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says. “But no matter how fast we go, it will take time to get the ship off the ground once we land. We can’t risk Harmony hitting us during that time. It’s best to pick this thing off now, and then hope we can get out of orbit before she sends more shit after us.”
    There’s nothing below us now but endless corn fields. The Marauder re-terraforming has made Illinois a farmland once again. It had been barren desert for over a century. The farmland luckily does not have a lot of drones on patrol, so most anything that is chasing us will come from Chicago and not from the south.
    And I still can’t believe this guy who I took for a total asshole is endangering his life to save me. I haven’t even thanked him yet...but after that look he gave me, it would feel wrong to say something as plain and simple as “thank you.”
    So I will wait. And I’ll make sure he knows that I understand the sacrifice he made for me.
    “Okay,” Ramses says. “I think I’m close enough.”
    He raises his hand at the window.
    “Shouldn’t you break the window first?” I ask.
    “I can’t see the car if I break it.”
    The car is highlighted green, and Ramses’s hand is pointed right at it. Suddenly I see a teal-colored liquid rushing across his hand. It completely covers him, as if he dipped his hand just past the wrist into a bucket of paint. The liquid hardens into some kind of armor, and then it all begins to glow a deep purple.
    “You probably want to back up,” he says.
    I get off the seat and duck down, and then I see a thick beam of plasma erupt out of his hand. The purple light fills the car, lasting for a full two or three seconds, and then the light and the beam are gone. Ramses is still holding his armored hand outwards, but his face is filled with confusion.
    “What’s wrong?” I ask, looking up at the hole in the windshield. Molten orange glass is dripping down.
    “There was no explosion,” he says. “I’m confident I didn’t miss.”
    “Maybe you just burned out the propulsion, and it dropped –”
    “No explosion on the ground,” he says.
    He squints, and I look up and see it, too. A faint purple glow behind us in the distance.
    “Dodge randomly! Hard!” Ramses shouts.
    Before I can even grab hold of something, the car obeys Ramses’s command. I feel my stomach churn, and I’m falling down the seat, right into Ramses. He grabs hold of me tightly, his hands lock around my waist and chest, and then I feel his muscles bulge as he secures me against his body. His back slams into the door as the car turns wildly, and in the sky above us I see a brilliant purple beam lance across it.
    The car jolts again, and Ramses swings his back around as we fall. He slams into the other door, shielding me from the impact with his own body.
    Another purple beam races across the sky, closer this time.
    The car keeps dodging, and Ramses does his best to shield me, but we are thrown about wildly for nearly a full minute. The beams continue shooting across, but none manage to hit.
    After another thirty-second rollercoaster ride, the beams stop.
    “Fly straight,” Ramses instructs. “Dodge if you see a purple glow.”
    The car stabilizes, but my stomach is still mush. Ramses doesn’t let go of me; he’s holding me tightly against him even though the car is totally stable.
    “Beginning descent to Peacekeeper ship,” the car says.
    “Why did they stop firing?” I ask. “And how the fuck does Harmony have plasma rifles?”
    “I don’t think it’s Harmony,” he says. “I think it’s Grius.”
    “What?” I ask. “How would Grius know we are…unless….”
    And then it hits me. “Harmony is working with Darkstar.”
    “Land two kilometers away from the ship,” Ramses says. “We’re getting off now.”
    “Getting off?” I ask. “We’re not even close to the ground!”
    Ramses punches the window with his armored fist, knocking out all the rest of the glass. “I’ve only done this once, but it was on