Earth
Toronto, Ontario
August 23, 2019
20:56 EDT

“Here we go!” Abi said as the hangar doors slowly opened revealing the sky above us. When they were finally opened all the way, Abi began slowly rising into the air while rotating the ship clockwise until we were facing the Atlantic Ocean to the East. She began pivoting the ship upwards and then throttled the engines so we began picking up speed. I looked at her available mana and it repeatedly dropped a single digit before going back up to full as we began accelerating.

It seemed like she was going to take the quieter and slower approach rather than get us into space faster, which would create a very noticeable sonic boom over a populated area. She rapidly accelerated until we were at around twelve hundred kilometers per hour before cutting back so we maintained that speed. It would take us about thirty minutes to get far enough away from any high-density areas before she could break the sound barrier, and then it would take less than a minute to exit the atmosphere.

Knowing that we would have some time before we jumped, I excused myself while calling for Vixa to follow me. It wasn’t a very long trip as it was only down the hall, but I entered my room to show Vixa where we were staying. While I had been gathering everything I needed for the trip hours earlier, Bria showed up with a new set of water dishes and a supply of food and water.

I had just set them down on the deck when I stopped by my room a while ago, but took the time to move them over to a corner and start filling them up. It took a bit of trial and error to set up the feeding times, but I finally got it. After that all there was to do was set up her new litter box, I was done setting everything up for Vixa.

Moving on to everything else, I dragged my three suitcases over to the closet and began emptying them. The first two I opened had contained my current suit of armor and weapons, as well as the numerous spares I brought along as well. I quickly hung up the suits and put my weapons in the little cubby up top before moving onto the final suitcase.

It contained all of the clothing I would be wearing during our pseudo-vacation, as well as soap, shampoo, shaving cream and the like. After hanging up the clothing and bringing the rest of the stuff to the bathroom, I put all three suitcases back into Abi’s dimensional storage. I was about to head back up to the bridge when I remembered there was one thing I had forgotten. Walking back over to the closet I held my hand out in front of me and the formal suit my mom had made for me appeared. I hung it up in the closet as well and then left my room with Vixa following beside me.

When I got back to the bridge I could see that we were high up in the atmosphere, giving us a really good view of the Earth. I could tell that we were still burning, though our orientation meant that Abi was putting us into a stable orbit, rather than break orbit entirely. To enter hyperspace, we would need to do one of two things. We would either need to get far enough away from Earth so that the hyperspace window wouldn’t be detected or Abi would need to position herself behind a planet such as Jupiter and Saturn and then open up the hyperspace window.

I was about to ask what was going on when the engines suddenly cut off and then Abi started rotating around. When she stopped rotating, the front of the ship was facing directly at the Earth.

“Greetings. My name is Abi and I am happy to welcome all of you aboard. I know this is the first time that many of you have been into space, and indeed this may be the last time some of you will see Earth. If you would like to take a final look at your original home, or just see how Earth looks from space, then follow the blinking lights that I have just activated in each and every hallway.”

“There are two observation decks, one on deck one and the other on deck twenty-five. The blinking lights will direct you to whichever is closest to you. Unfortunately each observation room can only hold a relatively small number of people at a time, so please only stay for a few minutes before vacating so more people can enter. We will be leaving in exactly thirty-five minutes. Thank you.”

No one in the bridge made a move to leave, as we had the best view in the house, so to speak. I had no doubt that there would be lines forming on both decks as people tried to get a view before we departed.

“And I thought the view from the Moon was good,” Selalea said. “It’s beautiful.”

“Most habitable planets are, though none seem to look as beautiful as one’s homeworld,” my mom replied.

I would definitely have to wait and see if that was true. While I had spent the last fifteen years on Earth, Nedovis was my homeworld.

---

Since we had another thirty-plus minutes where nothing was happening, I decided to use the chunk of time to head down to the mess. I had ended up missing dinner, and with people heading towards the two observation decks, it would be the best time to grab some food.

The second I stepped a foot outside of the teleporter on the twelfth deck I was buffeted by the smell of meat cooking. Upon entering the mess, I saw that it was set up much the same way the cafeteria was back on the base, though it was slightly smaller and there was one huge difference. The entirety of the wall to the right hand side was taken up by a series of huge rotisseries. Each of them had an entire cow at various stages of being cooked as they were slowly rotated over a single massive grill.

