Once again, Adam felt rushing air all around him.​ No longer was he in space. No, he hurtled through clear blue sky, his now-in-shreds three piece suit of absolutely no value to him whatsoever.    

     And those two attack crafts? They were still on his tail. 

     "Can you hear me?" Adam asked. His lion's mane of hair flopped in the stratosphere like a flag in a hurricane. 

​     "Yes," Claudia replied. "It's going to take about ninety minutes to get another Stargod to you. I'm sorry, Adam." 

     "Don't make it sound like goodbye," Adam said. "I've still got..."

​     Like the Stargod, one attack vessel matched its speed with Adam's as they both rapidly descended. And, like the Stargod, it eventually sucked Adam into its bowels. 

     Adam found himself in a long, cylindrical tube once he got inside. He took several minutes and several deep breaths to replenish his body with oxygen. Then he said, "They're got me in one of their attack crafts, Claudia. I think they think they've got me captured."

     "Poor them." 

     "Yeah, but they don't know that."

     "I'll get to you as soon as I can."

     "Meet me at the waterline. I have a feeling that's where I'm going to be by the time all of this is over."

​     "You..."

     That's all Adam heard before the cylinder he was encased in opened, spitting him out onto the deck of the vessel.

​     He got a quick look around. He saw outside the windows to the skies beyond. The deck was, maybe, twenty feet by twenty feet. Adam saw four crewmembers. One navigated the vessel. The other two had their weapons drawn and aimed for Adam's midsection. 

     Also, there was a member of the crew that wasn't quite human. 

​     "Mr. Forwarder," Valtair said. He stood, tall and imperious, on the other side of the deck away from Adam. Seven feet tall. Half metal. Half flesh. His skull looking like the working end of an air-to-air missile. He didn't have the kind of mouth that could smile, but Adam got the feeling that, if he could smile, he would at that moment.  

     "You've been a naughty boy, Mr. Forwarder." 

​     "Yeah? How so?"

                                                 CONTINUE