The Iron Hallway

Chapter 20

"Guys, move—" Aaron's voice spoke, before becoming lost in horrendous crackling noises. 

The crackling finally subsided, and a deep voice with a heavy Alcontean accent spoke through our speakers. "Baird Joseph Amergin, Keira A. Korynn, Khemera Taing, Aaron L. Korynn, Hannah Heather Higsley, Jedrek Damosh Urban, I address and greet thee." 

"What's with the antiquated diction?" I whispered to Keira with a smirk. 

Keira shrugged. "Asks the one using the same." she muttered back. 

"To the aforementioned individuals, I condemn thee for transgressing Alcontean law, and departing from thy lawful countries of abode, which our blessed Redistribution Force hath elected and prepared for thee. For such treachery, thou art now held in the Alcontean Empire's contempt, which hath been proven at manifold occasions to be a terrible, horrendous status to earn." 

I leaned over and tilted the microphone to my mouth. "Hey, person, whoever we're talking to, can you hear me?" 

"No objections shall be hearkened to, and neither shall any particular mercy be bestowed upon thy vile persons. On the contrary, thou shalt be subjected to harsh punishments and suffer greatly for thy abominable crimes committed against the Alcontean Empire." 

In reply to the voice's many condemning words, Aaron fired two rockets into the ships before us. My eyes widened as the weapons did absolutely nothing but explode harmlessly on their shield-like fronts. 

"The path of aggression shall only make thy experience all the bitterer." the voice calmly declared. 

In stiff disregard of the voice's instructions, Aaron pointed the nose of his pod upward and climbed in altitude. I shrugged and moved to follow suit. Before we could even clear the edge of the rectangular shields, two rockets sped around from the other side and one collided with each of our pods. I gasped as the glass dented and our vessel spun uncontrollably into a pile of boulders. 

I grimaced at the screeching sound of our metal siding scraping onto the sharp boulders. Nonetheless, no water made its way in, and the vessel soon righted itself, though I heard some labored creaks and groans from the engine area that I hadn't heard before. 

Aaron's pod had spun into the patrol vessels waiting at the mouth of the cave, severely damaging those vessels and his own. Seeing that all the lights faded out of the patrol pods, I could only assume they'd been rendered entirely dysfunctional. Aaron's pod quivered and shook, but still appeared maneuverable. 

The imposing rectangular vessels rotated to face Aaron, seeming to have forgotten my pod entirely. Taking advantage of that, I disengaged my headlights and sped to the backside of the vessels, nodding with satisfaction as I realized their true makeup. Much like a shieldman on land, these vessels had a weakness from behind. The small, round pod on the back was vulnerable and easy to attack. Keira intuitively slid a green slider, and a viridescent laser beam demolished the pod, causing the whole rectangular shield structure to fall down with it. 

The other vessels turned and fired a flurry of rockets at us, which I studiously struggled to evade. However, despite my most concerted efforts, two of the projectiles found their mark and sent our pod flying into the sand. I jumped in sheer terror as Aaron's pod inexplicably shot over in our direction and collided with us. 

The passage of time seemed to transition into slow motion as the shield-ships fired a storm of rockets our way. Aaron and I collided several times as we attempted to avoid every single one of the projectiles, causing essentially the same damage to one another. 

Finally, a massive shadow appeared above, and I gasped at the sight of a juggernaut submarine, triangular in shape and jet-black in hue. It shot out a yellow tractor beam and drew our two pods in, rendering any resistance we offered, entirely futile. I glanced at Keira and Khemera in inexpressible terror and despair.