EcQuest : A Sneak Preview

If you're looking for a new Sci-Fi Thriller to read, then look no further! Here's the blurb and the first three chapters from EcQuest, the fourth book in the Quest Saga.

How deadly are the phantoms of the past?

The Dark Knights were the Universe's peacekeepers, the most powerful military faction in existence.
But all things change.

When Aliea Academy receives a mysterious request from the Empress of the Dark Knights herself, Space Cadet Q realizes that something serious is going on. Armed with nothing but the knowledge that the Dark Knights need their help, Q and his crew journey to the Dark Knights' home planet, Drakon. Battling past deadly threats and mysterious attacks, they discover a world scarier than their darkest nightmares, a world where pain and death seem inevitable. Will they be able to survive?

With great power come greater demons.

Thrilling, breath-taking and emotional, EcQuest explores the volatile nature of the mind in a world ruled by fear and terror.

1-1

“Are you sure?” Q asked. He sat inside the council room, his hands raking through his black hair. His stormy-gray eyes looked at his brother, who sat at the head of the large table.
“Why would I joke about this?” Carlos asked. “The Dark Knight Empress specifically asked for our help.”
“It just doesn’t seem likely,” Taylor said from opposite him. She spoke calmly but Q noticed her body language said otherwise. She nervously twirled her curly golden locks around her finger, then kept rubbing her palms together until her glowing white skin blushed with red.
Yup, she’s definitely nervous, Q thought.
“The Dark Knights have much better resources than we do,” she said. “They’re not the Universe’s strongest military organization for no reason. I don’t understand why they would ask for our aid.”
“Well, the Empress actually requested a healer, not a fighter,” Carlos said.
“Wait, what?” Q asked.
“That just makes it even weirder,” Taylor stared at Carlos, her electric blue eyes completely confused.
Carlos put his hands up in defense, “I’m just as clueless as you are,” he said. “The Empress sent me a message, and that was it. She didn’t even tell me why she needed a healer.”
“Are you even sure it’s her?” Q asked. He doubted if this request was the real deal. An enemy force could just as easily have faked the message.
Carlos sighed, “Fine,” he looked up the ceiling. “Replay feed.”
“Replaying feed,” a feminine voice came from the speakers around the room.
A hologram emerged over the table. A face of a young girl stared through, her dark eyes sending shivers through Q’s spine.
“High Commander Carlos,” she said, her voice cold and harsh. “I am sending this message in hope that you will comply with my favor. The Dark Knights require a high-class healer. We have no one but Aliea Academy to turn to in this time of need. I hope you will honor our alliance and acknowledge our request. Thank you.”
The hologram cut off.
“Wow,” Q said. “You weren’t kidding about her abruptness.”
Taylor became a little more nervous than she had been a few minutes ago. The video had riled her up a lot. “The Dark Knights have great healers of their own,” she mumbled.
“Precisely,” Carlos said. “That means she needs a healer better than the ones she can call upon.”
Taylor bit her lip, “Could be,” she said.
Q rapped his fingers on the table, “So we’re sending Trisha over to them?” he asked.
“Actually, Chris volunteered for it instead,” Carlos said.
Aliea had two big name healers - Trisha and Christina, or ‘Chris’ for short. Between the two, Trisha was acknowledged to be the better one, which was why picking Chris instead was quite a surprise.
“Wait,” Taylor said. “What do you mean Chris volunteered for the mission?”
“I spoke to Trisha and Chris earlier,” Carlos said. “Their abilities are very similar so both of them are viable candidates for this mission. Between the two though, Chris was really determined to be a part of this mission. Trisha made things easier by assuring Chris she could handle things on her own. So yeah, we’re sending Chris as our healer.”
“Wait a second,” Taylor said. “The Dark Knights need a healer, not a fighter. Why did you call me and Q for this then?”
Carlos paused for a second, “Well, I don’t think it’s agreeable to send her alone,” he said.
Q grasped what his brother was getting at, “You want us to accompany her there?” he asked.
He nodded, “I’d like to be on the safer side of things. This mission to the Dark Knight’s home world might not exactly be danger-free.”
“I really don’t know,” Taylor hesitated. “Can’t Q take her alone?”
“I understand I’m putting you in a situation, Taylor,” he said. “But I think it would be very beneficial if we had our own Dark Knight on the mission.”
Q nodded, “I guess he does have a point.”
Taylor thought for a while, as silence descended into the room. She finally drew herself up and lightly pounded a fist on the table. “Fine, I’ll do it. When do we leave?”
“We have a transport ship ready to go,” Carlos said. “Chris has probably boarded it already. You leave as soon as you’re ready.”
Q was taken aback at how quickly things were moving. But on second thought, all this haste made sense considering the mission was for the Dark Knights. The Dark Knights were like the Universe’s peacekeepers. They were a mercenary organization whose sole purpose was to keep a check on everything in the Universe. If they wanted help then it made sense to assist them as quickly as possible.
“I guess we’ll leave now then,” Taylor said. She turned to Q. “You have your suit on you?”
He smiled and held up his wrist, which had a black-and-red bead bracelet wrapped around it.
“Good,” she nodded.
