-Long time no see…
-It is agreeable to see you again. – she replied with a grin, knowing that he’d appreciate the geek joke.
He let out a little laugh to her satisfaction.
-So how are things?
-As they always are, I guess.
-You don’t change, do you?
-No, I don’t.

The cherry blossoms were blooming and fresh green leaves were growing on the trees, like million rubys and emeralds, sparkling with dew early in the morning. The morning breeze tumbled through the branches of the grove, and it tickled the many sprouts of the trees. The dawning sun painted yellow the somber walls of not so long dead apartment houses. The buildings in the abandoned living area has been deteriorating over the last forty years. People moved out of the area after the third world war. Or one could say, there was just not enough people to populate all residential areas any more.

The sun was slowly making it’s daily routine through the sky, examining every bright side of the scattered concrete blocks. Between the fallen walls, a few deers were carefully chosing from the different herbs and grass that was breaking up the surface of old roads.The herd was slowly moving towards south as the sun made it’s final descent. The evening wind brought living noise from the close town.

Amongst the growing shadows, a girl wandered the ghostly streets. Her sea-green eyes reflected the many different feelings inside her. She was wearing breeches that had a number of patches is on it, and a blue shirt, though the color was faded somewhat.

Night fell, and the moon rose. Silver beams traced her curly ginger hair down her shoulders as she curled up in the cover of a fallen signboard.
The crickets were chirping painfully loud. They kept her awake.

The young woman was slowly walking around, examining the herbs as she explored the ghost town. A bit further a man climbed up a piece of concrete, and watched the woman and listened to all noise. He was in his late twenties, alike the the woman. Both were wearing light trousers with wool shirts, and a shirts had some silver lining woven into them, like carefully made masterpieces. The moonlight was glowing all around them, like a faint aura of white. Every now and then, the woman stopped to pick the leaves of a plant, dark-green ones that only fresh grown plants had. Carefully, one by one, she put them in a small air-tight pouch on her belt.

In the corner of her eye she thought she saw something, but then she turned to find nothing. Still, the feeling just didn’t leave her. She continued her search for chamela, but now her senses were on full alert. Every single nerv in her body was restlessly trying to grasp the darkness around.

She found the girl there, under the signboard. She felt her face, it was burning up.
- Maon! – she called out quietly, not to alert any nocturnal animals. He got beside her in a few moments, though he was quite far away, but she seamed natural with it. He knelt down, and looked the girl in the eye. He put a hand on her forehead, than he felt the arms and legs of the girl.
- What’s your name? – he asked kindly. The friendly tone of his voice was calming even the crickets down.
- Nolene. – she hold her arm out. The plastic strap on her wrist said so, and also stated she was seven years old.
- Amena, there’s no family name.
The woman took a small bottle from the backpack Maon was carrying, and let the girl drink the rest of the water.
Maon picked her up, and covered her with the blanket he also had with him. Nolene fall asleep in his protecting arms.

She woke up in an attic room. She sit up, the soft white beddings and the long sleep made her feel well rested. The large windows let plenty of sunlight inside. Next to the bed there was a small table, on top there was a glass of water, and a teddy bear watching her. A great bookshelf was next to the door with many books with writing like Nolene never seen before. On the other side of the room, there was a dressing table with a mirror and her clothes on a chair. Though somehow, the patches disappeared from the breeches and shirt’s color has returned. The great oak door let through familiar voices.
Quickly she changed quickly from the white nightgown, and opened it holding her breath.

an e-mail would probably be more appropriate. still, this will have to do. besides the storyline to my cycle. though it will be some time before it converges to that point.

It’s been a while since we last met. I was sitting on the lakeside under the starry sky, and thinking about nothing… Then she just stepped up to me, my elven other side, slightly hitting me on the head.

We talked a while, and there was a shooting star.

It all started on a sunny Friday evening. Chris and Sam were driving home from a visit to her parents. They were headed west on route 64, just a few miles before Estherville. The beautiful sunset turned the average traffic into a burning silhouette.
Then something hit the front left of the car. The thing deformed the car’s driver side completely. Sam’s legs disappeared under the screaming metal, and her chest was badly crushed by the steering wheel. She looked at Chris… he watched her eyes turn blurry and die.

