Fire Sky

Chapter 1 - 30 days left

Chapter 1 - 30 days to go...

Atlas took one look at the blaster pointed at him and made the maddest dash of his life.

The bulking heap of marble-muscled mass behind the blaster wasn't too nice looking either, especially as he fired laser shots in his retreating direction.

Well, geee. You don't say. Of course the mean scary alien would mind you insulting his scary alien wife. After all, Ridons weren't aggressive enough to make war with anyone that looked at them, were they?

Atlas ducked and the blast that would have decapitated him as he ran towards the elevator of the decrepit building passed cleanly over him.

However, it did hit the elevator's control panel and effectively nuke its power source.

Just my fricking luck.

He changed his escape route and took a sharp left running down a long corridor and barely managing to duck behind a stone pillar.

The laser kept shaving pieces of it as he pulled out his communicator.

"Dude, what did you do this time?" said an exasperated Lorik on the other side.

Atlas took a look back from behind the pillar and saw the alien was now joined by a few of his elite guard. The second he came out clear, they shot at him.

He barely managed to keep his head where it was as he moved back more securely behind the pillar , "I swear to you Lorik, I did nothing."

"Boy, you opened your big mouth and put your foot in it didn't you?"

"Um....I don't think so."

Lorik let out a pain-filled sigh, "What do you need?"

"I'm on the thirty-eighth floor in the western sect."

"One Aunt Aggie on the way up. ETA two minutes minute."

Atlas heard the stone pillar cracking from all the laser shots and took a moment to dash for another  pillar. When he smelt something burning, he looked down to find the bottom edge of his coat peppered with holes.

"For the love of-" he turned from the pillar and shot a couple of shots back at them in revenge for the swiss-cheesing of his favourite leather trench coat.

He hid back behind the pillar and called back into the communicator, "I don't have two minutes!"

"Atlas don't even think-"

"I'm going for it now!"

Atlas took a quick breath and ran across the open corridor, trying to dodge as many hits as he could as he crisscrossed through the pillars and dived straight through the ceiling to floor glass wall.

He was leaping through the air with nothing stopping him.

For a moment, Atlas felt like all his troubles were over. It was as if the universe had finally let him go without any trouble. He was free to do anything.

Then the burning sensation in his shoulder brought him awake as he was rapidly free falling, without a parachute, from 38 stories and now had a burn that may have torn right through his shoulders.

At least you're not dead yet.

Looking down at the closing in ground, he thought back smarmily, Yeah, but I will be soon.

A back fighter plane came into his field of vision and all he could do was shield his face as the top compartment opened up and his rapid descent had him crash land onto one of the men.