!”

“Empty… 81 meters!”

“Come ON! Fuck…” Another empty street and the enemy ship still followed them but continued to lose ground.

Forcefully, he twisted the right joystick again to the side and directed Melody II into the next intersection.

“Change of plan, hold tight!” He exclaimed as he abruptly pushed the throttle up, accelerating the Melody. The following right turn was a close call for Robin, as the ship heavily drifted outwards and even slightly grazed the wall on his left.

Immediately after stabilizing, he throttled down to zero, executed a 180 degree-turn and then ramped the throttle up to the maximum. The vents at the ship's rear howled under the massive strain as they pivoted the ship around.

Robin grasped the joystick tight, aware this was their only chance. It had to work.

He clenched his teeth as the screeching from the overburdened outlets grew even louder, only to suddenly cease. The Melody shook, her rear dropping.

They were gone for good. Robin managed the ones in the front to stabilize the ship, before its new alignment finally matched his plan.

The ship flew straight backwards over a hundred meters as it fought to cancel its momentum with the aid from the roaring thruster, before it explosively gained speed again. The force of the acceleration was nearly overwhelming, his vision narrowed to a tunnel and began to blur.

Just then the Sentinel came around the corner, heading directly towards them.

Robin heard Patience scream behind him but could not afford to divert his attention to her. He eased back his right joystick to raise Melody’s nose and observed the incoming ship’s reaction. They followed this move, clearly intending to ram them with their bulky front.

While the Sentinel was not armored or anything, it was sturdy enough to easily come out on top, if they hit the Melody at the rear or nose, forcing them off course.

Obviously, Robin wouldn’t let that happen. He quickly steered his ship downwards, pressing it against the ground just in time.

His surprise maneuver left the other crew no time to assess the situation, merely reacting to the sudden development. As a result, they had no chance to react at all when they saw the large metal beam directly in front of them, shining silver in the sunlight.

*BOOOOOOOMMMMMM*

Shrapnel flew everywhere and struck the Melody II all over, luckily without penetrating its hull or damaging anything else. Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, Robin decelerated the ship and initiated another turn. Now he could see the Sentinel’s wreckage, still tumbling through the previously vacant street, ablaze with intense yellow flames.

Robin brought Melody to a complete halt and watched the scene in front of him with a mix of horror and relief.

“Hey, are you alright?” he asked Patience, who had stopped screaming at some point.

“Fuck… Fuck this shit!” A furious shout came in return, “Do you wanna kill me? Do you really wanna kill me? First you shot that guy, with eyes closed and now you’re pulling this insane stunt out of your ass. What’s wrong with you? Damn!” Patience relieved her stress on Robin and was just about to resume her tirade, when she suddenly grasped the full meaning of what had happened, when he saved her back at the relic site.

“Wait a second - you little shit, you closed your fucking eyes when shooting in my direction? I… I.. I don’t even know what to say!” Robin heard her huffing in the back but tried to ignore it.

They were both too tense and each coped with stress in their own way. He also tried not to dwell on the memory of his actions inside the building earlier…

When he held the gun in his hand.

When he shot someone.

When he had taken a life.

Robin watched the flames as they greedily consumed the remnants of the craft before him.

‘I killed again, didn’t I? There was a pilot in that ship, maybe even a copilot. They are burning over there and I’m just sitting here, watching them.’

He began to imagine he could hear their screams amid the roar of flames. It was irrational, he knew that. The canopy of Melody was sealed and isolated sound pretty well. Furthermore, no one could have survived such a crash.

Still, wasn’t that a fellow human's scream he could hear?

“Rob, come on, let’s go. It’s time for us to fly home, ok?” Patience’s voice snapped him out of his dark thoughts.

“Yeah, you are right. There’s nothing we can do here anyway” He responded and took control of Melody II again to take them back to Seka.

He focused on the magnificent view of the sunset visible from above the clouds and suppressed any intrusive thoughts.

There’ll come a time to reflect on what they had experienced today, later.

‘Well, maybe not that much later...’ Robin realized, upon noticing a new message in the log on one of his displays.

17:47:22: Responding to security identification request X445S51:

Melody II, Robin Tulward