The alarm clock went off. Chris swept the nightmare – he saw almost every night for the last three years – from his eyes. After he washed his face and put on some clothes, he left for the diner; he couldn’t have brought himself to eat at home ever since. But this time, a strange feeling welcomed him that he couldn’t shake off. He ordered pancake with syrup, and a glass of juice. No coffee this time. The different aura of the indian woman at the next table was unconsciously bothering him enough to slightly knock him out of daily routine.
Then she simply walked to his table. Her confident moves didn’t let him tell her no, as she sit in front of him. And then he felt, he had to ask. Chris described the creature to her.

- Here, take this. – she put a carved black stone on the table. – This will help you, if you realize that there is always an other way.

Chris stepped onto the pedestal. The carved stone in his pocket started to emit a dim light, and on the stepstones, a thousand yellow glowing dots appeared. He pulled the stone from his pocket, and instinctivly put it on a yellow dot. The cornerstones then lighted up, and he disappeared with a flash of light.

This day started as many other. The dawn woke the grassrunner village of Snoforest, the childlike people started their daily rutins. It was early autumn, leaves just started to fade to orange and red, and the very first of them fell to the feet of a messenger. The man, twice the size of everyone else around, walked up to the hall. Many eyes followed him, since humans were almost never seen on the highlands of Blue Mountains.
The village elder appeared from the building. They spoke a few words with low voice, making sure noone would overhear them, then the man hung a scroll to a pillar of the porch. After that, they entered the building, as travelers always had received the warmest welcomes of the village, grassrunners came up to the porch to see what was important enough, so that even such a small village was notified. Among the crowd there was one more person to tower above everyone else.

A few weeks before, dwarfs had found artifacts of unknown origin at en excavation site near Eastern Balckmuur. Royal troops of the United Kingdoms had been moved in and mages were also ordered to the ruins. Those things that seemed the most important, were immediately moved to the capital, Christiania. The rest was taken to several nearby fortresses, for later shipping.
After the finding, the area was held by the military, and the greatest of the mages were to research the objects retrieved. For several weeks, those with the greatest knowledge worked from dawn to dusk, still making no progress of understanding the remains.
It was then, that the Kings decided to ask the public for help. Messengers were sent to the furthest corners of the known worlds to summon those with curiosity.

The world has been living it’s peaceful days for many hundred years now. The many kingdoms across the plains were developing well, always keeping the well-being of people among top priorities. The gods were awake and caring, and walked among the people.
These findings were one direct cause, that started this world unbalance, and thus, started the journey.

Lain was saddling up his father’s youngest horse in front of their house. The little house – still huge, compared to the average around – was built at the edge of the golden-red forest, a bit further from the grassrunner village. The old elven man was sitting on the bench next to the door, and from time to time he took a sip of his pipe, as he was trying to convince her daughter to change her mind. The old man, together with his middle-aged wife were elves outcast for stubbornness, but they had their peaceful lives together.
Their daughter, Lain, apparently inherited much of this aspect of her parents. It was no way she would stop. But inside, it was not her stubbornness, but an inner call, maybe curiosity that told her to go. She was packing for a journey to the capital and maybe somewhere beyond.
She has almost reached twenty, when she would be considered an adult. The only thing her parents could do was to give her their best support and wish her good luck.
The journey ahead was 10 days. Being an unexperienced traveler, she picked a pace neither fast nor comfortable. Fortunately, the ferry from Ilysia to Midgar was enough to rest. After three days of riding and two days sailing with a good wind, Lain arrived to the mainland of the human kingdoms. The endless prairie of Southern Midgar was lying ahead, and beyond the great city of Karinthia. For the rest of the journey all the people travelling towards the capital formed a caravan to keep each other with company.
The morning after her arrival, Lain was heading to the royal court to see the exhibited artifacts. There were a lot more people in the city than usually, she thought, but in fact, she didn’t know what was the city usually like. In the evening she hardly found a place to stay with a stall. She got up with sunrise, and after an early breakfast, she headed straight for the castle gates.
There was already quite a queue, and the gates weren’t open yet.