That explained the delicious smell, and it seemed that it was a dragon-run operation. As I watched, one of the men gestured and a spit rose in the air several feet. It slowly spun one hundred eighty degrees until it was facing a table with a large tray on top of it. The man next to him then gestured and the entire cow slid off the spit before gently landing on the tray. Another half-dozen men then went to work carving it up into smaller pieces.

The man who was levitating the spit then turned and submerged it in something that looked like a trough you might see on a farm, though this one was filled with soapy water. Some of the water splashed out of the trough as the spit was vigorously shaken before being raised back out of the water. Two men quickly walked up to it and began wiping off all the soap residue with dish drying towels. When they were satisfied that the spit was clean and ready to be used again, one of the two men nodded to the man who was levitating it.

He turned back around and I saw that a frozen cow was floating in front of another man as he exited a back room. With a quick motion, the spit impaled the cow all the way through and then it was spun around and put over the fire. Another man then walked over and began slowly rotating the spit.

“Those guys really have a system down,” Mason’s voice said from beside me.

I turned and saw that he had a plate with some beef on it as he munched away. He moved the plate towards me, offering some so I grabbed a piece and popped it into my mouth. I definitely wasn’t ready for the explosion of flavor when I bit into it, expecting dragons to just eat it raw. Or roast it with their breaths, as red and chromatic dragons could definitely do.

“Damn that’s good,” I said, reaching for another piece.

He pulled it away before I could take another and then gestured to another table with a literal heap of beef on top of it. “Get your own.”

I did just that, grabbing a plate that was sitting on a cart next to it before using the long fork to put a bunch of it on my plate. When I had filled my plate, I turned towards Mason who led me over to a table. Sitting there were my friends, sisters and Tessa. It seemed like all of them had the same idea, though they beat me here. I was surprised that my friends weren’t with their parents, but then again they had seen Earth from the moon and Abi had taken us on a short trip before.

“I think the dragons might give the cooks your mom brought along a run for their money,” Mason said as he chewed on another piece of beef.

“I can definitely see that. How’s the rest of the food? The same as usual?”

Anja nodded. “There is a little less variety, but most of the stuff that was available on the base is available here. I didn’t see any breakfast foods, so it could just be that they’re going to have breakfast in the morning and then the rest of the day will be lunch or dinner foods.”

“There are also a bunch of different types of salad that were added,” Ben said. “Probably so people have a well-balanced diet with the amount of meat the dragons will be cooking up.”

“I had wondered how they were going to feed over two thousand dragons and dragonkin,” I said after I swallowed another morsel.

“Apparently this isn’t even the only area where they’re cooking. I heard someone saying that they’ve also got one of the smaller upper decks to themselves to keep their people fed. Even the amount of food they’re cooking over there isn’t more than a snack for them,” Mason replied, nodding over to the spits.

I briefly wondered which deck had been assigned to them, but then that information pretty much popped into my head. At that moment, I knew the exact layout of the ship as well. “Ah, the twenty-third deck.”

Because Abi was shaped like an arrowhead, the thirteenth deck was actually the biggest, and the rest of the twenty-four decks gradually got smaller and smaller. The usable space on the first and twenty-fifth decks were miniscule compared to the space on the thirteenth deck hence both of them being observation decks. The twenty-third deck wouldn’t give them any living areas, though it would be more than sufficient to both store and cook their food over the next two weeks.

“So I wasn’t expecting the four of you to be here, I figured that you would be with your parents, showing them around.”

“We can’t exactly show them around when we don’t even know our own way around,” Ben chuckled with a shake of his head. “The layout is much different than it was the last time we were here.”

“The last time we were here, we only stopped by the cargo bay to pick up the shuttle,” Sonja said.

“You know what I mean,” Ben replied. “Anyways, they wanted to take a look at Earth from space, so we left them to it. It’s really handy that Abi can put directional markers right in the floor.”

“How excited are they?”

“I think they’re more nervous than anything,” Anja replied. “A little over a week ago they didn’t even know that there were aliens living on Earth, and now they’re about to travel further than any human ever has. Maybe we should’ve joined them on one of the observation decks, I would’ve liked to see their reactions.”

