Loyalties

Chapter 23: Adrian

My eyes flutter open, pain shooting throughout my body. It's dark, with only a little outside light coming in. I fumble around, looking for my helmet. I feel it, and as my eyes adjust, the whole visor is cracked all over.

"Fuck," I whisper. I prop myself up on a seat, and realize the guy beside me. I shake his shoulder, hoping he'd wake up. He didn't. Rather, his neck was broken and a piece of his spinal cord was sticking out of the back.

"Adrian, that you?" Alex calls from the other side.

"Yeah," I say, getting up, trying not to trip over a soldier's body. "What happened?"

"We crashed," he informs me. "The pilot's dead and so is the rest of the crew."

"How do we get out?" I ask, looking toward the half-buried cockpit. The only light coming through is from a sliver of glass that's above the ground. Then, I see the control console. Most of it is damaged, but, conveniently enough, there's a part that isn't as affected. Moving towards the cockpit, I start pressing buttons. Eventually, I find the one that lowers the ramp.

"Let's grab what we can and move," I say, picking up my broken helmet and a pulse rifle. I remove the earpiece and is deafened from Cindy's screaming.

"Adrian, where are you!" she demands, not asking. "Adrian, what's going on!"

"I'm here," I say, keeping the earpiece far away from my ear. "We didn't have much of a soft landing."

I hear Cindy yell a command, the alarm still blaring in the background. "Adrian, things aren't looking too good up here," she says to me. "Our fleet keeps weakening, and the Black Sun just gets bigger and bigger!"

I gulp. "I'm heading for the capital now," I say, checking the pulse rifle over. "I'll report back soon. I love you." I can feel Cindy's smile through the earpiece before the connection is cut. Alex stops walking.

"What's wrong?" I ask, but all he can do is point. Where the capital should be is just a plume of smoke. "Fuck," I mutter, and take off sprinting.
***
I don't know how long Alex and I ran for, but the column of smoke just gets darker. We had to stop moving a couple times when Black Sun fighters flew overhead.

I grip my rifle tightly, my finger itching to pull the trigger. "How far out are we?" I ask Alex, who has barely said a word. He looks at the column of smoke, and gives me an answer.

"A couple clicks out, shouldn't be much longer," he says, slinging his rifle over his back. I do likewise. I hear cannon fire off in the distance. Alex and I walk side by side, our steps in sync.

"Remember Operation Kratos?" I ask, smirking a little. Alex starts to chuckle.

"How could I forget?" he says, unable to contain his laughter.

During the mission Alex and I were tasked with way back when, it was him and I against twenty rebels. The rebels ran out of ammunition, so they resulted to throwing random objects at us. A rock got a lucky hit on me, and I almost got knocked out. All Alex could do is laugh at me! I was so mad, I threw the rock back, and the rebels just walked out with their hands up. Sometimes, I wish I was never promoted into the Royal Navy.

Alex raises his right arm at a right angle, and stops walking. I grab my rifle, training the barrel through a couple trees.

"We're on the outskirts," Alex notifies me. "Be wary for snipers and lost patrols."

My eyes immediately dart to the top of a building, and through the sights, it looks like a person. I adjust the zoom to the maximum, but I still can't be sure. I turn to Alex to ask for his helmet, and when I do, he's holding out a sniper scope.

"Don't think I don't know you enough," my best friend says as I grab the scope. I undo the clasps on the original sights and clip on the scope. I aim through it, and see that it is, in fact, an enemy sniper.

"Stay low," I say, focusing in on my target. I pull the trigger, and a plasma burst rockets through the air. The burst buries itself into the sniper's head, the rest of the body leaning over the front edge of the building. I quickly scan the rest of the buildings. Nothing. I replace the scope with the original sights, and motion Alex to move forwards.