The queue advanced slowly into the great reception hall of the castle. Several glass cabinets were arranged in the middle, many people were gathering around them, some others were talking to court wizards at the table set next to the exit. Around, guards were watching everyone carefully. There were enough of them for a smaller squadron. They were wearing the celebrations armor of the palace guards, high-ranking officers and a few newbies as well, but not less capable. Around the table of the wizards, further from the exit was standing Joshua, 3rd rank. He was a tall guy, had short brown hair and a spark of curiosity in his eyes. He was quite young to be a palace guard, but he had earned his position with his excellent skills. Next to him, a short girl wearing a dress was leaning to the wall. She was quite a beauty with short golden-brown hair and light green eyes. The promising magician student, Emy was hugging her white wooden staff and was having a delightful conversation with her childhood friend. As a matter of fact, they were bored to death. It has been 6 days since the exhibition was opened, and both the city and the palace were filled with noisy, strange people, still, nothing interesting happened.
- … and after seventh round, he was sent to catch a chicken in only his pants, and it was quite cold. You should have seen him… – Joshua noticed, that Emy was not listening, because usually she would be laughing already. – Emy?
- Ssssh. – she seemed to be tense. Joshua followed her view across the room where a single elven girl was looking at a stone tablet. What he didn’t feel was the small amount of magic stirring between the walls of the hall.

Lain was leaning close to get a good view at an artifact, trying to cover the reflections. Behind her pointy ears, a few strands of hair started to tickle her neck on their own. Then suddenly blue lights played inside the unknown symbols for just a second, then they disappeared to nothing. Somehow, she understood the meaning behind the act, though she was not aware of it yet.

The moment passed quickly, and the people moved on like nothing happened.
- Emy, what was that about? – his voice was filled with bored curiosity. The girl just shook her head.
- It’s nothing. – She stood up, then looked at him seriously. – I have something to deal with. Could you accompany me?
Joshua nodded slightly and followed her towards the exit, where he also asked permission to leave from the commander.
Outside the busy city was swallowing those that left the castle, Emy and Joshua was standing at the gates staring into the crowd. The young magician was looking for the elven girl from before. She had to use her best intuition to get a glimpse of Lain turning the far corner of the square. They picked a steady peace to catch up with her, but slow enough not to alert her.
On a somewhat empty street they finally caught up with her. Joshua stayed a bit further behind, while Emy touched the shoulder of the elf. They glared at each other for a few second, then the human girl started talking with a happy smile.
- My name is Emy. I think I saw you at the court…
Lain was confused, and most of her thoughts were still hanging around the artifacts. – I am Lain.
- You know, I saw you do some amazing stuff. I just wanted to ask, what you did to that artifact.
Her voice had a suggestive tone to it, that snapped Lain of her thoughtfulness. The guy behind was wearing the same uniform as the guards at the castle, so she was not in trouble yet. Probably.
- I did nothing.
- Then what happened? What did I see? – Emy was trying to keep her voice down, but still be pushy enough to scare the other girl a bit. She answered with a low voice, looking in front of herself. Maybe Emy’s tactics worked, maybe the girl was just like that.
- I don’t know myself. – she remembered the lights like the thing was just happening. – I was just standing there, and those lights appeared. I don’t understand any of it.
Emy reverted to her smily happy girl self, because she understood that it was all. She grabbed Lain hand. – Let’s have a drink and talk. I know a quiet cafe just around corner.
Lain nodded. However strange the conversation started, she just got a new friend in a city where she knew noone.
Joshua watched them walk around the corner, then returned to the castle.

It was late afternoon when they met again, in front of the castle. The square had several green spots, where Lain found an empty bench, and waited there. When Emy arrived through the castle gate, she stood up. They got along quickly in the afternoon, and Emy suggested, they’d go on a journey to Balckmuur together. She said, they may find more clues about what they saw. They agreed to meet at nine in the morning to buy necessary equipments.

