Kali was still stunned by Philip’s move. Why had he tried to save her life? Hadn’t he seen that she had an anti-ballistic shield? It was sweet in a way, but completely unnecessary. Very surprising too. He was the last one she thought would have done something like that.

Krovukk had picked him up on his shoulder and they had already applied a healing potion after Xar had picked out the bullets. He was groaning but his life wasn’t in danger.

She still had a hard time understanding that Philip of all people would do something like that. Granted she hadn’t known him for very long, but he had never struck her as someone helping others unless it benefited him. And she had been pretty sure of her assessment of him.

They continued their escape from the [Admiral] despite the lack of pursuers, just in case. They had apparently stopped chasing them for some reason, but they had no way to know if it was temporary or if they would pick up the chase again, and with two members of their group gone, they wouldn’t stand a chance.

The group continued in a dazed silence, following after her as she just ran on autopilot. She had never run this much or this fast in her life. Exhaustion was catching up to her now, slowly. Hallway after hallway passed as she started to notice there were less and less people, and almost everyone she saw now were as panicked as them, which seemed strange.

Why would they panic? The [Admiral] wasn’t on their ass was he? So what could make them look afraid for their lives? Then it struck her, that huge mana overload earlier. That must be it. She had somehow completely forgotten about it with the others leaving and her fatigue.

They were close to the hangar now, and she saw a throng of people blocking the way, trying to get in before the others, who all did the same. What in the system’s name was going on? The group slowed down as they looked at the strange situation. So Kali did the only thing that came to mind. She asked someone what was going on.

“Excuse me, but what is going on?” She asked as she touched someone's shoulder.

“Ahh! Don’t touch me!” The person yelled before continuing to try and push past the others blocking the way.

“What’s the holdup?! Let me through!” The person had ignored her completely already.

“The ship is being attacked, everyone is trying to evacuate.” Kali turned around to face the voice. She had to look down to find the person speaking. The dwarf was chilling against the wall with a resigned look on his face.

“Why are you not trying to escape then?” She asked, curious why he wasn’t trying to make a run for it like the others.

“I’d get trampled, trust me, my cousin died like that. I’d rather die with some dignity.” He shrugged.

“But this ship has weapons, defenses, why is everyone thinking that the ship is doomed?” She had to ask the obvious as everyone else except the dwarf seemed rather stupid right now in their panicked state.

“Oh you really don’t know… it’s Crystal’s ships. An armada or something. All I know is that the crew on the bridge instantly evacuated when they saw what we were up against.” An O had formed on most of her group's faces as they processed his words.

But that made no sense, why would the Crystal Emporium even be out here? They didn’t even have a foothold out here. Nor would they ever need one. She looked at the others who looked as clueless as her. It was actually Philip's muffled voice that yelled something, but apparently he had gotten cloth or something in his mouth, so he repeated himself louder so the group could hear.

“Money, it’s always about money, idiots. Birds of Prey clearly pissed them off somehow, or the admiral.” Kali saw Krovukk and Xar look at each other, unsure if that would be enough to elicit that kind of response from the Crystal Emporium. The kid Matt looked confused, like he had no clue what was going on, period.

But would they really be spending so many resources for something like that? It still seemed far fetched, especially when you knew that the Emporium only cared about one thing. Maintaining the monopoly on mana crystals. Only, there were no crystals out here.

But they had spent millions of credits if not more on that teleportation spell, that was for sure, with the amount of mana they had pumped in. Maybe hundreds of millions. Only the Crystal’s Emporium could throw that kind of money around casually.

No, in her mind, it had to be something else. Something bigger. There had to be a reason they were after this ship, or maybe they were after the [Admiral] after all. Honestly, the more she thought about it, the less it seemed to matter in the moment.

“Guys, it doesn’t matter right now, we have to get on a ship and get the hell out of here before it’s too late.” Kali said and they all nodded.

“Well good luck getting into the hangar, the slaves escaped, again and are holding everyone off.” The dwarf laughed.

“That makes it easy.” It was Krovukk that spoke up. He strode forwards and yelled.

“Armed forces coming through! We’ll clear a path, get behind us!” He didn’t wait for anyone to comply and simply started pushing forwards, pushing people out of the way when needed. The rest of the group followed in behind him, and even the dwarf seemed to follow their group closely, taking his chance.

They continued to push to the front of the crowd where people were pushing others that were trying to back off, and yelling at each other. The ones in the front telling them to back off, and the ones behind them telling them to just get in there.

