章 14: Responders

[veleda] I sat in the grass hoping that someone would respond to my flare. Part of me knew, of course, that it might not be a good someone that would see the flare. Either way, whether good or bad, as long as I wasn't killed I would be in a better place than here.

Sitting on the grass I watched the creature swim around through the water. Growing bored I lay down to think. The past few days had gone pretty badly.

My eyes were slowly starting to well up, noticing this I tried to turn my mind to happier thoughts. I soon gave up not being able to get the thoughts out of my head. Searching for another way to pass the time.

I heard the faint sounds of an old engine off in the distance. Immediately perking up, I scanned the horizon for the ship that was making the sound. The only ship in sight was a clunky old sierra viper with a solitary green stripe going across the bottom. The ship was clearly not in great shape.

It took a while but eventually, the old ship made it across the sea and was now hovering over the beach preparing to land. Smoke spread from the bottom of the ship. 'Screeee' I covered my ears as a painfully loud sound came from the ship.

When I looked up the ship had set down, and the door was slowly, and with a new painful noise, lowering. It was hard to see, from where I was standing, who was getting out. Walking closer, I could see a scraggly looking young man, suddenly tripping, he fell straight into the sand.

Another person, wearing full bright red armor walked out slowly shaking his head as he looked at the other. He turned slowly, observing the surrounding area.

"Hey! Over here!" I called out, still moving towards them.

They quickly snapped their heads to look in my direction, seeing me, they began to walk towards me. Looking closer the red one seemed to be the only real threat, as he was gripping a small pistol on the side of his leg. The other man was just tripping over himself.

It took a few minutes but we finally reached each other. I could feel my sore fingers as I gripped my knife. "Are you the one who sent up the flare?" The red one asked in a tired monotonous voice.

"Yes," I replied to him while studying him closely. He was definitely not red surge, which is good news, but the bad news is I had no clue where he was from.

After a short bit of awkward silence, he started shifting uncomfortably under my stare. "My name's Jaku, the top lieutenant of the gray surge. May I ask yours?" His voice was slightly less robotic now. "Veleda, I'm just a wanderer.

"My name is Delano!" The other man chimed in cheerfully "nice to meet you Veleda!"

Although his words were nice as I looked closer at him I noticed his gaze. He was looking at the leather, sticking tightly to my chest. Leaning forward, I gave him a hard slap on the face.

"Sorry for his behavior," Jaku said "he's pretty new to this."

As we flew back I decided, I would gather information on them before returning to blue surge, but eventually, they would have to go.