There were many shops and small markets throughout Christiania, selling various items that an adventurer may need. Lain had only little money she could waste, and Emy was told to keep a low profile. In the end, it was only Lain who wanted to buy a weapon and a light armor that would fit her taste and pouch. However she haven’t found anything yet.
After a while walking around the shops, Emy noticed an archery contest. On the board, the lines showed it was the final between Farrel and Gabriel.
- Let’s watch, it seems interesting. – said Emy and she went closer. Josh and Lain followed her into the crowd.
There were many people betting on the outcome. Farrel was last year’s winner and an elite military archer. On the other hand, Gabriel was an elven ranger. The coolheaded type whom anyone would trust their life with.
They were up for fourth shot. So far, both of them did perfectly. Gabriel stepped to the line, for a moment, he pointed the arrow on the target, then he released the string. He made a mistake… A little wind started to blow as Farrel took his turn, so his shot went a bit astray.
The last round was up and the crowd held back it’s breath. The one making the first mistake would lose everything. Gabriel was preparing for the last shot, not bothered by the growing wind. He held his breath then released a perfect shot from his bow. Farrel was already at the line, arrow prepared into his bow. His concentration did not waver a bit, even when a drop of sweat run across his temple. As he fired his arrow, the wind got stronger again, and the arrow only scratched the bull’s eye.
The crowd burst into applause, and greeted the victor as well as last years champion, who’s accomplishment was even.
In the celebrating crowd, Gabriel walked up to the girls and the boy.
-What would bring your beauty to this place of all? – he asked Emy, almost ignoring the others.

As they were walking further, now the four of them, shopping for their upcoming journey, a kid just grabbed Lain’s hand and took her through the crowd, disappearing in a second. The rest of the party started searching for her, however she was nowhere to be found.

Inside the little hut, the light was dim. Only a single beam of sunlight lit up the dust in the air like stars, then hit the wooden, scuffed floor. Lain was standing in the middle of the single room house, both surprised and wary. In spite of her elven senses, she could still barely make out the line of a bed in one corner and several old, rusty things around the walls covered with thick dust.
-Youngling… – the voice was weak, and old. It was the voice of a dying man. – You are the last hope of this world.
-What do you mean?
-You shall understand… soon enough. You have to… – severe coughs interrupted the old man. – There… take Kuu with you. She’s the crescent moon. She shall aid you.
Against the wall, behind Lain… the joint of blade and handle was gemmed in the shape of the crescent moon.
-You should go. Your friends will be worried. – another series of coughs came from the bed.

For some reason, Lain felt, there was no need to say thank you or good bye. She just turned around, and grabbed the sword as she left the little hut.
-But what am I supposed to do?
She looked up at the sky, wondering what the meaning might be of all that happened. Somehow she then just bumped into her friends.
-Where have you been? – Emy asked. – We were worried sick.
Lain turned to point out the little house she stepped out from, but she couldn’t see it any more.
-At least, I have her. – she showed them the sword, the only proof of that misterious encounter. And as if all was made clear, no more questions were asked.
For the rest of their shopping the little grassrunner, that earlier took Lain to the dark hut, sticked to them. He did not tried to hide his intent, to go with them whereever. They had to accept Erin as their fifth company.

Early in the morning, they left the city of Christiania. They headed north, not hurrying at all. Their chatter filled the road with a nice mood.
With a sudden move Peter fired an arrow into the woods along the road. Brief cursing came from the direction. They all stopped their horses, and walked towards the voice. A bearded, middle aged man was trying to free his pinned weapons belt.
-I guess you just found me… – he forced a laugh – I’m not anyone suspicios. I just thought, that I might be lucky and find some treasure if I follow you.
Gabriel frowned at him slightly, the girls probably didn’t even notice.
-Don’t cause as trouble. Ride with us, ‘stead of stalking us. – With a swift move, he pulled the arrow from the tree, freeing the man.
-I’m Peter. I humbly offer my skills to your journey. – he bowed with a grin, but that grin was honest.