Carlos got up, “I’ll show you to the ship,” he said.
They walked out of the room, and took the elevator down. The doors slid open with a bing, and revealed a nearly empty lobby. A receptionist rested at the table to their right, her head cradled in her arms. Carlos walked ahead and led them out of the building.
The streets were a little noisy with the chatter of people waking up. The first few rays of dim light bathed the ground. They walked a distance through the cold morning air before they reached an open field. A vast lawn of green grass spread out before Q. His eyes picked out the silver among all the greenery.
“Is that the ship?” he asked.
Carlos nodded, “She’s nothing fancy. Just a regular transport ship, but she can hold her own in battle if it comes to that,” he said. “Kai fixed it up with a special set of blasters.”
“He always goes a step further than necessary,” Taylor laughed.
They walked up to the ship. Just as Carlos had said, it was nothing fancy. It had a cuboidal
body with rounded edges and the front face tapered off into a rounded nose. It wasn’t the prettiest ship Q had seen, but it seemed more than sturdy enough for the mission.
I wonder why we couldn’t get a better ship though, Q thought. They could have provided one of those massive battle cruisers.
“Smaller ships attract less danger,” Taylor said as though she had just read his mind.
“Oh,” he said meekly, and quietly followed them up the ship’s stairs.
There were thirty passenger seats inside the ship, aligned in a rows of three, running along the center. At the very last row were a boy and girl deep in conversation. The boy was Asian, and had dark black eyes. The girl had chocolate shaded skin, and even darker curly hair. The boy was holding onto her hand, and she was smiling at him, her cheeks flushing red.
“These two again,” Carlos chuckled. He walked a little nearer and coughed. The two of them jumped around and faced everyone.
“Hello, you two,” Carlos said, an innocent smile on his face.
“Good Morning, High Commander,” they said.
“Kai, I trust the preparations are complete?”
He nodded, “All done. I had a team work things out in under an hour. The engine is at maximum capacity, and the ship has been tricked out with a full set of weaponry. This ship is basically a mini battle cruiser.”
Carlos turned to Q and Taylor, “Then I believe you’re ready for take-off,” he said.
“We’ll update you once we reach the Dark Knights,” Taylor said.
Carlos nodded and turned to the girl, “Chris, Trisha asked you to contact her if you have any problems,” he said.
“Will do,” she said, her voice monotone and cold.
Q watched as Kai and his brother walked out of the ship. The hatch door hissed as it slid closed, blocking his view of the fresh field. He and Taylor walked into the cockpit, while Chris remained in the passenger area.
Only a single seat had been built into the cockpit, and in front of it was a large dashboard with buttons, knobs, and dials. Taylor took the pilot’s chair, her hands working like clockwork, and in moments, the ship was in deep space.
The cockpit is much larger than I expected, Q thought.
What he found especially weird about the ship was that it didn’t have any glass viewscreen. Instead there was just a solid wall of metal. Their only view of the outside came from the holographic image right above the dashboard.
Q asked Taylor and learned this set up apparently gave the ship more stability, since a glass viewscreen was much weaker than a solid metal cover. And since transport ships sometimes carried very precious cargo, it made sense to use any method possible to increase their defenses.
“I’m heading into hyperspace now,” Taylor said, her hands working through the controls at super speed.
“Do we have to?” Q sighed. He hated hyperspace jumps. They always made him feel like he had been punched in the gut.
“Well, the Dark Knight’s home base is on Drakon, which is about five billion light years from here. Without jumping into hyperspace we’ll never be able to get there.”
He sighed again, “Fine. I’ll go seat myself as well,” he said and ran back to the passengers’ area.
Why does hyperspace have to be so darn useful? he thought. Hyperspace was an alternative dimension that existed parallel to the Universe. It was a warped version of space, so travelling one billionth of an inch in hyperspace was like travelling a thousand miles in the regular Universe. Using hyperspace, the trip to Drakon, which should have taken at least five billion years, would actually take maybe a day at most. Crazy, wasn’t it?
Q walked into the passenger area and found Chris in one of the seats.
“Hello, Q,” she said.
“Hey Chris,” he sat himself down next to her. “Listen, Taylor’s going to put the ship into hyperspace. Just wanted to give you a heads up.”
“Oh okay,” she drew her seat belts across her chest in an X-shape, and secured herself to her seat. Q did the same for himself.
The ship’s P.A. system blared, “Ahem. This is your captain speaking,” Taylor said. “I hope you’ve both secured yourselves. We’re entering hyperspace in three...two...one...NOW!”
A hard jerk shook the ship, and Q felt the seat push into his spine. Every inch of his body quivered as the ship jumped into the alternate realm. The jerking stopped just as quickly as it had started, and everything became silent once more.
The P.A. system spoke again, “This is your captain speaking. Just wanted to tell you I’m still alive, and that we’ve jumped into hyperspace.”
Q smiled. Of course, the hyperspace jump had given him a metaphorical punch to the gut, but his mind couldn’t think about anything but the mission. They were on their way to Drakon, on their way to meet the Dark Knights.
He couldn’t wait.

