章節 2: The Awakening 1

"Move out, these boxes must reach point b in time, or else you will be punished."

"Yes, sir."

A tall well built young man listened to the orders as he moved rapidly after finishing loading more than 100 sealed boxes from this small space cruiser. James just started his 16 year one week ago, or so he was told.

When he was born, his parents were one of the resisting forces that were destroyed under the mighty blade of the regime that he was now serving. He was taken, like millions others, and was raised on a small planet which acted as a raising facility for kids like him.

He learned everything needed about life there, as no weak was allowed to live, only the strong could continue on living, and those with an outstanding strength became like kings.

He came from that planet a few years back when his body began to grow and his muscles began to form. Since that day, he worked in this military base that served as one of many others to launch continuous attacks towards other free places in the universe.

The empire that this planet belonged to was one of the most powerful empires in the whole universe. Many people from various races would fight to get a chance to serve under it, but not James, who kept the dream of leaving here always in his mind.

Since he dreamed of leaving, he knew he couldn't last alone and escape the clutches of this mighty empire easily, so he began to prepare.

Being in a military base had given him access to many things, weapons, knowledge on war machines, medical stuff, and even how to drive a small space cruiser.

Anything his hands could reach, he didn't hesitate to get, so his free time wasn't wasted like others in sightseeing and relaxing. Even when others started to date girls, he didn't.

James drove his floating car, known as the floater, which used the dark energy harvested from black holes to leave this facility rapidly. The whole planet was huge, but it was divided intelligently to use every speck on it for the benefit of this empire.

The facility James just left behind was one of many that worked as a receiving point to any cargo coming from outside, and they were also the only way to send something out from this planet.

The road that he set off on was long enough to cross the whole planet linking between many other facilities, and one of them was James' target.

James moved from the centre of the planet heading straight forward to the north pole, where there lay a huge facility that acted as a storage place for all the war machines big or small inside a huge series of mountains.

The mountains were just an outer shell as all the interior of them were excavated and rebuilt using advanced technology so they could act as mere storage rooms.

The road was long, but this wasn't the first time James used it, in fact he was very familiar with it that he could drive blindly, so he kept driving his floater towards the destination with ease.

The distance between the two facilities was big, but his floater was very fast, so he could reach there in less than half an hour if he was lucky.

"Look who is here boys, it's James the lonedriver."

"Yes boss, he is that lonedriver."

"Isn't it sad how he lived, worked, and even rested alone? What do you think boys?"

These sounds attracted James' attention that was distracted by thinking about an issue in driving space cruisers during flying with light speed.

James looked back over his shoulders to see three floaters exactly the same as him were catching up at rapid speed.

James didn't need to wait for this company to reach him to know their identities, as he knew them from their voices. They were one of the many gangs scattered on this planet.

If there was something James learnt from the planet where he grew up at then it would be the law of gangs. Every place in this universe was controlled by gangs, but with different sizes.

If you were strong enough, had many armies and huge fleets, then you would be the leader of a huge gang that was so powerful to call itself an empire.

If you were just a nothing, mere worker in this shitty place, then you could gather some weaker workers and form a small gang of yours.

The whole world was divided into three big groups, the one who led the gangs, the ones who were parts of them, and those who were mistreated by those gangs.

James didn't put himself into any of these three groups, as he thought of himself as an anomaly, the one who would stand alone in the middle of all this.

"Look boss, he is ignoring us, as usual."

That low pitched annoying sound which was one of the characteristic features of the Royan's race echoed in James ears, but he ignored it as he kept driving his floater without decreasing his speed.

"Yes, he is ignoring us. So, it's our fault to be kind and come to him to warn him about his little secret and the people who discovered it."

James felt strange, as these words aimed to arouse his curiosity, which he controlled perfectly and went on his way without pause. That distasteful noisy low pitched sound came again to reverberate in his ears:

"So boys, tell me what do you think will happen when the higher ups hear about the presence of a worker that crossed his clearance limit and kept checking on the weapons and other war stuff we have here?"

"They will think he is trying to do a coup against the higher ups, boss."

"Yes, or even worse he will try to escape from here by hijacking any transportation cruisers, right boys?"

When James heard this, his body jolted and his heartbeat began to drum like a space destroyer core hydrogilic engine. He couldn't help himself from shouting out loud:

"You are a bunch of liars."