Star Runners: Revelation Protocol

Chapter 7-2

“Crawl to where?” she asked, her face wet with dew from the grass. Behind her, small flames flickered from the burning bark that littered the front yard.

Lights flickered on from the houses lining the street. If they were going to leave unnoticed, they had better do it soon.

The air in front of them split open and produced Sharkey carrying an assault rifle trained on the other side of the street. He kept the car between him and the trees for cover as he turned around.

“Come on, Lieutenant!”

Austin heard two more invisible shots sizzle overhead, smashing into Kadyn’s house. Sharkey returned fire, his silenced machine gun thumping through the early morning suburban world of hissing sprinklers. The spent shells hit the ground.

An invisible laser bolt smashed into Sharkey’s shoulder. A torrent of sparks showered down as he grunted. He raised over the shrouded car and fired.

Austin gripped Kadyn’s hand. “Can you run?”

“What the hell is going on?” she asked.

“You have to trust me!” he yelled. “Come on!”

She looked at him, her eyes wide and brimming with tears as she nodded. He gripped her hand and yanked her up.

The trees across the street erupted in faint flashes of light as if even the trees opened fire. Sparks flashed like lightning. Most of the invisible bolts went crashing into the front of Kadyn’s house, breaking glass and igniting the roof. Sharkey fired until the gun ran out. He ducked behind the car, reloaded, and raised in one fluid motion.

Austin reached Sharkey and felt for the rear door. His fingers fell around the handle and he pulled back. A bolt buzzed by his ear. With his ears ringing, he blindly fired his pistol twice in the direction of his attacker. The bullets hit a tree, bark flying off the trunk.

“What is this?” Kadyn shrieked.

“It’s just a car. Quickly—get in!”

He grabbed her shoulder and guided her into the shrouded vehicle. As she climbed inside, a shadow in the shape of a man appeared behind a tree across the street. He emptied the clip. Bullets smashed into the tree. It was too dark to see if he’d hit anything. He knelt down.

“I’m out. You okay?” Austin asked Sharkey, keeping low behind the car.

“Just a scratch. Get in!”

Austin slipped into the backseat with Kadyn and his mother. Sharkey, clutching his blackened and burned shoulder, crouched over the steering wheel, closed the door, and accelerated.

With his pistol still in hand, Austin turned around to look out the back window. The front of Kadyn’s house burned in the darkness, illuminating the other houses in an orange light. Neighbors opened their doors and stood in the grass, all of them looking at Kadyn’s burning house.

No one followed the car. Well, no one he could see.

“Can they track a shroud?” Austin asked, still focused on their rear.

“It’s possible,” Sharkey grumbled. “We need to get as far away from here as we can.”

“What was that?” he asked. “I’ve never seen a gun like that before.”

“A masker,” Sharkey gritted out. “It’s like a silencer for a projectile weapon, but it fires the laser without the tracer. Very professional.”

He leaned into his seat. “Oh, that’s just great.”

Kadyn shivered, her pink pajamas wet from the crawl through the grass. She folded her arms over her chest.

“Here.” He pulled off the Tizona jacket and draped it around her. “This should help. You’re in shock.”

She glared at him. “You think?”

“Ma’am,” Sharkey said with a nod. “The authorities are on their way. We made such a scene back there that our attackers won’t bother your family any more tonight.”

“Attackers?” she breathed before turning to Austin. “Please, I’m begging you, tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s a long story.”

“Please.”

He paused. After countless hours in classrooms being told to never speak about his life on Tarton’s Junction or the Galactic Legion, they’d never briefed him on how to actually inform people of the truth. The lessons only covered how to deceive, how to cover it up.

“I would like to know, too,” Mom said from the other side of the car.

Austin looked her. “Are you feeling better? Thank God.”

“I have a pounding migraine, but it’s getting better.” She nodded toward Sharkey. “Your friend’s driving certainly didn’t help.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Sharkey said, whipping the car around a corner.