Now the six of them, started their journey towards Cloudy Mountains and Balckmuur. A journey towards unknown.

Always looking for something far… but it is really close. I’m looking for something, but it is here with me. I’ve lost it once. I lost it within myself.

I know all.

Still, I keep looking. I extend my world through dreams, fiction. I extend my world through time and space… even every single different alternative reality. I extend my world to escape it.

For a while, I’ve scattered myself. Scattered through all places in reach of my human side. I kept myself busy, pushing my limits to infinity. And it was no good. My world… I was falling.

I have returned. I know my world, my reality. I know myself. It should be like this always.

“I have always been thinking, it might have been nice to have born a girl. I wonder, where I’d be, what I’d be doing. I would like to have long hair. Wear skirts, and dresses. I’d want to be a good girl… But would I be like me? Would I be so reckless, so caring. Would I be so tired right now?
Would I want to be boy?
Would I be braver to fight for myself? Would I be able to help and protect my friends better?

Would my heart struggle this much?”

There’s a road that has the answers…

Zed opened his eyes to the quiet beeping of the autopilot. Hannah was still asleep next to him, lying under the blanket. Her gracous figure gave him a pleasant thought of last night. Her black long hair covered the pillow behind her back. Behind, a great window was looking onto a blueish planet revolving around a double star.
- We should not have dropped out of hyperspace yet. – he thought. Pulling up a pair of trousers, he went to mute the alarm. It didn’t wake them more harshly because sensors picked up no immediate danger. According to the starmap, they were in an uninhabited sector of the Erdan galaxy, thousand lightyears from the nearest spacestation. Not to mention “M” type planets. He started running through the flight log for an explanation.
Hannah leaned against his back, resting her head upon his shoulder, her breasts pushing against the muscles of the man, only the blanket dividing them. She was D cup, had a thin waist and broad hip, and beautiful legs. She knew he could turn his attention to herself, she would only had to cross a thin line in his mind, but her patient nature wouldn’t let her. She simply waited for him to finish.
He stood up with a sigh and turned to kiss her. His strong build firmly embraced the woman, which she always found assuring.
- There was an unknown error in the main power conduits. The safeties went off. – he always cared about using the language in it’s original form. Sometimes people around found themselves not understanding this quite old dialect of english, but he insisted.
- We still have time. – she said. – Let’s have breakfast. – she left bridge to get dressed. The doors of the lift closed on her smile. Zed turned on the main computer system, and asked it for a complete diagnostics.

They just finished the continental breakfast, when Hotaru’s image was projected into the dining hall, reporting the completion of the diagnostics. Hotaru was the soul of the refitted second class passenger ship, Hotaru IX. For more than six hundred years, spaceship AI personality files were kept along throughout the upgrades. This way, trustworthy and experienced help was given to the ship commanders. The Hotaru IX. was in Zed’s possession for the last twenty years, and after she’d been refitted to his needs acording to his quite genius plans, she’s been given very good maintenance. Thus, such failures occurred almost never.
The report had some overload notifications of the connectors of the main power conduits, the hyperdrive and long-range sensors.
- Neighboring nodes… – he said half loud. Hotaru nodded. The projection turned off. They still had plenty time until the reception. They finished their coffee and returned to the bedroom for a while.

Zed was sitting next to node 0x27A. The case was open, extending a meter away from the wall. Among the crystals glowing inside, two rows were completely burned. Four meters away, node 0x28A was in the same condition.
He was pointlessly pondering the situation. No matter how good he was with L3 spaceship computer technologies, he couldn’t figure a way to replace all sixteen main power crystals. Near the second node Hotaru was quietly writing into her notebook, calculating power consumption. Hannah entered the corridor, bringing a mug of coffee to Zed. She smiled at Hotaru, then handed over the hot drink to his husband.
- How is it coming? – she asked.
- Not good. Sixteen crystals burned at the same time, and we have only four spares. Not enough for either hyperdrive or long-range scanners alone. even if it was, flying in hyperspace without a radar is badly discouraged.
She looked at him expectingly.
- We could use power crystals from other systems, but we would need those systems as well.