---

When we were finished eating, the nine of us headed up to the bridge. There were fewer dragon council members there than there were the last time I left, and I was glad to see that Bonanem was one of those who were no longer present. There was a timer displayed just below Abi’s available mana, showing that we would be breaking orbit in about two minutes.

“Your people really know how to cook,” I said, addressing the council members who stayed.

“Ah, you’ve visited the mess, then? We were wondering where you’d run off to,” Selalea said.

I nodded. “I was planning on grabbing some pizza or fried chicken or something, at least until I smelled the beef that was being cooked the moment I stepped out of the teleporter. I think that is the best beef I’ve ever eaten.”

“As carnivores, we do try,” Pharomna smiled. “There are some dragons who prefer raw red meat, but the rest of us grew tired of that long ago. While red and chromatic dragons are able to cook their own food using their fire breaths, the rest of us had to resort to cooking the old fashioned way. Eventually we found that roasting meat on a spit is the most efficient way to feed beings of our size. Especially when black or chromatic dragons are the ones doing the cooking, as you’ve no doubt seen.”

“I suppose your people will be quite busy figuring out what is edible and what isn’t when they’ve had time to settle on your new worlds.”

“Well, not entirely,” she replied. “We used the extra shipping containers to bring along a number of different species of animals, the majority being cows, pigs and chickens. It will be a few years until they reproduce enough that we can re-introduce them to our diets, but there were a lot of people that didn’t want to give beef and pork up.”

“Isn’t that a little risky?” I asked before elaborating. “Bringing additional animals onto the planet could introduce a disease to the native wildlife, right?”

“It’s a possibility, though we’re taking some precautions. With the size of predators on the two planets it would be unfeasible to have them live in an enclosed area on the surface. At least at the beginning, anyways. Once there are a few chambers cleared out to store our eggs and live in, then Olmith’s next priority will be to create an enclosure for them underground. Thankfully your mom has been gracious enough to supply us with a few fusion power plants and portable stasis field generators so we’ll be able to keep them on ice, so to speak.”

“It’s nothing,” my mom smiled as she turned to me. “Tamara also sent a few people who helped her set up the enclosures under the base, including one of those who worked on the gryphon enclosure. They’ll spend the next few months here helping them set up a few enclosures for domesticated animals.”

“Sorry to interrupt your conversation, but we’re ready to depart,” Abi said.

“Thanks Abi,” I replied, turning my attention to the screens.

Abi was already rotating the ship and stopped again when we were facing nothing but the darkness of space. She then throttled forward and the line on the star map began to move, showing our current trajectory. Our orbit around Earth began changing from one that was perfectly circular to one that was more ovoid. After a few seconds, the oval snapped, meaning that we were at escape velocity. She wasn’t done yet, however, as the line continued moving until it was almost perfectly straight.

She could have cut the engines long ago if she wanted to save fuel, but that wasn’t something she had to worry about. Everyone aboard the ship provided her with almost unlimited energy. With the engines at full, she was rapidly picking up speed. It didn’t take longer than a minute to break through the one hundred thousand meters per second mark and there were no signs of her slowing. If she had cut the engines when we were moving one hundred thousand meters per second, then it would have taken us over ten hours to get to Mars.

We didn’t plan on orbiting Mars and didn’t need to slow down to enter hyperspace, so as soon as we were hidden she would be able to open up a hyperspace window and jump into it. As we watched, our velocity continued to increase and we broke through two hundred thousand meters per second. At the rate of our current acceleration, it would only take us fifteen minutes, if not less, to make a journey that took the Curiosity rover eight and a half months to make.

At the speeds we were dealing with, anyone who wanted to see Mars was probably a little disappointed. We flew past in mere seconds and then a bright white hyperspace window appeared in front of the ship. An instant later we jumped inside of it, and the view around the ship changed one one that I was much more familiar with.

“Huh. Every hyperspace window I’ve seen is blue or purple,” Ben said. “Is it being white unique to you, Abi?”

“Not at all,” she replied. “I am unsure of the reasoning behind it, but the color of a hyperspace window seems to be determined by the power and efficiency of the hyperspace engine that is used to open it. For most ships, that means they are blue or purple, as you said. I believe the fleet enroute to Earth is sufficiently advanced that their hyperspace windows would be a very light blue, almost bordering on white. It can be both an advantage or a disadvantage since a window is formed whenever you enter or exit hyperspace. Unless they try to hide it, it is very easy to tell how advanced a ship is with a simple glance.”

