Chapter 8

When the light receded and Johnny opened his eyes he had just enough time to recognize the unfamiliar landscape the Voyager transported to as anything but Banzai Bangers or even the world he was meant to explore. He blinked, his heart hammering against his chest as the Voyager skidded against the rough, golden earth, spiralling out of control and making a terrible cacophony of noises as it broke through the tall grass and barrelled towards an oasis with some of the strangest animals he’d ever seen.

Johnny gritted his teeth, his knuckles turning white as he yanked the emergency brake. Johnny’s body jerked but Brandon barely had time to brace and the sudden stop flung him out through the windshield. He crashed against the dirt with a dull, painful thud and rolled several feet before coming to a stop.

“Brandon!” Johnny yelled over the alarms blaring in the Voyager, ignoring them all he unbuckled and jumped out the car and rushed over to Brandon, fearing the worst.

Just as he came close though, Brandon pushed himself up, groaning as he shook off the impact like it was nothing more than a rough landing. His racing suit was torn up and a dribble of blood poured down from his nose, the trail staining his gritted teeth.

Convar blood…stronger, faster, supposed to be smarter too. Johnny sighed, relieved to see Brandon alive even after experiencing what would have broken a human. However, relief quickly turned to shock and tension as Brandon’s pained sneer turned into the all too familiar death glare.

A fist slammed into Johnny’s ribs, the Lonsdaelite armour doing well to protect him but nothing to mitigate the shock that sent him stumbling back with no time to recover as Brandon pounced.

Johnny’s head bounced against the earth, his helmet the only thing protecting his skull as Brandon straddled atop him, sending punches at his face, chest and gut. The Shadow Wolf winced at his knuckles, the Lonsdaelite armour did more damage to him than he was to it, a split second distraction Johnny took advantage of. He thrusted his legs against Brandon’s back and twisted out of his straddle.

Brandon scrambled after him, his claw scratched against the helmet but Johnny retaliated with a foot to the groin. “Agh! You-!” The Shadow Wolf moaned, bent over and vulnerable for a well placed, knuckle cracking punch the knocked him over.

Not wasting the advantage Johnny leapt onto Brandon and delivered the same beatings against his raised arms, he pulled them away and placed two more punches against Brandon’s jaw before the Shadow Wolf roared, an enraged, maddened look in his eyes. He stopped defending entirely and instead wrapped his hands around Johnny’s waist, hoisting him up as he continued to roar and tank the assault against his face.

Knowing what he wanted to do Johnny hugged Brandon with his legs and kept up the assault even as the Shadow Wolf slammed him against the earth, his helmet once again protecting his head from damage but nothing could be said about his ribs. His lungs emptied out at impact, the air knocked out of him.

Before Johnny could recuperate Brandon was taking off his helmet, having found the button somehow. Johnny only managed a single inhale before Brandon bashed his nose in. He raised a hand to defend but Brandon’s punches hurt just as much against his arms as they did his face.

“You always gotta make everything a damn fight,” Johnny gritted out, blocking another strike.

Brandon sneered. “Because it is.”

Before the brawl could escalate, both racers stilled at the sound of snapping branches and rustling leaves. From the thick brush beyond the oasis, figures emerged—half a dozen human men clad in rugged clothes that might well be rags, their weapons rusted and bloody.

At first glance, as Johnny and Brandon peeled off each other, he thought they might be hunters looking for the prey the Voyager’s appearance chased off. But then they began to encircle, six of them creeping around them with measured steps. Their grips on the machete’s and clubs tightened as they eyed Johnny and Brandon.

“***” one of them barked, his voice edged with authority even in the foreign language. “***!” he yelled, leveling his dripping machete at Johnny.

His muscles tensed and Brandon backed against him, equally harassed by the men encroaching on his side, “What are they saying, Victoris?” he hissed.

“I don’t know, I’ve never heard this language before, this is…” for a moment Johnny’s eyes took in the world; a golden desert landscape spotted with trees and bushes with black leaves, the sky was red as the sun that hung up in it, blighting the planet in a hot and humid temperature. The opposite of everything they’ve come from. He gulped, the reality of what he’d signed up for dawning on him, “This is a new world.”