Krovukk? He roared once and they all turned to look at him, he pushed more people out of the way and now it seemed like everyone was aware of him and their group, they tried to move out of the way but there was no space. Still, it didn’t stop Krovukk who pushed through, squeezing some people together as he made his way through this sea of bodies.

As they came closer to the doors, they saw a barricade with a few of the freed slaves holding makeshift spears behind it, poking the people back. As they finally came into view, Kali stepped out from behind Krovukk.

“Hey, is that you Jamie? Can you let us through?”

“Kali? Yeah of course! You made it! We feared the worst when the ship started rumbling…” They started opening a small gap for them to squeeze through. Kali felt her heart ache as they closed it behind them. Shouldn’t they just take a ship and leave? Let everyone else enter the hangar? Why had they blocked the entrances and not just left?

As they truly came through though, something didn’t seem right. Suddenly it struck her, but she didn’t want to believe it. That wouldn’t be right. There were actually only three people holding the barricade, holding two spears each to make it appear that they were more. A facade to make people believe they would get hurt if they tried to push through.

She looked around again just to make sure she hadn’t come to the wrong conclusion before facing Jamie.

“Why?” Was all she asked. And the others of her group didn’t seem to understand what she had understood. It was obvious if you thought about it for a second. It just was so cruel, even if it was possibly the most likely to succeed.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“We are all volunteers, Kali, no need to be angry.” Jamie said defensively. Angry? She tried to relax the frown that had appeared on her face, but it wasn’t that easy. The more she thought about it, the angrier she actually got. They had left some behind to make sure no one could follow them and take them down, to make sure their escape would succeed. And in doing so were dooming the others of the ship as they blocked the hangar for everyone else.

“We have to leave and let everyone in, leave with as many people as possible. This ship is done for. We have to evacuate everyone.” She simply said while sighing. It was done, nothing to do about it now, they still had to move fast.

“But… we are supposed to give them time. We can’t just let people in Kali.” Jamie answered with a contrite expression.

“Jamie, this isn’t people going after them, they all just want to save themselves, we can’t just… kill them all like this.” She simply said. The three former slaves looked at each other and slowly abandonned their post. Kali turned around and yelled at the others holding back at barricades.

“Guys we have to leave, let them come, it doesn’t matter now!” Seeing them leave their barricade and people starting to flood into the room, they hesitated a bit before abandoning their barricades too. It wouldn’t make a difference now.

People started flooding in as they tried to stay together, moving towards the center. A crowd unlike anything she had ever seen in truth. A throng of panicked people finally trying to find a ride out of here. It was Xar that took her out of her moment of distraction.

“That one! I know that model, it’s easy to fly.” The rat pointed and their growing group started running towards it. Just before they arrived, someone else hopped into the ship and they all followed suit.

“No, this is my ship, take your own!” The guy said, pushing the button to close the ramp while some of them were on it, making them lose balance and fall off. Krovukk however simply threw Xar in the opening before it closed and a few seconds later the ramp went down again.

The other slaves had mostly joined them by now, only a few stragglers were missing. They were almost twenty now and more people tried to board their ship, only to be shooed away by the adventurers. They knew the ship wouldn’t be big enough for more than their group. Plus they might simply not want random panicked people on board.

It took them almost two whole long agonizing minutes to get everyone on board and close the ramps. People tried desperately to get a spot on their ship, hanging on to the ramp, preventing it from closing. It was madness out there.

“Anyone know how to fly ships?” Was the question that came from the cockpit. The person who answered surprised her.

“Yeah, I know how to fly.” It was Philip that moved towards the cockpit. Curious, she couldn’t help but follow them as Krovukk and some of the slaves continued to try and get the ramp shut behind them. It was almost closed now.

As they entered the cockpit, she noticed why Xar didn’t do the flying. It was a human seat and controls. They hadn’t installed an adaptive seat, it looked custom too. Philip sat down in the main pilot’s seat, turned to look at her and asked her a question. He had to repeat it once more as she somehow completely didn’t hear it the first time, the chaos, the situation, the everything distracting her.

“Ever flown before?” He asked her again, and he looked kind of angry at her for some reason. She simply shook her head, and he simply pointed to the seat anyway and muttered something under his breath.

In the hangar, she could see other ships starting up and moving out. Some moved smoothly, while others clearly hadn’t done this before. It was chaos, one ship even crashed into another, luckily with the shields, both the ships still worked, and the one that flew a bit crazily finally managed to get out of the hangar into space.

Then another, and another. While their own ship finally started up and hovered above the ground, something blinded her. It got bright so suddenly she had to protect her eyes with her arm. As the light faded, she saw what had happened to all the ships that had gone outside.