Mom’s jaw dropped. “Wait a minute. I know you. You’re from Austin’s school, aren’t you?”

“Lieutenant,” Sharkey said, his voice grim, “it’s time to invoke Revelation Protocol.”

“Yes, sir.” He took a deep breath. “Don’t know how to say this to you both, but my school, well, uh, this is harder than I thought it would be.”

“Say what, honey?” Mom leaned forward. “Please, tell us what’s going on. Are you in danger?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding. “We all are.”

“What did I do?” Kadyn asked, her face crumpling. She put her hands in front of her trembling mouth.

Mom draped her arm around her shoulder. “It’s okay, honey.”

Austin watched his friend, saw her pain. She shouldn’t have had to go through this tonight. She shouldn’t have had to see her house burning or worry about her parents. He thought back to Nubern in the swamp shack before they took the tube transport to California. Nubern had said nothing would ever be the same once they passed through the doors. Even though Austin had understood what his mentor was saying, the statement had fallen hollow on his ears. After tonight, Mom and Kadyn could never go back.

A shiver shot down his back.

“Okay, look.” He pursed his lips. “This is not going to be easy to hear. My school is actually an academy for the Galactic Legion. I was recruited to pilot fighters for the Legion. I went through training and I’m now a Star Runner with the Legion Navy. Earth is a part of Legion territory, but it is known as a dark world because we haven’t started exploring beyond our solar system and—”

Kadyn slapped her hands on her knees. “Oh, come on! Is this part of that stupid game you and Josh used to play?”

“No, well, sort of. I—”

“Stop it!” She wiped tears from her cheeks. “My house is on fire, Austin! My parents might be dead! This is not a game!”

He held up his hand. “I know this is not a game, but you need to trust me. What I’m telling you is true.”

“So you fly spaceships now?” Kadyn shook her head. “Am I really supposed to believe this? And you’re saying this to your mom? Why am I involved, huh? Who attacked my house?”

“We don’t know. We found out both of you were in danger, so here we are. If this hadn’t happened, you would never have found out about any of this.”

She shook her head and glared out the window. “I can’t believe you’ve done this to me.”

Austin opened his mouth to speak. He wanted to console her, make everything okay, but Mom shook her head.

They sat in silence. Minutes passed. Streetlights flickered across the backseat. Austin glanced behind them several times, but nobody was following them.

He gripped his mother’s hand and looked at both of them. “I’m so glad you both are okay.”

His mother placed her hand over his and nodded. “My head’s still pounding.”

“Carbon monoxide poisoning. You could have died.”

She smiled. “But you saved me.”

The car squealed around a corner and sped down an on-ramp leading to an empty four-lane highway.

“Where are we going?” he asked, leaning forward.

“We have a meeting in three hours,” Sharkey said, his eyes focused on the road. “We’ll report to the EIF agent at the outlet mall and get our orders. I think the worst is behind us.”

“I hate when people say that.” Austin rested his arm on the back of the passenger seat and studied the burn marks on Sharkey’s shoulder. “You going to be okay, Chief?”

“Yeah. Whoever that was out there wasn’t a very good shot.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because I should be dead.”

“I’m glad that’s not the case.” Austin thought about Sharkey being killed in front of Kadyn’s house. “What would I have done?”

“If I didn’t make it?” Sharkey shrugged. “Contact Base Prime. They would have sent a unit to evacuate you all, if you were still around to be evacuated that is. I wouldn’t think too much about it. We made it out.”

A few hours later, the rolling hills of North Georgia stretched across the horizon. The bright sunlight burned down through a bright blue sky. Hundreds of people filled into the outlet mall just off the highway. Shoppers carried plastic bags of different colors as they laughed and walked together. As Sharkey took his second lap around the collection of stores, Austin wished he were one of the shoppers, walking around without a care in the world.

Kadyn and Mom sat in silence. He hoped Kadyn had finally fallen asleep. Instead, he saw she stared at the ceiling. Mom tilted her head back and closed her eyes, probably trying to fight the headache.