Brandon cursed under his breath as one of the men came closer, “Hey, get back!”

The men began to yell at them, all screaming and waving their bloodied weapons. Johnny shared a look with Brandon, it was wordless but clear; they had bigger problems than each other now.

Two of the men lunged for Brandon. The Shadow Wolf was faster, he weaved around the overextended swing of a club, caught the man’s arm and slammed him into the dirt before kicking the other square in the chest.

Johnny ducked under the slice of a machete as their leader and two others came after him. He dodged another swing of the blade meant to skewer his side and stepped forward, driving his armoured fist into the leader’s jaw. Blood and teeth spattered and for a moment the men were too concerned for their leader to attack Johnny.

“Albert,” Johnny yelled out as he tackled a distracted minion to the ground, he punched the startled man’s face, breaking his nose before rolling away from another machete slice, “Weapons now, Albert!”

The Voyager’s onboard AI responded instantly. A whir of machinery saw its trunk open and two mounted pulsar blasters attached to the rooftop. Albert immediately fired, releasing a blast of energy from the pulsars at two men hounding Brandon. The force of the blast sent them sprawling, lifted and thrown into the oasis where they splashed, gasping for air knocked out of their lungs.

As Albert recentred the pulsars the rest still standing quickly turned to flee, horrified by the Voyager’s power and realizing the advantage was heavily turned against them. They dispersed back into the bushes faster than they’d appeared, leaving behind their blasted allies to fetch themselves out of the oasis.

“Yeah! That’s what you get, come try it again!” he roared at his scrambling assailants. They splashed out of the water, leaving their weapons behind as they fled.

Brandon spat a glob of blood, saliva and mucor, panting heavily from the encounter he didn’t bother letting the dust settle. I snatched Johnny’s helmet from where it’d rolled off to during their scuffle and wiped his nose of blood, “I’m done here.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“What?” Johnny breathed out, heavily out of breath. He hadn’t been in a brawl like that for some time and immediately found a place to sit once the angry natives dispersed. “What do you think here is?”

“A place I’m done with.” Brandon snarled, scavenging one of the natives machete’s for his own, “I’m done with you, Victoris.”

As good as it was to hear that, Johnny understood more about their situation than Brandon, “Stop, you can’t just wander off into the dark. This isn’t where the Dimensional Drive was meant to take me. If you hadn’t interfered-”

“Can it! I said I’m done, taking this with me.” he growled as he wore the helmet. With nothing else to say he turned and walked away, disappearing into the tall grass without so much as a backward glance.

“Great, that’s just great.” Johnny exhaled, unsure of what to do now. Half of him wanted to go after Brandon, there could still be more of those guys out there or worse. He didn’t know anything about this world or its dangers and there wasn’t a single sign of civilization anywhere in sight, not even on the red tinted horizon.

He squinted against the red sun’s glare and considered the Voyager. It was still smoking from its trunk, where much of the Dimensional Drive and its tech components were, he didn’t need to be Cole Mcdaris to know the thing was busted in a way he couldn’t repair, at least not without spending time he didn’t have.

“Gotta call in.” He sighed and hopped into the car only to be reminded of the damage Brandon’s chopped claws did. He groaned, “Albert, is there at least one working comm in this mess?”

“Yes, Johnny, in fact, Agent Nadim, Cole Mcdaris and others have been trying to reach you for the past twenty minutes.” Albert said.

“Put them on then!”

There was a dial tone and then, “Johnny!” it was Nadim, “What the hell happened? What the hell was that?!” There was no room for the usual jokes here, Nadim was so irritated Johnny could imagine his bared fangs.

“Short version? We’re not on the world we were-”

“Yeah no duh!” Nadim yelled and something in the background sounded like it broke, “You were meant to head to Tezcatlis not wherever the hell you and Brandon have found yourselves.”

Johnny paused at that, letting Nadim’s words and their implication sink in before asking, “What do you mean by wherever? Where are we Nadim? Where did the Voyager spit me out?”