“Neat.”

“I’ve set a new timer showing how long it will take us to reach Mezotis 3 and 4. I’ll need to take us out of hyperspace about a week in to perform a little bit of maintenance. That will only take two hours or so to complete and then I’ll jump again. In total, it will take twelve days, five hours, thirty-one minutes and twelve seconds to get there, barring any delays.”

“Great! Well, ladies, how about we resume our tour?” my mom asked the remaining dragon council members.

They looked at each other briefly and nodded. “I think we’d like that,” Selalea replied.

“Alright, let’s get going,” she said before turning to our little group. “See you all either later or in the morning. Jonathan, make sure to spend some time leveling up Precognition. Abi will have enough mana to grow in size again in a little over ten days.”

“Will do,” I nodded, activating the ability right away.

She nodded as well and then led the dragons out of the bridge.

My Precognition was pretty high, though not nearly as high as Anja’s was. At level twenty four, it would cost one hundred seventy mana and reduce my mana regeneration by seventy-six percent. With my current mana pool, that meant that I could maintain Precognition for about one hundred and fourteen seconds straight before running out of mana. Three seconds later I would be back up to full mana, and then I would repeat the process.

“So did you guys check out your quarters yet?” I asked, turning to everyone.

“My parents and I dropped our stuff off in our quarters and then split up. Ships aren’t usually built with windows as they’re a structural weakness, though that isn’t a problem with Abi. They wanted to watch us depart from the upper observation deck,” Tessa answered.

“You and your parents are on the starboard side of this deck, right?”

She nodded. “How’d you know?”

“Whenever Abi goes through a growth or changes her layout she downloads a new schematic directly into my mind through our bond. Along with that, she also sent me the list of everyone on the ship and what room they’ve been assigned to,” I answered before turning to my friends and sisters. “I’m assuming none of you have been to your quarters yet?”

None of them had, so I led them off the bridge for the short walk to our quarters.

“They’re rather cramped,” Mason said as he looked around the room he and Ben would be sharing for the next twelve days.

“It’s temporary. Abi had to be able to fit well over twenty-five hundred people aboard so she limited the amount of space without making it too uncomfortable. As soon as we get to Mezotis and the dragons have departed, then she’ll go through another growth and change the layout at the same time. For the trip to Veria and then to Earth, you can probably expect quarters of a similar size to the ones back on the base.”

“That’ll be nice. What are your quarters looking like?”

We left their quarters and then headed directly across the hall to my own. When I pulsed my mana to open the door, both of their jaws dropped.

“What the hell, Jonathan?” Mason exclaimed as he walked inside.

“What’s going on?” Aleena said as she and the rest of the women walked over. The second she saw the inside of my room, she turned to me. “Oh, that’s so not fair!”

I chuckled. They could probably fit all of their quarters inside of my own and there would still be a little bit of space left over. In fact, my quarters were almost an exact duplicate of my room back on the base. The only difference was that there wasn’t an extra room that was accessed through the walk-in closet.

“When you guys have your own ships, you can make your rooms as big as you’d like,” I said with a grin. “Alright, are you guys up to game for an hour or two? I had some pods loaded on one of the lower decks. They should be hooked up by now. We won’t be able to go on a mining run, but maybe we can find a job or something.

“Nah, I’ve got a better idea. I don’t know about you four,” he said pointing to my sisters and Tessa, “but we just spent the last four days familiarizing ourselves with firearms and getting in a little bit of practice. How about we check out The Escape? I spent about two hours this morning playing it, and it is incredibly fun, if difficult. It could be some nice practice.”

We all agreed to check it out, and we made our way up to the twenty-fourth deck where a dozen of the pods had been set up in our own private room. There were many more pods set up in another larger room, though since they are for public use, you had to sign up at least a day beforehand if you wanted to play some games.

The nine of us stepped into our own pod and then appeared in the lobby. Once we were all there, Mason snapped his fingers and we were in the main menu area of the game. In the background the trailer we had seen before was playing, however Mason began going over it in more detail.

“Alright, so the way this works is that there are a dozen different prison worlds that are at different levels of development. There is no magic or psionic ability of any kind, so you need to rely on yourself and your equipment to get off the planet you’re on. There are two different game modes, aptly called Campaign and Free Play.”

