Paradise

Three

3019, Earth

"We need to get in touch with the space center," said Ben, referring to Justine as Ben drove the spaceship past numerous buildings. Many other spaceships were flying around as well. Justine was sitting on the passenger seat, beside the driver. On Justine's right was a small device planted on the dashboard that was probably a communication device for the police force. Upon seeing this, he nodded to Ben and began working on it.

Jones and Rizza sat at the backseat of the police ship. Neither of them said anything as they zoomed past colorful buildings and blurs of different models of spaceships. Despite their situation, they were in awe of their surroundings.

At last, Jones peeled her face away from the window, her face frowning. All of reality came back to her as she remembered what happened in the past hour.

Jose was captured.

Rizza realized this and patted her back. "Are you okay?"

"No," replied Jones. "Obviously."

Rizza sighed. "I know it's hard to get over someone you left, but sometimes, you have to leave them. I was an orphan who was raised by an arrogant wealthy family. They taught me how to survive in the new world yet even in my toughness, I couldn't stand the fact that my parents were just. . .poof. Gone.

"You need to put the tough face on. We're in a mission and we need all the people who can help us. Jose helped us a lot, I'll admit that. He was a good guy and is willing to make sacrifices for the team. You should be like him too."

Rizza turned her face so that Jones was facing her. "Be a badass for me," said Rizza, courage filling her voice.

Before Jones opened her mouth to respond, the intercom of the ship buzzed to life and they heard the familiar voice of Richard, who rang out. "Why are you guys in a police ship?"

"It's a long story alright," replied Ben without even looking at the holographic version of Richard.

Richard raised an eyebrow, but it wasn't clear on the hologram. "Why don't you tell me?"

So, together with his other conpanions, Ben filled him in about his unexpected visit to how they got in a police ship.

But halfway, they heard a groan rapidly getting louder, like as if some ship was trying to catch them. . .

And then Rizza knew. She shouted, "Police ships!"

Everyone else turned to her. Ben raised an eyebrow. "Hmm?"

"No. Enemy police ships!" she corrected herself loudly. To emphasize her point, a beam passed over their ship's left wing, just a few inches left and they would have been hit.

"Shutdown beams," she heard Ben mutter aloud. "Time to go." Then he kicked the ship to full gear and sped over other spacecrafts as the other police ships were hot on their tail.

"Action Key: Tesser," said Justine. A holographic panel appeared in front of him. A battery-shaped bar began filling up slowly from the bottom to the top. "Around a few minutes."

This is bad, Ben thought. Another shutdown beam sounded overhead, but instead of hitting their ship, it hit a skyscraper, shutting the beautiful lights off and sending the once majestic building tumbling to the ground. "Eventually, it will block the way," he heard Rizza say.