 1-2

Taylor switched the ship’s controls to autopilot and walked back to the passenger area. She had already been dead tired last night, and Carlos waking her up at three in the morning for an emergency meeting hadn’t made her feel any better.
“The hyperspace jump went smoother than I thought,” Q said from his seat, a grin on his face.
“You’re welcome,” Taylor chuckled and plopped herself down in the seat next to him.
“Didn’t Carlos say the route to Drakon was dangerous?” Chris asked. “Can autopilot handle it if something goes wrong?”
“Carlos said the mission was dangerous. The route to Drakon should be fine,” she paused for a few moments. “I think.”
Chris stared at Taylor for a second, “You think?”
“Well, aren’t you a bundle of confidence,” Q chuckled.
Taylor punched him the arm, “Idiot.”
“I’m really tired,” Chris stood up. “I’ll go catch a few winks. Let me know when anything comes up,” she said and walked to the seats behind them.
If this were the first time she was meeting Chris, Taylor would have felt something was wrong, but since she had known her for a long time now she knew it was commonplace to see Chris act a little socially awkward every now and then. The only person she opened up to was Kai, and it was pretty obvious why. Taylor wouldn’t be surprised if she found those two by some lake, holding hands under a full moon.
My romantic scenarios are so cliched, she chuckled.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Q interrupted her thoughts. “How are you handling all this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it can’t be easy going back to the Dark Knights can it?”
Her expressions changed. Ugh. Why did he have to bring that up? she thought.
She knew exactly what Q was implying. She wasn’t exactly fond of the Dark Knights’ headquarters, the Palace of Darkness. All the memories she had of the place were not things she wanted to remember. Ever. In fact she would have had all those memories wiped away if there were some safe way to do so. Unfortunately for her, there wasn’t.
“I really don’t know what’s going to happen,” she sighed. “The last time I faced the Dark Knights it was on Dryke, that sub-territory I visited. I haven’t been to the Palace of Darkness since forever.”
“What about the Dark Knight Empress, Andrea?” he asked. “You know her?”
Taylor bit her lip, “Gosh, you’re asking a lot of intrusive questions,” she said.
Q was taken aback, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize-”
Taylor immediately regretted saying that. “I’m kidding,” she laughed, trying hard to cover up. “And to answer your question, yeah, I do know the Empress.”
“So can we count on a warm greeting when she sees you, or is she going to open fire?”
Taylor fell silent.
“Hey?” Q asked.
She glanced at the wall, wishing there were some sort of window for her to look into at the dark emptiness of space.
“Are things not okay between you and the Empress?” he asked.
She sighed, “I wish I knew.”

