Karl woke up to the sensation of gentle, warm energy coming from his hand, flowing to the rest of his body. The tips of his fingers twitched a little as he regained consciousness, and the pair of hands clasping his gave it a little squeeze. “Are you all right?”

Karl pried his eyes open. “Yeah. What happened?”

Rywa let out a sigh of relief. “Whatever hit us sent the fighter’s power supply all out of whack and knocked us out. I lost consciousness for a bit too, but Gobaith must have sensed it so he woke me up.”

“Gobaith is here?” Karl perked up.

“No. But even when we’re not physically near each other, our minds are linked. We can still communicate no matter the distance.”

Rywa supported his back as Karl got up and looked out the window. They were surrounded by massive trunks of towering trees, a scale he had never seen his whole life even in books. “Where are we?”

“Karl, take a look at this,” Rywa pointed to the screen on the navigation panel showing a red dot over the ocean.

“That’s not right,” Karl frowned then spoke to his watch. “Ava, show location.”

“Mapping coordinates.”

After a few seconds, his watch projected a map showing a lot of little islands all around them, but unmistakably showed Rywa’s fighter hovering above water as well, with the closest island at least over ten kilometers away.

Karl and Rywa looked at each other.

“Strange, isn’t it? It’s either both our maps are malfunctioning, or…”

“Or this place has somehow disappeared from the map.”

“With the fighter in this state, our only way out of here is for someone to take us back. But there seems to be something jamming the communication signals here as well. I can’t reach Sahd or Viernn.”

Karl frowned. “Ava, contact HQ.”

“Unable to establish connection. There is a barrier blocking all incoming and outgoing communication signals,” Ava responded.

A silver dot appeared on their maps, fast approaching their red dot.

“Looks like we’ve got company.” Rywa motioned for the door, but Karl lightly grabbed his arm.

“Let me go out first. If they’re the ones who shot us down, it’s possible they did so because we were in an alien spacecraft. They must have somehow missed the clearance we got for our flight path and thought we were a threat to their air space. I wanna know first if they’re hostile towards aliens or not, so stay here for now.”

Rywa nodded. “Be careful.”

As soon as Karl opened the door he reflexively stepped back.

“Oh, that’s right. I forgot to mention we’re stuck on a tree.”

Eyes drooping, Karl gave a hollow laugh. “And that we’re a few hundred meters above ground?” He took the rappelling tools he needed from his duffel bag and tethered himself onto one of the branches of the old growth tree. “Here goes nothing. Ava, engage stealth mode on Rywa’s fighter.”

“Engaged.”

And the fighter vanished as Karl began his descent. He was barely halfway down when shots were fired at him.

“Damn aliens! I’m gonna shoot each and every one of you!” A man on a hoverbike yelled, followed by another person hiding somewhere in the forest. It was a woman’s voice. “If you don’t want to die, go back where you came from!”

“I’m human, though! This is where I came from!” Karl kicked his way to hide behind the gigantic, ancient tree’s trunk.

“Ha! So you’re helping aliens!” The shots intensified.

“What?! No, I’m from GDF!”

“So you’re a traitor who sold your own race! Shame on you!”

Karl groaned. “Argh, this is going nowhere. Ava! Suit up!”

At his command, Karl’s suit materialized from his watch. He let go of his ropes and, using the trees as his shield, he hovered behind one trunk to the next until he located the shooter.

“Gotcha,” Karl pulled out his twin silver guns and aimed. But before he could pull the trigger, the shooter looked his way and shot.

“You’re a hundred years too early to shoot me, brat!”

“Who’re you calling a brat?!” Karl narrowly dodged the shot, feeling the bullet pass just inches from his earlobe, as he quickly hid behind a tree. He puffed his cheek.

“Damn, kid’s fast,” the shooter clicked his tongue.

As Karl evaded another shot, he noticed that the shooter narrowed his eyes at him. No, more like at something behind him. Changing his target, he fired shots relentlessly at where the fighter was.

“You think you can fool me? Out of all cheap tricks, I resent deception the most.” Speaking through gritted teeth, he roughly tossed his gun aside and pulled out a bazooka.

“Oh shit. Rywa!”

“No wait! You’ll damage the trees!” The woman, who had come out of her hiding place, ran towards the tree.

The shooter ignored her and fired anyway. The impact was so loud that Karl had no doubt it hit Rywa’s fighter. What worried him, however, was the noise that followed— cracking, and then snapping of wood, and then metal sliding off. Frantic, he commanded Ava to disengage stealth mode. And sure enough, the fighter was falling right towards the woman, who stood frozen in shock. She shielded her head with her arms as if that could protect her from the spacecraft.  

