Home is what we make it

Chapter 1

Fuck

They had almost made it. They were almost out of reach. He felt desperation claw at his throat as he held onto the lever, hoping the force from the propellers would be enough to get them out of old man's reach.

His heart best furiously against his rib cage as he prayed , hoping against hope that they would make it out. He had no strength left to fight and he knew even bujji was on her last reserves. If the old man was successful in pulling them back they would not survive. The man had already tried to kill him, he probably will not let him go this time.

He couldn't hear anything beyond Bujji's engines and the girl's pleading behind him. He couldn't see anything beyond the destroyed shambala around him and the open skies that will get them out of here. 

“Full throttle Bujji” He commanded. His voice shook but for once, Bujji didn't comment on it.

“We can't Bhairava, we are already on our last reserves!” 

He felt panic overtake desperation at her words. His eyes flew around the cockpit, trying to find anything that would get them out of Shambala with the girl, away from the destructive grasp of the old man. His eyes fell on the lever that he rarely uses, that he had kept only for the worst case scenarios. 

His hand wraps around the lever, already pulling it back as Bujji cried out,

“ No, Bhairava, if you pull on that lever, we won't even know where we will end up!”

The sudden force of all reserves kicking in pulls them forward as they propel into the skies, Bujji stabilizes as they reach sufficient altitude and he looks down onto the wreckage of Shambala. 

There were people still fighting against the raiders, but he could see the bodies that littered the grounds, both of the raiders and the rebels. He hears a sharp breath of intake and knows that the girl also saw the bodies.

For the first time since he saw her bounty, he feels pity for her, so many people have been trying to protect her and most of them are dead. That knowledge will never leave her, it will haunt her for life.

He feels her move and he braces himself to tune her pleading out again but she doesn't say anything. A quick look back and he finds her with her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking, muffled sobs escaping her hands. He almost wants to say something to soothe her but he curbs the impulse. 

He was the last person she would want comfort from. He was after all the person that was taking her back to her cage, a well resourced cage but a cage nonetheless.

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He hears the girl’s breath even out an hour later as he checked on the sensor reports and all the maps he had access to, to figure out where they would land. He had narrowed it out to a couple of fallen cities, hopefully it would be in those areas and not the flux lands that laid beyond it. Even with all his skills and bujji, he is unsure if they would survive getting out of there alive.

He feels the tang of blood in his mouth and compulsively swallows to get rid of the taste. He definitely had broken something and from how much his vision had started swimming in the past hour, he'd guess that he also has a concussion. He doesn't have the time to deal with either. As soon as they land, he needs to send out a signal to the complex so that they'll know where to find them and he could finally complete his lifelong dream.

He turns towards bujji to see her looking at different videos from different raider ships that are online. She had said it would take a while for her to pass through the firewalls that lined the servers of the ships that had come to Shambala. 

“I'm going to look through the recorded videos of the ships that came to Shambala” Bujji's voice was strong, as If she expected him to say no on principle.

“Why?” He asked,

“We need to find out how they captured that angry old man, he will definitely come after us, knowing what and how that thing worked can help us in the long run, Bhairava”

She had hunkered down and hadn't said a word since then, just thoroughly running through all the videos she could get a hand on to figure out the situation that they left behind. They needed to know who else made it out. They need to know how many people will be following them.

He feels his head swim again and his hand slips on the lever as he leans forward a little, Bujji leans forward around him and Bhairava feels them descending, he tries to hold onto the lever again but it slips again. He needs to hold on for a smooth descent or they might crash. He tries again but his vision swims fully and he leans forward almost precariously,

“Bhairava?” Bujji's voice was worried and Bhairava tried to use his own words to reassure her but his mouth would not open, his body leans forward even more and slowly he feels unconsciousness creep in. 

“Bhairava! What happened???” Bujji grew more panicked but he was in no position to reply back to her, he tries one last time to get his hand over the lever as the ground came closer and closer,

“What's happening?” The girl's sleep laced voice interrupted bujji. She must have woken up from Bujji's voice,

“SU-M80! You have to pull the lever back! Bhairava can't do it!” 

Soft hands move his hand away from the lever and pull it back, he feels the propellers come back up, pulling them against the gravity to get them into a softer landing. He felt unconsciousness take him completely as he saw the ground come up to meet them.