Nadim sighed. Johnny could hear the bad news in how his anger dissipated to mild irritation, “We don’t have any data on this place, didn’t even know it existed until now. Brandon shouldn’t have messed with our car, his interference is going to cost us everything. Those Banzai -”

Johnny swore under his breath, gasping as he began to panic, “So what, I’m just stuck here?” He hadn't seen his parents in years, hadn’t had a meal with them. He hadn’t even wished Clara goodluck on her exams. He couldn’t be stuck here, he had to fix things!

“Not necessarily,” Nadim said without much confidence. “We’ll figure something out, whatever you two knuckleheads did to the Drive fried it bad enough another jump won’t be possible for some time. Cole’s talking with your AI right now, it’ll send him the details of what’s broken and if it can be fixed.”

Johnny breathed a sigh of relief. At least it was possible to return home from wherever.

“In the meantime, keep track of what’s out there. This might be an opportunity for something, just don’t know what yet.”

Johnny rolled his eyes. “Great. Always wanted to be a pioneer.”

Nadim sighed, “Now put Brandon on, his handler wants to talk to him.”

There was a muffle and distanced but loud, “Stop calling me that, Nadim.”

“Helene is here too? Nadim, Brandon’s run off!” Johnny yelled, his ribs aching growing acute and his frustrations piling.

“What! Why?”

“Weren’t you watching? He attacked me and then we got jumped by a gang of butchers.”

“Butchers? Video data isn’t being relayed back for some reason. Either Brandon broke off the cameras we had or the Dimensional jump sent the Voyager’s equipment on the fritz.” Cole’s voice said in the background of the call. “See if you can fix it on your side Johnny, there’s a Voytab in your glove box.”

Johnny groaned, fixing the Voyager was the last thing on his mind but it remained pressing, there were a lot more issues than simply going back home. He needed to be safe out here.

“This isn’t good new Nadim,” Helene yelled, “You’ll be hearing from the Directors.”

“Don’t threaten me, your boy signed the waivers just like ours!” Nadim snapped back at Brandon’s agent, their argument droned in the back, voices receding until there was silence on the call.

And then, “Johnny? Are you safe?”

“Oh, Jamie.” Johnny sighed, his frustrations partly melting to hear his brother’s voice again, “It’s not looking good but…”

“You’ll be fine. I know and I’ll explain it to Mom and Clara.” Jamie said, not a sound of doubt in his voice. “Just stay safe while Cole here works his magic. You’ll be home before you know it.”

“You’re too strong to be my little brother sometimes, you know that?” Johnny chuckled.

Jamie snorted, “Of course I do, why do you think I’m so strong?” There was a pause, Jamie’s breath still lingering, “Listen, I have to go out now, things are getting heated out here and I’m a fish out of water without you here. I’ll be back the moment there’s news.”

“Okay Jamie, don’t worry about me. I’ll be safe.”

“You better. Talk later.” the line clicked.

With the call ended, leaving Johnny by himself, in a savannah with a red sky and sun. His nose, jaw and chest throbbed with pain but a better pain than he would’ve if those men had gotten to him. Johnny took stock of the Voyager, if it was going to be his mobile home until DRIFTERS figure how to get him back, he needed to be safe and right now it had two broken windows courtesy of Brandon.

He groaned and set out to have a proper look at all the damaged parts of the Voyager. He was no Cole Mcdaris but he could tune one or two things up, granted the Voyager still had the ability to print new parts.

Steam and smoke smoldered from the trunk, Johnny winced at the scene, not liking the look one bit. He quickly popped the trunk open, his gloves sparing him steam burns as he took a look, coughing as the smoke tendrilled up his nostrils. It smelled raw and electric.

He waved it out of his face and began inspecting the Creation Core first, the machine responsible for the Voyager’s transformations and part replication. The Dimensional Drive and its special antimatter core powered device and its nanites but right now, it was overheated and likely disabled. In the two months he worked with Cole he got to learn a bit about it but not enough that his faith in doing any good wasn’t shaken. And I need it to create new bits to fix the rest of this mess.

Johnny sighed, grumbling as he returned to the Voyager and retrieved the control tab from the glove box, “This is going to be a long night.”