“In the Campaign, you start on the least technologically advanced planet, which is basically a world in the stone age, with nothing but the clothes on your back. Your goal is to make it to the opposite side of the planet where a ship will take you to the next prison world. Along the way, you can either rough it out in the wilderness or go town to town, accepting quests along the way. Some will have you deliver items to other towns, while others will require you to gather materials, kill players and NPCs, or explore an area and report back. If you die at any time, then you need to restart from the beginning.”

“Now as you advance from planet to planet, the tasks that you are required to do won’t necessarily change, you’ll just have better tools to help you with those tasks. If you finally escape from the twelfth planet then your character is transferred over to Free Play mode. That’s where the game is more like the trailer, and that's how we’ll be playing.”

“In Free Play mode, you can choose any of the twelve planets at any time. Upon selecting a character, you will spawn in a small safe area that other players can’t enter. On the most primitive world that will simply be a cave, but on the more high-tech worlds it will be a small bunker. Both the caves and the bunkers can be upgraded over time by gathering tools to build them or complete tasks.”

“Along with the cave or bunkers, you’ll also be given a small amount of equipment, also dictated by the planet you’re on. On the primitive worlds that might be nothing but the most basic of tools, while on more modern planets you might get some low quality armor and weapons. Apparently there is some randomness involved in what you get, but there is nothing that is absolutely groundbreaking.”

“And now for the key differences between Campaign and Free Play; if you die while out in the world, then your character will respawn back in your base, minus any equipment you had on at the time. You’ll want to get in, kill some players or NPCs, get their shit, and then get out so you don’t lose it. Once you’re back at your base or in one of the safe zones, then everything you have is safe. If you go to a safe zone then you can sell off all the stuff that you don’t want, but if you go back to your base then you can save any equipment until you need it.”

“The Escape allows people to play together, though only to a point. If you create a character and form a group with your friends before starting, then all of you will start in the same bunker. It won’t be any bigger than it would if you were playing on your own, and you won’t have any extra equipment, but it does make the game both easier and harder. Unfortunately you can only create groups of five at a time, so we’ll have to split up into two groups.”

“That’s fine with us,” Lucille said. “Wanna join us again, Tessa?”

“Sure,” she nodded with a smile.

“Alright, that settles that. Now to choose the planet we start on. I was thinking either the sixth or seventh planet, as those are the two that are most similar to what we know. On the sixth planet, the world is very similar to Earth. Firearms fire physical projectiles which are accelerated with a small explosive charge, or gunpowder. There are conventional explosives like grenades and something similar to C4, and body armor is similar as well, with armored vests, tactical rigs worn over those and then helmets made out of armor steel or other materials.”

“The seventh world is probably a hundred years ahead of Earth, if not a little more than that. We’ll still be firing physical projectiles, but instead of those projectiles being accelerated by an explosive charge, instead they’ll be accelerated by rails that run the length of the barrel. The armor and explosives are more advanced as well, but I didn’t look into it too much. After the seventh planet is when you start getting into the much more advanced stuff which includes early energy weapons and personal force fields. The difficulty ramps way up at that point.”

“The sixth one sounds like a good place to start,” I said.

“That’s where we’ll start then,” Mason replied. “What about you four, ladies?”

“We’ll do the same. Perhaps we’ll see each other in-game,” Aleena answered.

“Okay, let’s get started then. Just think ‘character creation’ and you’ll be able to create your character. To start, I would suggest selecting your own races as those are what you are most used to. You could select a different race, but then your movement would be much more awkward and it would make the game overall. For Scyftans, I believe that you can shift into any humanoid form that you can shift into in the real world. Any animals are off-limits, however, as that would probably make the game too easy for you.”

“Makes sense,” I nodded, walking over to a clear area and imagining the character creation screen popping up in front of me.

It immediately appeared and I began creating my character.

“Oh, one more thing. After you finalize your character creation, don’t enter the game just yet. I have to send out invites and whoever is leading for you four will need to do the same,” he explained pointing over to the girls.

I nodded and went back to character creation. It was actually very simple, as I just elected to keep everything the same as it was in the real world. The only thing I changed was my name, as I didn’t need to change anything else, as it was very unlikely that anyone would recognize me.