There were only thirteen hours left until the reception. The cargo bay was fully loaded with comic books from Galactic Manga, the company Zed worked for. He was a head contactor, and was to deliver the newest series to a great events among the press. Since he had the job, he was one of the best. Their permanent home became the Hotaru IX after the passenger cabins were changed into living quarters. Before her current form, Hotaru has been the soul of military, passenger and once a cargoship. Her history made her perfect for accompanying the couple.
But this time, she was stuck. The time was running short, and her knowledgebase did not cover scenarios like this one. Zed has been sitting their for hours, and Hannah went to the observatory room, since she couldn’t help much.

The idea just popped from his head.
- Hotaru, open all node panels. – he ordered. then he got some optical wires from a box, and started fitting it into the place of the burnt crystals. – We are going to create a mass node. All main systems will receive their power from one big connection to the conduit. And since shields and weapons are not necessary at the same time as hyperdrive engines, there should be enough distributed power all enabled systems.
It was quite job to connect all main panels, given there were 48 of them. Their original purpose was redundancy. But he patched the panels in time.

- Test it now.
- Enabling long-range sensors. Starting up hyperdrive for test run. – Hotaru’s image flickered for a second. – All systems running.
The patch Zed made for the main computer’s OS was quite astounding, given the time he had to make it. He haven’t done any coding for a while either. But after a couple of tries, they were good to go.
- Continue the given flight then, please. – he wiped a drop of sweat from his forehead. – I’ll get lunch.