***

A white light glowed around Taylor and shrouded her with its glare. It dimmed as moments passed, revealing couches, chairs and a television set. She was inside someone’s house.
A dream, she realized.
“Taylor?” a voice called out.
She turned around and saw a tall blond woman call out from the doorway, her ocean-blue eyes looking around affectionately.
“She’s hiding in the hall, dear,” a dark-haired man walked up to her. “She’s mad that you’re leaving, and I don’t think she’s changing her mood anytime soon.”
“Oh well,” the lady sighed. “I’ll see her in a week anyway.”
The man put his arm around her, “Are you sure you have to go?”
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “The Knights specifically asked for me. It’s tough to say no when I know they’re depending on me.”
“Fine,” he smiled and pecked her on the cheek. “Come back safe,” he said.
“I’m going to be fine,” she smiled. “You on other hand have to take care of a rogue five year old,” she laughed.
“I know,” he pretended to shiver. “I’ll get her some pizza and ice cream tonight. That should make up for everything.”
“I’ve got to go now,” the lady stepped back. A bracelet on her arm glowed white, and a suit of dark armor grew around her. An aura of pure black emanated from it, and the man inched away from her.
“Still can’t handle it huh?” she laughed.
“You have no clue how scary that is,” he complained.
“We can talk about it when I’m back,” she winked.
A purple portal opened up next to the lady and she jumped through it. The man’s eyes watched longingly as the circle of light closed, sending a gentle arc of wind through him.
Taylor’s eyes shot open. She gasped as she sat up. Her eyes blinked rapidly as she looked around the room. She was still inside the ship.
“Stupid dreams,” she muttered, her teeth clenched. She looked to her right and saw Q sleeping soundly, his head resting on her shoulder.
“Yeah, the thing about the Pokemon is….” he mumbled.
She smiled, “You idiot,” she ran her fingers through his hair. She gently lay his head back onto the seat, making sure he didn’t wake up, and then headed up to the pit.
Better check up on our course, she thought. It took her an instant to pull up the ship’s course details on the holographic screen. It had been almost half a day since they had started, and they had covered quite a fair distance.
“Hey there,” Chris walked into the pit.
Taylor swivelled around on her chair, “Couldn’t get any sleep?” she asked.
“Got plenty,” she said. “I’m just bored.”
“Oh,” Taylor said awkwardly. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to respond to something like that. Initiating simple chit chat wasn’t exactly Chris’ thing.
She’s changing bit by bit, Taylor smiled. She wondered if Kai was the reason for that as well.
“So I was wondering,” Chris leaned against the wall. “The Dark Knights are one of the strongest military groups right? So do they have lots of mages?” she asked.
All space cadets were split into two main classes - the warriors and the mages. The difference between the two was the amount of life energy they possessed. Life energy could be used to manipulate different kinds of objects and give birth to something called Wave-skills. Each wave-skill pertained to a certain Elementa, like the Elementa of Wind, or the Elementa of Fire.
Warriors were born with low life energy, which meant they could only use very basic wave skills from any one Elementa. Mages, on the other hand, had very high levels of life energy and could pull off complex wave skills in two completely different Elementa.
Q though, was actually a sorcerer, which meant he was a class above all mages. He had such great power he could manipulate any almost Elementa, including the hardest Elementa there was - the Elementa of Light.
“Taylor?” Chris asked. “Are you okay?”
“Sorry,” she said, realizing she had spaced out for a second. “I’m not really sure of how many mages the Dark Knights have since I haven’t met them in a long time. But frankly speaking, I don’t think they had any. They’ve always been more of a warrior type.”
“Wait, but you reached your NOVA form right?” she asked. “So doesn’t that make you a Mage?”
A NOVA form was something warriors permanently transformed into. It gave the warrior a much greater life energy, allowing them to nearly rival the mage class. The transformation itself was an extremely rare occurrence though.
It was believed to only happen to warriors who had a potential to carry more life energy than they were born with. The rules for setting off this transformation weren’t well known. So far all they knew was that it happened when a potential NOVA warrior underwent a massive psychological or emotional change.
“Well, when you think about it you’ve technically become a mage right?” Chris asked once again.
“I’m not really sure if me being a NOVA warrior counts as a mage,” Taylor smiled.
Her fists clenched. I can’t tell them, she thought.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you to the piloting then,” Chris said and walked away.
There was actually not much piloting left to do, but Taylor knew the conversation would only get more awkward if it kept on going so she let it go.
The holographic screen showed her nothing but the empty depths of hyperspace. She stared through the hologram and tried to lose herself in the darkness.
It comforted her, made her calm, made her feel alive.
The darkness was her friend.
It was her home.