“Watch out!” Karl rushed towards her with his booster at maximum speed as the shooter bolted for her as well, following closely at Karl’s tail.

Before either of them could reach her, the fighter hit the ground. When Rywa walked out of the cloud of dust the impact created, carrying the woman in his arms, Karl felt relief wash over him. Just as he was about to call Rywa’s name, Karl was roughly pulled in and a gun was pointed at his temple.

“Let her go or I’m going to kill your little friend.”

Rywa gently let her down. The woman, though still visibly shaken, carefully made her way towards the shooter and Karl.

“Throw your weapon to the side,” he nodded towards Rywa’s sword.

Rywa unsheathed his sword and gently put it on the ground then stepped away from it. “I’ve done as you’ve asked. Unhand him.” Rywa spoke with coldness in his tone that Karl had never heard before.

“I don’t think you understand. I’m the one making demands here,” The shooter sneered.

“Give it up, you don’t have a chance of winning against him,” said Karl.

“See? Even your little friend gets it.”

Karl looked up at the gruff-looking man. “I wasn’t talking to him.”

The man snorted. “Nice try, brat. Your bluff’s not gonna work on me. What can he possibly do? He doesn’t even have his sword anymore. Not like it’s gonna do anything against a gun anyway.”

“You don’t understand. It’s not the sword you should be worried about. He’s a fire mage. You don’t stand a chance against a fire mage in a sea of trees.”

At Karl’s words, Rywa snapped his fingers and a small flame instantly lit up between the tips of his thumb and index fingers.

 The woman grabbed the shooter’s arm and desperately pleaded. “Please. Admiral, please!!! You can’t let them hurt these trees. You can’t let them hurt the trees that you swore you’d help me to protect after I saved you!”

“Dammit.” The man loosened his hold on Karl and roughly shoved him towards Rywa. “Get outta here.”

“Uh… there’s just one slight problem,” Karl looked towards Rywa’s broken fighter. “You kind of shot down the only thing that would make it possible for us to do that.”

The woman sighed. “In any case, it’s late. Why don’t you come with us and spend the night in the island for now? If you swear not to hurt any of the trees, in return I’ll help you fix your fighter tomorrow. Do we have a deal?”

She reached her hand towards Karl, which he shook. “Deal.”

“Hey-”

The woman spun on her heels and raised her index finger at the man at least a couple of feet taller than her. “You don’t get to say anything! This is what happens when you shoot before asking questions! So shut it!”

Karl snorted, stifling a laugh and diffusing the tense atmosphere. He cleared his throat seeing everyone’s eyes on him. “No, sorry. Just now you reminded me of my little sister. You look like you’re about the same age. I have a feeling you two would get along.”

The scolded man huffed but didn’t say another word as she led them to their cabin in a clearing in the middle of the woods. Under a canopy of stars unobstructed by light pollution and a breathtaking view of the Milky Way galaxy, they gathered round a campfire, exchanging introductions over hearty mushroom stew and frybread.

The woman, who had deep set eyes and long dark hair in a braid, said her name was Alawa. She poured coffee from a thermos into three stainless steel mugs, two of which she offered to Karl and Rywa. Her companion, who reached for his own wine flask, was a big, bearded man who would have looked like a wild version of Santa Claus with a frown that never left his face.

“So, where were you headed?” Alawa asked.

 “Sorry, Alawa, it’s still an ongoing mission so I can’t disclose anything at this point,” Karl blew on his steaming drink.

“You don’t have to get into specifics. Besides, maybe we can help you get there faster and-”

“Alawa,” the man beside her called her with a reprimanding tone.

“Oh, my bad. Of course you’d know more about these things,  Admiral.”

Karl turned to face the man sitting across from him. It felt surreal to be chatting with someone who was trying to shoot him just moments ago. “She called you Admiral earlier, too. As in navy? Or space fleet?” 

The Admiral waved his hand dismissively. “You wouldn’t have heard of us, kid. You probably weren’t even born yet. How old are ya? 16? 18?”

“I’m way older than that,” Karl puffed his cheek as the man chugged his booze.

Alawa rolled her eyes, then turned to Karl. “If you don’t recognize the face, perhaps his name would ring a bell. Admiral Richard Cross.”

Karl’s eyes widened. “Admiral Cross? Admiral Cross of the Pioneer Star Fleet?!”