I waited until Mason was done, at which point he sent out a friend request and an invite when I told him my character's name. Ben and the twins followed soon after and we were good to go.

“Alright, see you later, ladies,” Mason said.

Before any of us could second that, he tapped the start button which made everything go dark. It didn’t get much brighter when we finally spawned into the game, though we were immediately greeted by the sound of water dripping and a musty smell. I also realized that I was much shorter than my friends, so I began shifting into my human form. Thankfully my clothes shifted with me as I grew in size, or I would have had to go without until we found a change of clothes.

“That was pretty rude,” Sonja said while looking around the room. “Also, this is our base? It’s a lot smaller than I was expecting it to be, not to mention that it’s absolutely filthy.”

“You see that hatch there?” Mason asked, pointing to a hatch behind me. “It’s totally seized right now, but we can find acetylene torches or other tools to cut through to the other side, increasing the amount of space we have to work with. The leaky holes will be pretty easy to fix with a sealing agent, and then it will only take a little while to clean. Getting into the next section should absolutely be our priority, as apparently we can find small stashes of items on the other side, and it will also give us some room so we can set up a generator to provide some lighting. For now, let’s gear up and then we can make our way to the nearest safe zone. Once we’re there, we can look for some tasks to do.”

“You never said what the point of this game mode is, by the way,” Ben said.

“Oh. The goal is to gather about one billion credits which will allow us to purchase, install and activate a beacon. Once that beacon is sent, a beam of light will be sent into the air above our base and a forcefield will go up around it with a diameter of about one hundred kilometers. As soon as the beacon is set, we need to survive for a week until a ship arrives at the beam of light When that happens, the first person or team to get to the ship will ‘beat’ the game.

“How hard is gathering that many credits?”

“No idea, to be honest. I didn’t look into it much, focusing on the gameplay instead.”

He bent down to the six foot long by two foot wide by two foot high chest and opened it up. When it was open, he reached inside and retrieved the pistols that were inside, handing one to each of us while bidding us to find a spot to sit down. As soon as we were seated, he handed us boxes of ammo and a few spare magazines and had us fill them. He did the same, though he was quite a bit faster than we were.

As soon as he was done, he set the magazines down where he had been sitting and then reached back into the box and rummaged in it. He pulled everything out and began stacking like-items in piles. After making sure that there were five each of armored vests, tactical rigs and thigh holsters for our pistols, he began putting his own set on.

The vest was a rather small one as it only covered the chest, leaving the stomach fully exposed. Still, it would keep the heart and lungs relatively safe. Once he had everything on, he slid the pistol into his thigh holster and began filling his rig with the three additional magazines. There was nothing left in the chest which meant that this was all we had to deal with. If we died, then we would have to go out and try to scavenge some weapons.

By the time Mason had finished getting geared up, the rest of us had finished filling our four magazines and started getting geared up as well. Mason helped out where necessary, but within ten minutes we were heading out into the world for the first time. After looking around, Mason reached into his rig and pulled out a bundle of paper. Upon unfolding it, I realized that it was a map of the area.

“Where did you get that?” Ben asked.

“Inside the pouch on my left hip, you should have one as well,” he replied without looking up.

After examining the map and scanning the surroundings again, he folded up the map so the area depicted was a bit smaller, and then turned it towards us so we could see.

“Alright we’re here,” he said, pointing to a point on the map that was totally blank. “We’ve got this forest directly south of our base, and this industrial area over to the north-west. The safe zone is almost directly west from here.

The area that he was pointing to had a small town with a wall going all the way around it. Just above the town was the name Retsas. Mason unfolded the map again and looked at the bottom-right corner which showed the scale and then folded the map back up again and stowed it into the small pouch.

“Okay, we’ve got about five kilometers to go to get there. We’ll use this tree line to get most of the way there, but then we’ll have to go building to building as we come up from the south. Take out your pistols and cock them, but make sure to keep the safety on and your finger off the trigger until we find ourselves in an engagement. Make sure you don’t point it at one of us, either.”

We did as he asked and then started towards the safe zone, making sure to keep our eyes on our surroundings as we made our way to the trees. When we got to the edge of the forest he motioned us to stop and crouch down before slowly heading back towards us.

