I tap my finger on the desk while staring at the time on the clock ticking away far too slowly. Come on. Hurry up. Just a little more time. You can do it, you mechanical fiend and bane of my existence.
I glance over to the person sitting in the seat next to me. Ben is watching the clock as well. He meets my gaze and I see the same desperation in his green eyes.
We both turn back to the clock and watch the agonizing pace of the second hand make rotations around the clock face.
"I just want to thank all of you for a great year," the teacher says. "I hope that you learned a lot from this class and that it will have a lasting positive impact on you." I am not even listening at this point. The teacher may be nice and all, but he knows that we are all waiting for one thing and one thing only. The idea of leaving school for the summer overshadows anything else that is happening.
"I hope to see you all sometime in the fall. And that is your cue to leave," he says, pointing up as the bell goes off.
"See you, Mister Gobecki!" I shout as I race past at full speed, Ben on my heels. We are sprinting neck and neck down the halls of the school, outrunning just about every freshly released teenager that we passed. We bobbed, we weaved, and we juked our asses straight out of the building. No obstacle was too great and no force was too powerful to hold us in the confines of this prison of education.
We rush out into the open air with shouts of joy. We then proceed to run all the way back to Ben's house. Only about halfway through did we seem to realize that it is distinctly impractical to run the sizable distance there from school instead of riding the bus or using the bikes that we neglected to bring today.
Ben is promptly sprawled out on the sidewalk, his chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. I am off to the side, leaning against a lamppost, recovering from the ill advised run that we were just on. I brush aside the brown hair that was matted to my forehead with sweat.
"Why did we do this again?" I ask Ben with a breathy tone of voice.
"We thought, that we could, make it all, the way back, with the, adrenaline from escaping, school for the summer," Ben says, his sentence filled with gaps due to the number of times that he had to take a breath.
"This is your fault though," I say.
"How?" he asks.
"If you had just taken the driving test, then we could have drove home in a car," I say.
"All of the available money in both of our families is being saved up for college," he says. "You don't have a car either."
"But I have a driver's license in the event that that fact changes," I say. "You, on the other hand, are a driver's license-less chump."
"Ha, ha," he says, finally getting up. We continue our tired trudge back to Ben's house.
Upon entering the house, we direct ourselves to the living room. Ben collapses in a Lazy Boy recliner while I face plant into the soft leather couch.
"My everything is sore," I say, my voice reduced to a muffled groan by the coach covering my face.
"I have so much regret right now," Ben says.
"Are you boys home?" I hear Ben's mom calls down from the upper level of the house.
"Yes, Mom," Ben shouts up.
"Hey, Mrs. Tennyson," I say, lifting my head from the cushion so that my voice is discernible. I promptly drop back down to the soft embrace of the seat.
"Are you both prepared for you summer trip?" she asks. "You know that you have to leave tomorrow."
"Oh, yeah," Ben says. "I forgot that you were coming on the summer trip with Grandpa Max."
"Of course you did," I say, rolling over so that I can talk easier. "This is why I am the genius in this friendship. You are just the lovable sidekick."
"You are also the asshole," Ben says.
"Haven't you heard, girls love to date assholes," I retort.
Ben just angrily mutters after he is incapable of coming up with a retort. "Are you prepared to spend a summer with the most annoying person in the world?" he finally asks.
"It's going to be a definite challenge," I say. "But me and Gwen will learn to put up with you."
"I meant her," Ben says. "I can't stand her. She is such a know it all."
"You forget that I am one as well," I say. "That is one of the reasons that we get along so well."
"Trips with Grandpa Max are always pretty fun, but I have the distinct feeling that it is not going to go according to plan."
"Chill, man," I say. "The trip will be enjoyably boring and relaxing. I mean, what could possibly happen?"
The ship weaves from side to side, its movement designed to dodge the barrage of lasers and explosive projectiles fires at it from the massive battleship that is following close behind it.
Normally, the smaller ship would have no problem outrunning the warship. However, it had already sustained significant damage from the ambush that it was caught in. The surprise attack allowed the larger ship to land a few hits, some of which compromising the engines enough to reduce effectiveness.
The command center of the warship is full of cybernetic soldiers dressed in armor colored in orange and black. They are hurriedly manipulating control consoles.
"Why are they not destroyed yet?!" the ship's captain shouts in annoyance. The being is stands at around nine feet tall with a visage best compared to that of an octopus. His green eyes speak of bloodlust and malice as his clawed hands ball up into fists. He slams the armrests of his seat.
"Fire everything we have! We can search the wreckage afterwards! Just end this pointless chase!"
What they did not expect was at that moment for the smaller ship to fire a midsole at the energy cannon located in the front of the ship. It connected and triggered a series of devastating explosions that traveled through many areas of the ship, including the command deck.
The tentacled villain only has time to shout, "No!" before he is hit with the brunt of an explosion.
As the warship and its captain are distracted, the pilot of the smaller ship grabs the small spherical cargo container. They open it momentarily, ensuring that the two objects it contains are safe. After wards, they seal it before loading it into a missile hatch and firing it at the nearby planet. Then the pilot loads themselves into an escape pod which is promptly launched in the same direction. The small ship is destroyed moments later.