Condition Evolution 2: A LitRPG / Gamelit Adventure by Sinclair, Kevin (black female authors txt) 📗

a few rows of seats on the way, that I recognised vaguely. I realized it was where I sat in our escape from the lab, or Earth, as it turned out.

Past the chairs, we entered the cargo bay. I couldn’t believe how nervous I was, sweating profusely and suddenly, rather randomly, really needing too pee. I went into my Mindscape to find some kind of peace. What I found was Cassia in my hallway, sitting in a seat outside my nerve room with her eyes closed.

“What the fuck are you doing in here?” I growled.

She gained a shocked expression on her face.

“I was so gentle! How did you feel me?”

“Feel you! I can see you sitting right in front of me. Now get the fuck out of my head before I make you.”

“I was just trying to calm your nerves, I promise. It’s my job. Ogun never said you’d transcended.”

“Whatever! Get out now. Last chance,” I said.

She quickly disappeared.

I came out of my trance. I was angry now rather than nervous. I locked eyes with Cassia and she quickly looked away. Then, I felt a hand entwine with mine. Looking over to Ember, she smiled but it was full of tension and nerves.

“We’re going to be fine,” I said, anger cooling to concern for Ember. She had to go out there into danger, but nothing was going to happen to her. No fucking way! Not on my watch.

That mere fact of knowing that someone else’s life mattered more than my own, brought a blanket of calm over me.

“Door opening in one minute!” came a disembodied voice over the speaker.

Before I knew it, we were moving down the ship’s loading ramp out into a massive hanger. It was completely empty of people. I think everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief. There was always the persistent niggle that we were heading off the ship into a hail of lasers and death.

Ember and I followed Cassia until we reached, what I assumed were, the FSU packs. Mick and Gus were in our team too. By her direction we started carrying supply boxes back onto the ship. The packages were manageable by hand, with two people working together. We were like a hive of ants.

After about half an hour of intense loading of the ship, Ogun’s voice boomed out like he had a megaphone. “Everyone back on the ship now! We have incoming.”

We started sprinting back to the ship when lasers started striking the supply station floor. I saw a couple of people get hit and just disintegrate before us. I have to admit, more than a little pee came out. Thank fuck for self-cleaning suits.

Cassia cried, “Take cover!”

I dove into Ember, tackling her to the ground just before she ran out into the open. Those around us also dove into the protection of the crates. I lay over the top of Ember, covering her before she started thumping and thrashing at me. “How am I gonna feel if you die protecting me, huh? And those fucking laser beams will go straight through you. Didn’t see those guys disintegrate? What a dick!”

I rolled off her. She was right. Maybe I’d been a tad overzealous. I was about to say as much, but different words came out, “You’re never dying before me. Not even by a split second.” I peeked out from behind the crates to avoid the comeback to that statement, then watched in utter disbelief as our ship started taking off. “They’re fucking leaving us!” I shouted back to the cowering people.

I saw Cassia’s head pop up above a crate like a meerkat. “Nooooo!” she screamed, then slumped back behind the crate like she’d been shot.

I almost laughed at her over-the-top response. Then, it hit me. We were stuck on a random rock, god knows how many light years away from an Earth that may already be destroyed. Then I thought, I don’t even know what a fucking lightyear is!

While I went through this avalanche of thoughts and emotions, Ember had been watching the ships through the open doors of the supply station. “They’re gone. They’ve totally took off. The other ship’s chased after them,” she said in disbelief, then turned to me. “What the fuck are we going to do, Shaun?”

My first instinct was to say, ‘Why are you asking me?’. But I doubted she needed to hear that at this point. “We’ll think of something,” was all I had in the tank. It would have to do.

We moved around to where the other members of our group, Cassia, Mick, and Gus, held up. I was glad we’d talked to them now. It was comforting to have familiar faces with us. We waited for an age in silence amongst the storage crates, hoping for some kind of communication from the Thoth.

Once it became obvious that they weren’t coming back anytime soon, nor were we getting any further communications, Cassia finally took charge. I was surprised because I thought her spine had completely deserted her. “We should go deeper into the compound. There should be stay over quarters for passing ships. We can hole up until we hear something.”

Coming out from behind the crates, it felt safe enough to walk freely now that there was no visible danger. Cassia led us over to some large double doors. “According to the information given by Ogun, and the ship's computers, these doors should lead deeper into the complex. That’s where we’ll find somewhere to rest for now.”

The doors didn’t open automatically, and my heart dropped. Luckily, Gus was with us. The quiet, stocky Gus was well versed in Fystr technology. Cassia told us he’d been with Ogun for six years now and he knew how to operate, and even bypass, some of their systems. He opened the doors quickly to reveal a corridor with a network of other corridors branching from it.

Cassia studied the internal layout of the supply station on a device that I didn’t even know she had. Part of me was