“Okay, we haven’t seen anyone in the area, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not there. We’ve also got a hundred meter run ahead of us, with very little cover between here and the closest building. We’ve all had some training using hand signals, so we’ll be using those from here on out. The only time you should vocalize is if we come under fire and you need to call out an enemy’s location or you need to tell us that you’ve been hit.

“I’m going to move back to that big tree at the edge of the forest and take another look around. When I motion towards you, I want you all to come over and take cover wherever you can. When I tell you to go, you’ll start running towards the wall that leads up to the cluster of buildings at three second intervals. Jonathan, you’ll be first, followed by Ben, Anja and Sonja. I’ll go last and provide covering fire if needed. Make sure to move fast and stay low. Ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I said, noticing that my heart rate had risen slightly.

“Okay. I’ll wave you guys over after taking a look.”

He ran back over to the tree while staying as low as he could, before taking cover behind it. Reaching into the small pouch on his right hip, he pulled out a small cylindrical tube and raised it to his eye as he began looking around. He put it down after about two minutes and then waved us over.

I ran over while staying low as he did, taking cover by the tree beside him. As soon as I got the signal, I began running as fast as I could across the open ground. Thankfully not a single shot was fired by the time I got to the wall. I saw Ben coming out of the corner of my eye, but continued to scan the area.

Once we were all together, Mason used hand gestures to signal that I should cover the rear. After signaling my acknowledgement, he led us as we moved us along the wall before having us stop at the edge of the wall. I couldn’t see the signal for us to stop, though Ben put his hand on my right arm, signaling that everyone had stopped.

Mason signaled for Anja to move ahead and scout out the building before we entered it. When she gave the all clear, we entered the abandoned building. He took a position where he could see through one of the bordered up windows and then waved us over.

“Alright, we’ve made it through the most dangerous part of the route, so it should be quite a bit safer going forward. Still, make sure to check your corners as we’re moving through buildings,” Mason said. “Now Jonathan, Anja and myself are going to take up positions inside of the building where we can look outside and keep an eye out. While we’re doing that, I want you two to go through the building looking for anything that might be useful. I’m talking about food, water, clothing, tools, weapons, armor, gadgets. Pretty much anything you think might be useful. If you’re not sure, bring it back anyways.”

“Oh, one more thing before you go, and that is to keep an eye out whenever you’re going through doorways or down staircases. I had one incredibly embarrassing death this morning because I wasn’t looking down and I tripped something similar to a claymore. If you find anything you think might be a trap, retreat and come and get me. I’ll see if I can disarm it.”

Ben and Sonja nodded and then slowly made their way through the building while the rest of us spread out so we could see as many approaches as we could. It wasn’t a very large building and it was hard to tell what it had been used for in the past, but there was a decent chance we would find something useful, which made it worth searching.

We would search as many buildings as we could as we made our way to the safe zone, as long as it didn’t take us off our path. I stood there for about ten minutes looking through a slot in a boarded up window before I heard someone walking towards me, inside the building. It was Sonja, and she waved me to follow her back to the room that Mason was in.

On the floor in the middle of the room there was a pile of various items that had been discovered including a few cans, some tools, a small duffle bag and even a car battery. Mason also had a bolt-action rifle in his hands as he inspected it, but it didn’t have a rear sight, nor did it seem to have any rounds loaded. It did have a strap so it could be easily carried at least, so that was a plus.

“Alright, we’ll take everything but the battery for now, it’s too heavy,” Mason said. “Jonathan, grab the duffle and begin loading everything to it. Ben, see if you can’t find somewhere to hide that where someone else won’t find it.”

We all started moving while the girls kept watch. Ben picked up the battery and hid it somewhere while I began putting all the tools and the cans into the duffle bag before throwing the strap over my shoulder. Ben arrived shortly after and we formed up as we got ready to move to the next building.

Just before we were ready to go, Mason suddenly raised his arm up in the air with a closed fist and then signaled us to crouch down. We did so immediately as he put his back up against the wall and looked out one of the windows.

I couldn’t hear anything at first, but after about ten seconds I heard voices coming our way. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but seeing as they were walking down the street, I didn’t think they were players.

Mason motioned me over to the other door that led to the same street and then motioned the girls to hide in another room. When I got there, I looked out the window to see two alien men walking down the street. One of them had a pistol and a backpack on while the other was holding something that looked like a sawed-off shotgun. Neither of them had any armor or tactical rigs on them but the extra backpack and weapons would be a nice boon.