A hat katona csendesen beszelgetett egy kiegett haz masodik emeleten. Semmi nem hallatszott odakint, es a beszelgetesbe is hosszas szunetek akadtak. Az egyikuk kicsit tavolabb ult a tobbiektol, sisakjanak lehajtott rostelyan keresztul figyelte a beszelgetest, mikozben a plexin megjeleno informaciok kotottek le inkabb.
Orak teltek el igy, varakozva.
Aki odebb ult korabban, vallan harom himezett haromszog szerint rangidos az egysegben, most felcsapta a rostelyat, es halkan felebresztette a tarsait. Lassan osszeszedtek a felszereleseiket, es klasszikus Kharai felderito formacioban ereszkedtek le a foldszintre, majd mentek a bejaratig. Ovatosan haladtak, az epuletek nyujtotta fedezekben, kihasznalva minden kiszogellest. Az osszeszokott csapat tokeletesen kovette T kezjelzeseit.
Az elol halado Greg es Zoey neztek at eloszor rampat vedo falon. A poziciojukat mindketten kivalo kozelharc es improvizalo kepessegukel erdemeltek ki, bar mindkettojuk ruhajan a harmadik rang jelzese volt. A rampat orzo Tereli orseg lankadt kozonyosseggel beszelgetett. Az orseget elhagyo valtas lassan bandukolt a rampa aljanal fekvo ellato tamaszpont fele. Greg kezjelekkel kozolte a katanok poziciojat, mikozben Zoey tovabbra is szemmel tartotta a tavolodo nehany embert. Masfel perc volt hatra. T utasitasara hangtompitot csavaroztak a fegyvereikre, es Zoey levette a fal tetejerol a taktikai sisak kulso kamerajat.
Az adrenalin szintje a csapat minden tagjanak egyszerre ropult az egekbe, amikor a parancsnok elinditotta az akciot. Hatulrol Will indult el az epulet toveben, kozvetlenul mogotte T. Ekozben a fal mellett allo kisebb ladakupacot kihasznalva Greg atugrotta a keritest, es leadta az elso lovest a fele kozelebb eso zsakfedezek mogott allo orre. Zoey pontosan kovette a nala 5 evvel idosebb Greget. A rampatol jobbra allo ket or holtan terult el a foldon. Bal oldalrol, a kapu masik felen egy kavics repult a masik ket or laba ele. Aztan ez a ket or is holtan dolt el.
Az egyseg elert a celpontot. T a hatizsakjabol C4-es robbananyagot szedett elo es azokat a rampa leghosszabb labahoz rogzitette az egyik oldalon. A hatul marad Storm csomagjabol elokerult egy ujabb adag C4, ami a masik pillerre kerult. Ekozben az egyik oldalon Zoey es Greg, a masik oldalon Will es Doki probalta beleelni magat az orok szerepebe.
A visszavonulni keszulo katonak fele ekkor hirtelen egy csapatszallito indult a tabor felol, majd egyszer csak tuzet nyitott rajuk az anyosulesrol egy gepfegyveres. A rejtozkodo T egy granatot toltott fegyverenek vastagabb csovebe, es keresztul lotte a teherauto szelvedojet, amitol az megallt es nagy fustfelho szallt ki belole.
- Futas. – szolt a parancs.
A tabor felol ket jeep indult el felfele. A csapat elerte az elso epuletet, majd a masodikat. Egy szuk sikatorban haladtak nyugat fele. A jarmuvuk merfoldekre volt. Golyok suvitettek a fuluk mellett. T elol, a csapatot hatulrol Greg es Zoey fedezni probalta, de a tulero nyomult utanuk a sikatorban. Egy tar kifogyott, majd a masodik is. Egy loves eltalalt egy femkontenert, majd Will oldalaba furodott. Doki, aki kozvetlenul elotte haladt, megfordult, es behuzta a kontener moge. Zoey mellejuk huzodott, kivette az egyik tartalek tarat sebesult tarsa mellenyzsebebol, belokte az gepfegyverebe, es folytatta a tuzelest.
- Sulyos? – kerdezte ket sorozat kozott.
Doki megrazta a fejet. Ures huvelyek potyogtak a foldre. Storm futott felejuk.
- Gyerunk tovabb. – mondta, majd felkapta egyik oldalrol Willt, a masik oldalrol Doki tartotta haldoklo tarsukat. Mogottuk Greg hatralt folyamatosan, falhoz tapadva. A masodik tarnak a vegen tartott, S61-es taktikai fegyveret mar elozo tarcserenel felautomata modba kapcsolta.
A sikator vegen T adott le vegzetes loveseket az epuleteket megkerulo tereli harcosokra, majd a sebesultet cipelo tarsait fedezve oldalazott at a valamikor 4 uton. Zoey is kiert a sikatorbol, igy szeme lattara szakitotta at egy lovedek T sisakjanak plexijet. Storm elengedte Willt, akinek a sulya alatt Doki egyedul lerogyott, majd lelotte a T-t megolo katonat. Aztan ujabbat, aztan megegyet. Zoey a kozben masik iranybol is megjeleno katonakra nyitott tuzet, de egy sorozat a sikatorbol atvitte a golyoallo mellenyet.
Greg uvoltott, es visszakapcsolt automata modba, es lott a sikatorba. Tobb loves is surolta, verzett a karja, a sisakja eltorott. Doki kozben Zoeyhoz rohant, elhuzta a sikator szajabol, probalta kitapintani a sebesuleset.
- Doki, hagyj. – a fiatal sracot elhagyta az elet, es tehetetlenul fekudt a teste. Az orvos felkapta az S91-est, es is egy tarat beleuritett a feleje rohano ellenseges katonaba.
Hangos dorrenes hallatszott. Egy mesterlovesz leteritette az utca tuloldalan allo Stormot. Az utolso erejevel a nyakaban logo kis negyzetet szoritotta.
Greg kihatralt a sikatorbol. A feje csunyan verzett, de kezjellel mutatta Dokinak, hogy hagyja. Aztan bolintott, mire Doki a sisakjan megnyomott egy gombot.
- Sevensea, this is lonewolf delta. Mission accomplished, the horde is lost.
A harangok megkondultak tavolban, egyet, kettot… Del volt. Egy granat gurult ki lassan a sikatorbol.