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“Do not let the Prince escape!” Blackfire screams as the alarms sound throughout the compound on Rigel-9. Soldiers dart to and fro, grabbing weapons and beginning a thorough sweep of the area. The moment they find their quarry, they will drag him before Blackfire for execution.
Alerron Yat, Prince of the remaining peoples of Tameran (for all that it is worth in this day and age), hides among a stack of crates in a pantry, watching the soldiers run by him. The second lesson the Warlords of Okara taught him was to hide from those who hunt him. He learned to make his enemies spend themselves in futile efforts to run him to ground, dividing their forces to allow him to slip out of the nets they wove for him.
The first lesson the Warlords taught him was to survive, and he has done this since the graduation ceremony two weeks ago. His mother is somewhere in this place, taken captive again by her mortal enemy and sister, Blackfire. Blackfire believes that killing him will finally win her the throne she has coveted for so long, that she feels is her birthright. Moreover, it will secure it for her child, who is now just a newborn. If Alerron believed that Blackfire would rule with anything resembling fairness and justice, he’d abdicate his title, take his mother and leave this place. His aunt, however, does not possess any redeeming qualities.
When the soldiers pass from his location, Alerron limps forward, focusing on getting toward the hangar to get to the first ship he can find. He just has to contact Oa and hope his father, Sodam Yat, is not away on a mission. Father would come back with an army of Lanterns and save his mother, because Father has power, which Alerron does not.
He struggles his way to the hangar on legs of Varnish jelly, hoping he can stay conscious long enough to pilot the ship out of here. Get to safety, execute your plan. he thinks to himself.
He comes to a steel-gray cargo ship from Almerac with the ramp down. He sneaks aboard, quickly rendering the pilot unconscious and rolling him down toward the stone floor of the landing pad. Alerron pants at the effort, exhaustion setting in finally, but it’s time to move. He slaps a button near his head and the ramp begins to raise. He limps his way to the pilots chair and begins what he remembers to be the warm-up sequence for this type of vehicle.
As the ship warms up, the lights dim and the alarms begin to blare.
“No!” he yells. He can’t let them take him now, or he’s as good as dead. Thinking quickly, Alerron targets the ship-board lasers on the attackers from the rear, waiting for the green light take off. When a series of red lights turn green in succession, Alerron throws the ship into a headlong run, and barrels out of the hangar of the complex and into the red sky of Rigel-9. Alerron pilots the craft as though he were born to it, and breaks the atmosphere in minutes, and begins plotting a course for Oa.
The ship rocks from heavy canon fire to the rear, and Alerron checks the sensors to see what’s happening, even as he activates the shields.
Four ships, all black, sleek lines and with a black sun on a golden background are following him into space and gaining upon him.
Exhausted from torture and in great pain, Alerron readies himself to go into hyperspace without only a half-plotted course in unfamiliar territory. Still, he smiles.
He didn’t survive the Warlords of Okara to die to these slives and once he finds the Green Lanterns, things will turn in his favor.
He hopes.
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