Austin battled a wave of fatigue. He needed coffee. After hearing laser bolts whiz by his head for the first time, the rush of adrenaline had faded in the boring drive north of Atlanta.

“I’m going to stop here in front of this nature store,” Sharkey said, his voice rattling as he winced. “You need to get out and go buy a bag of bird seed.”

“What?”

“Just do it,” he said with a grimace. “Then walk to the food court and sit in front of the carousel.”

“And do what, feed the pigeons? I thought we would get Mom and Kadyn to a safe house and away from danger.”

“That’s why we’re here. Just do as I say, Lieutenant. These are the orders Commander Pierce gave me before you arrived at Tizona.” Sharkey looked at him through the rearview mirror and held up a roll of money. “You’ll need this money. Leave the gun.”

Austin grabbed the cash. “What if they are here tracking us?”

“Doesn’t matter. Stay public. Stay in the open. You’ll be fine. We have people here.”

“What people?”

Sharkey sighed. “Just do as I say. You’ll be fine.”

Glancing at Sharkey’s cauterized wound, Austin nodded. “Sorry, Chief. I’ll hurry.”

He needed to remember his training. Stay frosty, he thought.

He glanced at Mom. “Guess I’ll be right back.”

She smiled, her eyes watering. “Be careful.”

Sharkey stopped the car in front of the nature store and Austin stepped out. He strolled as casually as possible toward the store. A teenage girl wearing a bright yellow backpack smiled at him as he walked by. He glanced over his shoulder as she passed and saw Sharkey drive the sedan back into the sea of vehicles as if he searched for a parking place.

Austin pulled back the glass door and heard the bell jingle against the metal frame. Inside the store, a middle-aged woman smiled from behind the counter.

“Welcome,” she said. “Let me know if I can help.”

Austin nodded and pretended to look around. Bird houses and wind chimes filled the aisles. A strong smell of incense hovered over the store. He glanced at the yard games, wondering if he would ever get to play badminton again. It was one of Dad’s favorite games, but he hadn’t played since the cancer diagnosis.

He wandered back to the stacks of bird seed in massive bags that had to be twenty or thirty pounds. He frowned.

“That’s some of the best we have,” the woman said.

He turned back to her. “Got anything smaller? I don’t think I have that many birds.”

“That’s all we have,” she said with a smile. “It’s really good. It’ll keep the birds coming back to your house all winter long.”

“Is it? Well, I guess this will have to do.”

Swinging the large sack over his shoulder, he strolled up to the counter.

The woman eyed him. “Do I know you?”

Austin placed the bag on the table and froze. “Me?”

“Have we met before?”

His pulse raced. Was this one of the “people” Sharkey had mentioned? What if this was one of the contacts he was supposed to talk with?

“I don’t know. Have we met before?”

“I can’t remember. Maybe you just look like somebody I know.”

He leaned closer, ready to get past the code words and make contact. “Do you really think I need this much bird seed?”

She smiled. “I don’t know. I just work here.”

“So you think I need the bird seed? That’s what I need? Or can I just get what I came for?”

“What?” She laughed. “You’re kinda weirded out, aren’t you? You have a rough night or something?”

Blood rushed to his face. “Just here for the bird seed. I’m sorry, ma’am. Have a nice day.”

He hurried into the crowd, doing his best not to turn back and look at the lady who chuckled as he left the store. He should have never tried to play secret agent in the nature store. What was he thinking?

He hurled the massive sack of bird seed onto his shoulder and marched to the food court, which smelled of hot dogs and funnel cakes. Children laughed and ran toward the carousel, fragments of cotton candy hanging from their mouths. He chose a bench near a trash can and set the bird seed on the ground. He watched parents stand in line with strollers before boarding the carousel. Mothers gossiped about the latest celebrities and movies Austin had never heard of before. A lot had changed since he went to Tizona and Tarton’s Junction, he thought.