• The ropes on the air pirate ship untied and they flew off into the sky. Maruru and Rey were finally members of the famous sky thieves, Fallen Star. Too bad the symbol didn’t look like a star anymore.
    “Man, we could’ve gotten an Aier for me when we were at Post Ten!” Maruru whines. “I want one”
    “I’m not wasting any money on you” Fen shouts.
    “Bleh” she sticks her tongue out at him. “Money hugger!”
    “You better believe it!” he bellows and returns to shining his Aier.
    Maruru storms into the forecastle, slamming the door closed behind her.
    Non chuckles. “Poor Maruru”
    Roe tilts his head to the side. “I thought she was you girlfriend! Aren’t you going to go comfort her?”
    Non scratches his head, his laugh went shaky and nervous. “We were just kidding about that…it was a joke…”
    “Oh, well you had me fooled” Roe stretches his arms and lets out a big yawn. Then something zoomed above his head, piercing against the mast he leaned on. Roe looks up. “Knife!” he gasped. “Okay, who threw that?!” he turns to Keller, the obvious suspect. “It was you, wasn’t it? I know you were always jealous of me but that’s no reason for attempt murder!”
    Keller lets out a breath. “What are you talking about?” she says wearily. “I didn’t—” before she could finish talking, a knife streaked toward her, and she caught it by the hilt, the tip of the blade an inch away from her eye.
    Everybody lunged for their weapons, not needing to be told that they were under attack. Keller had her tommy gun in the black case she wore slung across her back. Fen unsheathed his two double edged swords. Roe readied his rocket launcher on his shoulder. Non got on his Aier and headed out the ship, searching for the attacker. Rey and Ayn were cautiously scanning the sky.
    A strange grey ball fell and rolled over the deck.
    Fen stared. “What the—” the ball suddenly explodes; thick smoke engulfed the whole ship. “—hell!” he roars. It was a smoke bomb.
    “I can’t see a damn thing!” Rey looks in all directions, coughing.
    “Non!” Ayn yells. “Can you see anything?!”
    No reply.
    Ayn cursed under his breath. He tried searching for his Aier to clear the smoke but he couldn’t find it, neither could the others. There was a loud thump, followed by four more, then shouting and running. The enemy was surrounding them and they couldn’t do anything about it.
    “Let go of me!” Maruru yells. She got dragged out of the forecastle by one of the enemy, a man wearing a white suit, the same one from Post Ten.
    The smoke clears slightly and Ayn gets a faded look at the man. “You’re—” before Ayn could finish, the man spoke.
    “Finally, I found it” and by ‘it’ he meant Maruru.
    “What do you mean?” Ayn barks, not understanding. “Found what?”
    He grins menacingly. “You’ve had it and you don’t know what it is? I suppose I can’t blame you. The old fool hid it good for these past sixteen years”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about” Ayn says as he puts on his fighting gloves. “But I’m not going to let anyone waltz in and take her!” he dashed forward at great speed, almost invisible, and pulled back his fist. But before he could land a blow, the man grins and disappears.
    The smoke cleared seconds later, revealing the whole ship, showing no signs of enemy attack. Roe, Fen, and Keller were lying unconscious on the deck. There was a small needle protruding from the side of their necks—tranquilizers. Ayn ran to the side of the ship and looked down; expecting to see the enemy’s ship, but it wasn’t there. Non was out of sight, too. Ayn slams his fist on the ledge and sinks to his knees.
    “Non…” he says solemnly. “Find her and make sure you guys come back” he scans the deck slowly, realizing Rey was gone. “Don’t die”

    to be continued