CHAPTER 7: BEGIN

MIZAR'S PALACE, 2:00 PM, DAY 2

The rebels sped through the dark hallways of Mizar's palace on two mine carts. No one really knew how they were working with the power out, but everyone thought that Ish had some idea. He had led them there, knowing that it ran on electricity and that the electricity was out. Of course, that was always Ish.

It slowly got colder and colder, and if possible, may darker. They had gone underground to where the mines were. There was utter silence except for the occasional rubbing arms together or chattering teeth in the single digit temperature. After some traveling, the temperature rose back to normal and one could finally see his hands in front of him again.

Flames, who was sitting crunched in a cart near Ish, tapped him on the shoulder reluctantly. "Hey, Ish."

"Yes?"

"Aren't these rails supposed to be only half finished or something?"

"Yes, these rails were being built at the time that the Gemini shut down Mizar's empire. Since they never—"

"I know that, I know that," Flames interrupted, "but won't that be a problem for us since we're riding on them?"

There was silence for what Flames assumed Ish was in deep thought. After the pause, he said lightly, "I suppose so."

Flames didn't bother asking again.

THE PEAK, Unknown Time, Unknown Day

The peak was really just a planet of empty air with scattered mountains and…you guessed it, peaks. Why this was, no one knew, but no one really cared. Because of its secluded ness, it made as an excellent HQ for discrete operations. As a ship approached the narrow platform surrounded by pure sky, it was forced to park at the back of the building, for one vehicle had already landed at the front.

When Juno hopped out of his drone ship, he realized how odd this was. Was this the reason he had been told to come here? The other transport wasn't like that of a drone, so it wasn't anything related to Mizar. It was very suspicious, but Juno couldn't think of how it would possibly be threat enough for him to come here. Maybe he was supposed to arrive before them, which he failed at doing—his 'stops along the way' turned out to be a bit more difficult than he had predicted. In retrospect, and with a trickle of blood hanging off his gun, it might have been wiser to come here first.

Approaching the one room building from the back, he saw a trapdoor at the ground just a few feet from the back wall. This was attractive since Juno didn't want to use any front passage that might take him straight to the other visitors here. Shooting it open, he leapt into the dark hole underneath to greet a labyrinth built of drones. He was quite familiar with it as he had journeyed here before, but there was something different about it that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Breaking that thought to pieces came nervous footsteps from the right. Turning his head, he saw nothing but a bit of red. It was a tool for bringing light to dark places, although it did its job all too well to the wielder's eyes. Although it was deactivated and was giving off no light, its bright red shell could be recognized through the darkness. If this was a drone, they had a lot of guts to be using something as feeble as an enhanced flashlight.

He clutched his machine gun nonetheless and took a step towards the person in the darkness. That step was one too much for his own good—the person discovered him. There was no noise or movement that could possibly verify this idea, but he could feel it—his presence was known. There was the soft noise of a button being clicked into place, and soon Juno felt his legs jolting his body back into the darkness as light flooded into his eyes at a painful rate. Simultaneously there was a loud yell from its wielder, followed by a rough noise of gravity's cruel power over things with nothing underneath them.

Juno made sure he was completely out of sight before he resumed breathing and blinking. Soft murmurs in the background echoed through his ears, slowly and hauntingly. One of the voices was creepily familiar, but he wasn't sure if it was his imagination or not. Finally they vanished, and he relaxed himself. He crept down the hallway the voices had come from, which led to a ladder sticking straight up into a small room. He put his hand on a cold metal step of the ladder when he heard shots out of a pistol and the sound of electricity being obliterated.

Finally venturing to climb up the ladder, he landed in a small room with a door to his right where he could assume two people were walking away from on the other side. Upon the wall were numerous monitors, cruelly shot again and again. In the darkness however, when Juno thought of turning and leaving, he sensed light flickering behind him. Spinning on his heels, he saw the monitors, with glass cracked and peeling off, bullets in their heads, coming back to life. He raised his two trembling hands that were clasped to his machine gun to the monitors. Then, he waited for what was happening.