Looking around the room, Mason seemed to be looking for something. What, I don’t know, but he eventually motioned over to me, pointing to the duffle bag. Gesturing to open it, it was clear he wanted me to take something out of it. I took out a wrench and held it up but he shook his head. Putting it back in, I took a can out next and he nodded, gesturing for me to toss it over to him.

I did so, and then he put his pistol in his holster while raising three fingers up. As he counted down, he raised the arm with the can out in front of him and then dropped it when he hit zero. The two men walking in the street suddenly stopped and turned towards the source of the noise. Not seeing or hearing anything, they slowly made their way towards the building, splitting up as they did so.

Mason once again raised one of his hands up, showing three fingers. I could guess at his plan and nodded. Watching for him to reach zero, the two of us leaned out of our respective door frames and fired two shots at the incoming enemies. I was hesitant and jerked the gun as I fired, but the first round did its job. The other merely grazed his arm.

I looked over to the one Mason had killed, though I couldn’t tell how accurate he was with his own shots. Turning, he lightly whistled to Ben and the girls. After gesturing for them to keep watch, Mason and I went out and dragged the two bodies into the building. We began stripping them of anything useful, handing the backpack to Ben. There was a pack of cigarettes and a sealed bottle of water inside of it, but nothing else. Mason handed him the boots the two of them wore, along with the extra pistol, while I took the shotgun and the half-dozen rounds that the man was carrying. After putting the safety on, I put the shotgun in my duffle bag, changed magazines in my pistol and then re-holstered it, deciding to use the shotgun for the time being.

“We can’t stay around for too long, people or NPCs will have heard the noise and will come investigate. We’re going to run to the other side of the street and then we’ll move from building to building.”

We all nodded and then Mason had me lead the way again. I ran across the street and up to the closest building before kneeling and keeping an eye down the alley. There was another tap on my shoulder about twenty seconds later and then all five of us went into the building. This time only Mason and I kept watch as Ben and the girls did a quick search. Only a few tools were found so we stored them and continued on.

There wasn’t much of note by the time we finished with the last building, only finding some dead or broken gadgets, tools and a couple of weapons parts that we couldn’t currently use. There was also a full box of ammo, though Mason couldn’t tell what caliber it was.

As soon as Mason had deemed it was clear, I led the way as we sprinted over to the forest that we would use to get most of the way to Retsas. We had made it all there safely and were grouping up to move together when all hell broke loose. Ben was knocked on his ass while the trees around us started getting torn up.

“Take cover!” Mason shouted.

I quickly moved over to a tree to take cover next to Mason while the girls found another big tree to hide behind. I didn’t see any blood, so it seemed like Ben’s vest took the hit. He was crawling to safety as Mason tried to determine where the shots were coming from.

“I think they’re in one of the outer buildings!” he shouted so the girls and I could hear. “Sonja and I will provide covering fire. You two grab Ben and start moving away from here. We’ll be right behind you. Ready?”

“Ready!”

Mason leaned around the tree and started putting fire downrange. As soon as we heard the first shots, Anja and I ran over to Ben and threw one of his arms around our necks. Making sure we had a good grip, we began moving deeper into the forest as quickly as we could.

The firing stopped after a moment but quickly resumed, probably as they both reloaded. After about thirty seconds all that could be heard was the sound of rifle fire. Anja and I dared not stop moving, as if Mason and Sonja were taken out then we would quickly be caught up to. After about five minutes of walking, Ben said that he could walk so we walked behind a tree and took a quick break.

Ben reached down to his vest and fumbled around for a moment before holding up a bullet that had mushroomed upon impact. “Damn that hurt.”

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, my chest is a bit sore and if I move the wrong way the pain spikes, but it mostly knocked the wind out of me. A rib or two might be broken.”

“How long do we wait?” Anja asked.

“Give it another minute. If we don’t hear or see anything then we’ll hurry up to the safe zone.”

We had just begun to move when we heard trees being ruffled behind us. Anja and Ben immediately unholstered their pistols while I took out the shotgun I had put in the duffle bag before grabbing Ben. After a count of three, we moved out from behind the tree with our weapons bared.

“Woah, woah, it’s us!”