Only space debris were left, and now, the remaining ships hesitated. And before they could even fully process what was going on, the whole ship rumbled like never before. It groaned in a sound so loud, the main lights shut down and only red ones could be seen illuminating the hangar.

To the left, she saw that a breach was forming, the people left in the hangar were swiftly sucked out as the ship seemed to come apart around them. All the defensive systems seemed to have been pierced or destroyed as sound disappeared around them with the air getting sucked out.

The silent display of people getting sucked out into space with open mouths, some ships crashing and exploding without a sound and the hangar looking to come apart made for a horrific scene that would forever be engraved in her mind.

“They are going to kill everyone, let no one leave.” Philip simply said.

“What do we do then genius?” She couldn’t help but snap back.

“There is only one way to survive this kind of cleansing.” He had a look of determination she had never seen on his face before.

“Put on space suits everyone, and buckle up, this is probably suicide.” He finished the last part in a hushed voice only she heard.

“Philip, what’s the only way to survive this kind of cleans?” She asked, while holding on to random stuff around her. She sounded way calmer than she actually was, which surprised her.

“They’ll hunt down every ship they see, so we simply have to not look like a ship. Understand?” He said and turned to look at her. His calm demeanor was unravelled and she could see the terror in his eyes. He knew they were probably going to die, and it terrified him. How would they not look like a ship, in a ship?

“Can’t we just shut down all the systems and look like a dead ship?” She asked, panicked at what he was going to do.

Philip turned to Xar and the Skraa seemed to understand exactly what he wanted. They both nodded at each other in that strange way men did, like all they needed to understand each other was a nod, and Xar moved out to the back of the ship.

“Close your helmet, we are going airless for this one.” He said as he closed his own. Kali saw that behind them, people were strapping themselves in and also closing their helmets like they expected the ship to be depressurized.

But it was crazy, if they damaged the ship, they had no guarantee it would start back up again, meaning they might be stranded in deep space until their oxygen ran out. And it might not even save them.

“Ready!” She heard Xar yell from behind.

Their ship accelerated lightly before Philip did something she couldn’t understand. The ship started to spin strangely, like he was trying to confuse them, and just before she could ask, an explosion rocked the whole ship, and the air got sucked out of the previous airtight interior.

She looked behind to see a hole in the ship, with everyone strapped as far away from the hole as possible. All the ship's systems were off, and they were spinning and spinning. Ah, it finally hit her, the way to not look like a ship was to look like space debris.

Still, they had a light momentum forward that carried them ever so slowly out of the hangar. That would be the moment of truth. As the ship slowly spun and advanced, imitating space junk, she had to wait until the ship spun around to see the hangar behind them.

It looked so empty now. There was not a single body remaining, with only a ship or two trying to learn how to fly, while the rest of the ships seemed to be torn apart. She couldn’t hear or feel any explosions, but they could all see different lights appearing quickly before disappearing all around.

As the ship slowly turned, she spotted enemy spaceships flying towards them, guns blazing. They sprayed at the few remaining ships behind them, but a few projectiles still hit their ship, making them spin even harder.

She looked behind her to see where the others were strapped in, only to see that another hole had appeared, and they had lost two members. Still, she knew they had been lucky. It could have been so much worse. It felt like they still might make it.

The ship drifted slowly, ever so slowly, and she saw the same fighter ships flying around and shooting the ship from different angles, but they were slowly, slowly getting away from it all. Ignored. Still, no one moved. But it did seem like they had survived. Looking back, it almost looked like they would be the only ones.

She couldn’t help but think about Erika and her brothers. She wondered if they had found a way to make it like them. She didn’t know them that well, but she hoped they would make it.

Philip’s hand grabbed her shoulder and he said something. The vibrations kind of traveled through but got so muffled it sounded strange. In the end, he set his helmet’s hard glass against hers and spoke again. This time she managed to understand what he said at least.

“Stop worrying about others and start worrying about us. The ship might not even start back up with all the damage.” She was tempted to try there and then, but he stopped her.

“It’s too early, we are too close.” So she sat back and tried to relax. Everything that had happened was still so vivid in her mind she couldn’t stop her thoughts from going round and round at an insane speed.

Still, something brought her out of it in the end.

[Level up! → Breaker Of Chains level 21!]

[New Skill! → Unstoppable Justice]

[New Skill! → Lesser Endurance]

[Conditions Met → Skill Inspiring Presence Changes to → Beacon Of Hope]

She had leveled up SIX TIMES?