Runaway

13. Chapter

Six soldiers in shiny white armor. Shinies, usually I would belittle them. But I had no idea what they were. To my eye their armor looked cheap, probably something some bounty hunter crew had thought out to scare civilians and gain respect. But their weaponry was heavy. They didn't see us, we were hiding behind the building. Without hesitation they stormed into the first house, the one of Lania Oorhies. We heard screams, men yelling, things breaking and shots firing and above all the menacing whirring of the ship's motor.
"Who are they", Lydiya wondered, probably more to herself because she knew none of us could give her an answer.
"Chase, is there a possibility that this is one of the Republics special forces?", Coris asked me reproachfully.
"No, I've never seen anything like this in my life", I answered.

"Okay quick now, we don't have much time to loose", 'the boss' commanded, just in time because right now the white soldier were leaving the house. They had spotted us and started running in our direction. They were shooting, but they were either incredibly poorly trained or missing on purpose. Maybe they wanted us alive.

We ran back to the landing place where Ren Pacas ship was standing. Because of their armor and their heavy weapons the soldiers had fallen behind and we managed to get to the ship and open it up. They were still shooting, not at us but at the ship as if they were indeed not trying to kill us but to stop is from leaving.

In all that chaos I had not noticed, that Quia, still carrying her daughter on her arms had fallen behind as well. One of the soldiers grabbed her and held his gun to her head. My heart was racing.

"Don't move or I shoot her ", he yelled at us.

Lydiya and the rest of the crew had already mounted the ship, I was standing in front of it, paralyzed.
What was I going to do? I couldn't run, he would kill her and she'd die because of me. I couldn't let that happen.

"Chase! Come on!", Lydiya shouted from above me: "Come with us, fast!"

"I can't", I yelled at her, desperately and torn back and forth, "I can't let them kill her!"
I screamed that angrily, because why would those damned soldiers just use an innocent woman. And why did I have to stand right in the middle of all this.

The motor if the ship was already starting and the soldiers had started firing at the ship again, hoping to destroy it, so I could barely say what Lydiya said, but it was something along the lines of: "you should know, friendship is more important than love, but I guess you'll have to learn that for yourself ".

And with those words the ship's door closed and they lifted off the ground.

What neither me nor the soldiers knew, but should have expected, was, that ship had a cannon.

The crew fired it right at the soldiers, blowing up four of them instantly, only missing Quia and Xii, who had been crying and screaming the whole time while her mother seemed apathetic and in shock, by a few centimeters.

Maybe my training wasn't all that useless. I had used the moment of chaos and confusion to knock the gun out of one of the soldiers hands. Without any hesitation I put a shot right throughout his helmet. The other soldier turned around, letting Quia slip out of his hands and fall to the ground. But he wasn't quick enough and I shot him too.

I dropped the gun and ran to see if Quia and Xii were alright.
Quia was still breathing and as I sat down next to her and laid her head onto my lap she opened her eyes. XII was laying on her chest, not screaming anymore but still sobbing. She seemed exhausted but at least I couldn't find any injuries on her.

As Quia had gained back some strength she sat up and this time it went too quickly for me to turn away and she kissed me.
Not for long, but it was nice, I had never felt anything like that before.
"Thank you", she whispered. And she smiled at me.