 1-3

Q woke up dazedly to an excited Taylor and nonchalant Chris.
“Wake up already!” Taylor said. “We’re going to be heading into re-entry soon.”
Q’s eyes shot open, his mind realizing what that meant. They were almost at Drakon. He jumped up onto his feet, stumbled a bit, and followed them to the pit. “How long was I asleep?” he rubbed his eyes and pushed himself through the cramped door.
“The whole ride actually,” Chris said. “We tried to wake you up but you seemed really tired.”
“You even slept through the exit hyperspace jump,” Taylor said, a look of disbelief on her face.
“Whoa,” he mumbled. Even he felt that was crazy. Either he had completely knocked himself out, or Taylor had just mastered the art of a smooth hyperspace jump. And he wasn’t really sure about Taylor.
“Are you okay though?” Taylor asked. “You slept continuously for nearly twenty hours.”
“Well, I feel fine,” he looked at his arms and legs. “I did play a lot of Super Mario last night. Maybe that’s what did it.”
“You and your video games,” she chuckled and turned back to the holographic screen.
Q turned his attention to the screen as well, and his eyes glistened in awe at the sight before him. A large flame-red star and a small ice-white one lay in orbit around a black region of space.
“A red giant and white dwarf,” he mumbled, recalling the name of the two iconic types of stars.
“That’s not all,” Taylor said and pointed to the space the two stars were orbiting around.
At first Q couldn’t tell what she was trying to tell him. And then he saw a bright flare of white shoot out. It lasted for less than a millisecond. Even half an eye blink and he would have missed it. His mind immediately grasped what he was looking at.
His lips curved into a grin, “A black hole,” he said.
Taylor nodded, “Drakon’s ultimate security system,” she said and pointed to a lone dark planet that orbited the region around both the stars. “There’s no way anyone but a highly experienced pilot can even get close to the planet without having the stars or the black hole suck them in.”
“Nature’s own protection system,” Chris said quietly.
“Yeah,” Taylor smiled. “Pretty cool huh?”
“I just have one problem,” Q said. “You said we need a highly experienced pilot. How are we going to land on Drakon then?”
She punched him in the arm, “I’m a highly experienced pilot you nitwit,” she glared at him.
“Um. Oh,” he said. “You can’t blame me for not thinking that. Whenever our ship was in a tight spot Kai was the one who got us out.”
“Of course, he’s way better than me,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t get us down onto Drakon. Now go sit down, and I’ll land this thing.”
It took another half hour for Taylor to completely land on Drakon. It should have taken much less time, but she accidentally overshot the ship on her first try, passing right by the planet instead of getting caught in its orbit. Luckily she didn’t mess up too much for them to get pulled in by any of the massive celestial bodies.
Q couldn’t help grinning in the situation. There was just so much irony between what Taylor had said and what she had done.
“Shut up,” she mumbled when she noticed the look on his face.
“It’s okay, Taylor,” he chuckled. “These things happen to everybody.”
A dark aura started to form around her, “One more word out of you and-”
“Yes ma’am!” Q saluted and stood still. Taylor could get really, really scary when she did that. He wondered if it was his inborn battle instinct speaking out whenever he saw the darkness and felt fear. Taylor’s Elementa of Darkness seemed like a direct contradiction to his rare Elementa of Light. Carlos said there wasn’t anything of that sort though, and he was usually right about such things.
Ten minutes later the ship had breached into Drakon’s atmosphere that was filled with nothing but dark storm clouds, and headed down to the surface. Q looked at the holographic screen and noticed the thick fog all around them. Sudden flashes of lightning lit up the ground below. Loud claps of thunder shook the ship with every wave of sound, and the downpour of rain played a musical orchestra with its water-on-metal sounds.
With each bolt of lightning Q gained enough light to scan more of the surface. A small oval-shaped city lay before them, and a towering castle stood at the very center. The castle had two pillars at either end, rising up about five hundred feet off the ground, and the central one rose to twice that height. They were all circular, starting off from a wide base and tapering off into a sharp point at the very top.
“That’s the Palace of Darkness,” Taylor said.
“Wow.” That was all that Q could say in the face of such a domineering structure. He could feel a sense of fear grasp him when he looked at the building. It was the same feeling he got when he saw Taylor surrounded by her signature dark aura.