SEND

ENEMY REBELS IN MOTION TO SPACE VESSEL

Juno stared at the screen as the grave letters typed slowly across the crooked glass. It was his impression that the power was out and the monitors were dead, but apparently his impression was incorrect—or at least, to an extent.

SEN—

Finally Juno let his sweating fingers bring the trigger to the gun at that letter, not dare letting it finish the word, letting off a few rounds. And the phrase 'a few' implies 'a few for this', 'a few for that', 'a few for good luck', 'a few to grow an inch', and 'a few because I don't like creepy monitors sending weird messages to ominous spectators'. When he thought he was finished, he looked around the room to make sure—not quite aware of what he was making sure of—and finally climbing back into the ladder. So there was more to this place than met the eye.

MIZAR'S PALACE, 5:00 PM, DAY 2

Ish ketp to himself the length of the trip, speaking to no one. While everyone by him knew how significant this battle was, they had no idea what was truly going on. And while Ish had been given no more information on the situation than they had, he had a much clearer idea of what was happening.

Through the hours of journeying in the tunnels, light finally entered their eyes. It wasn't much, and in reality things were still very dark, but was a great relief to everyone. They now, while still struggling in the darkness, could manuever better because the light gave a vague outline of surroundings. This was the sign that they were nearing the outside, and murmurs of relief waved through the small crowd. The light brought other news to a certain few, however…

"Ish." Flames nudged at Ish again.

"Eh?"

"It's coming."

"What?"

"You know what. What are we going to do about it?"

"That I do. What is the situation?"

"I've been able to watch the sides of the tracks…and the stakes have stopped."

"The stakes?"

"Yeah, the stakes that hold the railings into the ground. There aren't anymore here…that means that the construction is getting sloppier."

"That's bad."

"Right. I'd guess that in a bit the rails themselves will stop…and then we're done. The carts skid a bit, slam into the walls, fall on their backs. The end."

"You think we can stop it?"

"How's that?"

"Same way we got it to start." Flames didn't know what Ish was talking about, which became apparent by his expression, but Ish could only smirk at that. And then the rails stopped.

Ish commanded the rebels out of the rails and onto their feet, where they were forced to walk through the halls. While the others didn't really notice or care and Ish did not react to it, Flames found a certain dread when he saw the rails not too many paces ahead of where their rails landed. His prediction could have so easily come true had Ish not pulled that magical stunt—which for some reason he insisted to keep a secret from Flames.

The halls got lighter and lighter until finally, the end was near. Light streamed in from the end of the hallway where a giant clearing stood. Ish now led the pack as Robbin dissapeared into the pack—even his enthusiasm had dissapeared at this point. Now, everyone was looking at what Ish was doing, figuring that if there was anyway to get themselves out of this hole it was him.

Ish took the first step into fresh air since—well, who knew since when. When he did, he sprung back into the hallways, stopping everyone else from moving. When he peered out again, so did the others, slowly and cautiously. What they saw was an army of drones, marching throughout the opening as if they had conquered it—and they had. A large vessel stood in the center, much too small to carry them all. Neighboring the vessel was two smaller ships, which everyone seemed to ignore.

"That's it! There's way too many drones for that ship! You see it Ish, right?" Robbin jumped up. However, Ish was not paying attention to Robbin—he was looking down at his shotgun which he had a death grip on. Flames had a similar reaction, reaching around his belt to neuroticly clasp his lone grenade. Everyone seemed to grow tense, realizing what they were about to do.

CHAPTER 7: END

Ish was the first to walk into the open. The drones who were facing the opposite direction did not notice him nor the rebels slowly approaching. The walk that gained ground on the drones seemed to take forever in the fearful minds of the rebels. Ish charged his plasma shot gun and leveled it to a drone in the mass.

An explosion disturbed the crowd of marching soldiers, however it did not come from the rebels, who stood confused and innocent not far behind the drones. Their enemies scattered and began shooting back at the attacker, whose identity could not be seen from behind the drones.