January 25, 2019. The Warehouse.
I slammed my fist onto the enter key. "Bring it down! NOW!"
"Protocol Initiated," Archi's voice was calm, a terrified contrast to the shouting outside. "Emergency descent profile active."
The warehouse became a war zone of noise. Flashbangs detonated in the main hall, turning the air into a blinding white strobe. "Polizei! Waffen weg! Auf den Boden!" The heavy boots of the tactical team hammered against the concrete floor. They were closing in on the container. "Mereel, get up!" I grabbed him by his collar. "We need to get to the front office. To Judy." "They're outside the door!" Mereel screamed, looking at the thermal feed. "We're trapped!"
Then, a new sound entered the world. It started as a low vibration that rattled the teeth in my skull. Then it became a roar. Not a jet engine. Not thunder. It sounded like the sky itself was being ripped open by a giant hand. Inside the warehouse, the tactical team froze. The shouting stopped. Even the professionals paused when the atmosphere screamed. "Was zur Hölle ist das?" someone yelled over the comms.
The roof of the warehouse began to shake violently. Dust rained down from the rafters. Outside, the grey morning light turned into a blinding, hellish orange as the Nomad punched through the lower atmosphere, its thermal shielding glowing like a second sun. Archi was firing the braking thrusters at 110% output. A controlled crash.
"Impact in 5 seconds," Archi warned. "Brace."
"DOWN!" I yelled, tackling Mereel to the floor.
BOOM.
The sonic boom hit the building first. Every single window in the office complex exploded inward. The roller doors buckled like wet cardboard. The lights in the container flickered and died completely.
Then the ground jumped. It felt like an earthquake. 120,000 tons of starship slammed on the brakes just thirty meters above the parking lot. The shockwave from the ion engines flattened the fence, flipped the surveillance van like a toy car, and stripped the shingles off the warehouse roof. Inside, the tactical team was thrown off their feet. Shelves collapsed. The decoy servers toppled over, sparks flying into the dust clouds.
Silence followed. Or rather, a ringing in my ears so loud it felt like silence. Then, the roar of the ship's idle thrusters—a deep, chest-crushing hum—took over. I kicked the container door open. It flew off its hinges, warped by the pressure change. "GO! GO! GO!"
We sprinted into the hallway. Dust hung in the air like thick fog. SEK officers were scrambling to get up, coughing, disoriented. They saw us running, but they were too stunned to react. They were looking up through the shattered skylights at the massive, black underbelly of the leviathan that was blocking out the sun.
We reached the front office. The glass partition was shattered. Papers were flying everywhere in the wind generated by the ship's hover. Judy was curled up under her desk, her hands over her ears, screaming silently. She wasn't moving. "Judy!" I vaulted over the desk. She looked at me with wide, unseeing eyes. Shock. "We have to go!" I grabbed her arm. She didn't respond. She was dead weight. "Mereel, grab her legs!"
We dragged her out of the office, into the parking lot. The scene was apocalyptic. The grey surveillance van was crushed flat, looking like a soda can someone had stepped on. The Nomad hovered just three meters above the asphalt, its massive cargo ramp digging into the ground like a shovel. The air smelled of ozone and burnt rubber.
"Halt! Stehenbleiben!" A voice cut through the wind. Two SEK officers had recovered near the ruined gate. They raised their MP5 submachine guns. They saw us. They saw the ship. Fear turned to training. "Zugriff! Zielperson flüchtet!"
Crack. Crack. Crack. They opened fire.
I heard the bullets whizzing past. Then, I saw a blue flash. Judy—still being dragged between us—suddenly glowed. A round had hit her. The silver pendant on her neck flared. A hexagonal energy barrier materialized for a split second, deflecting the bullet into the asphalt with a sharp zing. Judy screamed, finally snapping out of her trance. "WHAT WAS THAT?!"
"Run!" I shouted, pulling her harder. Another shot hit my back. My belt buzzed, and I felt a punch like a hammer, but the kinetic shield absorbed the impact, glowing briefly amber. We hit the ramp. Bullets pinged off the hull of the Nomad. They sparked uselessly against the Vantablack armor. It was like throwing pebbles at a tank.
We scrambled up the metal incline into the cargo bay. "Archi! We're in! GO!" I screamed into my comms.
"Ramp retracting. Inhibitors disengaged. Maximum thrust."
The massive hydraulic door began to close, cutting off the view of the stunned police officers and the ruined warehouse. Gravity shifted violently. The floor pressed hard against our feet. We weren't just taking off. We were rocketing.
The roar faded to a hum as the artificial gravity stabilizers kicked in. We lay on the floor of the cargo bay, panting. Judy was staring at the ceiling, which was fifty meters high. She touched her pendant, her fingers trembling. "Surgrim," she whispered, her voice cracking. "You blew up the office."
I sat up, wiping blood from a cut on my forehead. "Yeah," I said, looking at Mereel, who was grinning like a maniac despite the terror. "I think we just quit our day jobs."
"Altitude: 20 kilometers," Archi announced over the speakers. "Mach 4. Leaving airspace. Course set for Mars Transfer Orbit. We are clear."
I looked at Judy. "Welcome to the company, Judy. The real company."