Maybe everything related to the Dark Knights is supposed to cause fear, he thought.
The closer the ship got to the surface, the more Q could see of the city itself. The whole place was dark. The stone and metal buildings around the castle were all painted in colors that were only very subtly distinguishable from blackness of the night sky.
All of a sudden, a brilliant flash of lightning shot right at the holographic screen and the feed cut off. The ship’s lights died down and left them with darkness.
Q’s body moved involuntarily. He stretched out his hand and summoned his life energy. He imagined it flowing out of his fingers and collecting into a sphere above his palm. A small stream of light flowed out his fingertips, forming a spherical lamp in his hand and lighting up the cockpit.
The ship’s metal front split into two and slid away to reveal a glass viewscreen. Q was taken aback for a second because he had always thought transport ships had fronts made of solid metal. This ship though clearly had a viewscreen that lay hidden inside a thin gap in the metal.
Kai must have added a viewscreen, he realized. His mind refocused onto the matter at hand.
“What just happened?” Chris asked.
“Lightning bolt hit the ship,” Taylor cursed.
“What?” Q’s eyes widened. “Does that mean-”
“Yup, the engines are out.”
Q’s mind stayed calm, and he tried to think rationally without letting the fear get to him. A ship without an engine wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Frankly, it was much worse.
“How far up are we from the surface?” he asked.
“About a mile,” she said. “I’m putting us in a glide right now, but we’re still going to pick up too much speed to actually be able to land.”
Q turned to Chris, “You specialize in the Elementa of Wind right?” he asked. “Can you try to create an updraft below the ship and slow us down?”
She shook her head, “The storm surrounding us is too violent for me to use my Elementa properly. The air pressure around the ship is in a very delicate balance. Any external prodding might make it tip and the unstable pressure could create a twister.”
“This ship can’t handle a twister,” Taylor said.
“Exactly,” Chris replied.
“Okay here’s an idea,” Q said. “I can create energy suits for all of us with my Elementa of Light. We can use those to leave the ship and safely glide ourselves down to the ground.”
“The ship will land in the middle of the city if we abandon it. We can’t do that.”
“We could program it to land outside the city.”
“We’ve lost all controls after the lightning bolt hit,” Taylor said. “All systems are down. We can’t even contact anyone.”
“Well,” Q said. “There’s only one option left.”
“What?”
He pulled Taylor out of her seat and sat down, “I’m piloting now,” he said.
“What? But the systems are down.”
“I don’t need the systems,” he threw his hand into the air and focused, feeling every little bit of life energy inside him.
“Q, there’s only a little more than a thousand feet left to the surface.”
“Perfect,” he said. He felt his body become hotter, and his joints turn rigid. His life energy was overloading him.
All ready, he thought. He concentrated and let his energy out in one short instant. He felt it rush out of him like a river. But the air around them remained exactly the same; stormy and dark.
“Ummm, Q?” Taylor asked. “What are you doing?”
A massive tunnel of white formed around the ship and extended, connecting it directly to the central tower of the Palace of Darkness. 
“You made that with your Elementa of Light?”
Q nodded, “I’ve gotten pretty good at it now.”
The ship shook as the tunnel restricted its movement, forcing it to change course and follow the tunnel’s path instead,
Taylor immediately picked up on what the course change meant. “Oh my god,” she gasped. “We’re going to crash into the tower.”
Q nodded.
She looked at him, “Stop it. Now.”
“Too late.”
They were all thrown about as the ship crashed through the tower’s stone walls and halted with a screech. Q wasted no time in picking himself up and looking around at the damage. Surprisingly most of the craft had stood the crash. Only the hatch door had been completely ripped off.
Kai really outdid himself, he thought. There was no way a regular transport ship would have suffered that little damage from such a crash. Kai must have reinforced the entire ship’s body with high level tech.
Q walked out and stepped onto cold stone floors. He immediately heard a high-pitched noise ring through the air. Five knights in dark armor activated their laser blasters and closed in on him, a fear-instilling, dark aura sifting through the air around them, their weapons aimed right for his head.
He sighed, “Boy, I really didn’t think this through.”

***