Chapter 4
The spaceport was called Planetfall, built over the site where humanity first landed on mars
Upon the Martian surface sprawled Dominion, the Terran empire’s largest prison. The great steel gates opened to divulge a convoy of armoured hover trucks. Within one of these trucks a man lifted his orange eyes to the amber light of Martian dawn and smiled. He was to be transported to Empyrion for a retrial which could land him the death sentence, but he was not afraid of that, for today was the day that he would escape.
He had been contacted anonymously by someone who wished to help him, telling him their plan to free him. He would be loaded, in a cell, onto a starliner heading in the general direction of Empyrion, before being transferred to a military cruiser when nearer to his destination. His benefactor’s plan was to make sure he was not in the cell when it was moved to the cruiser.
Whoever his benefactor was they had influence. They had apparently paid off at least four guards to open the cell, take him to an escape pod and then for one of these guards to lock himself in the cell and pretend to have been overpowered after he had used a EMP to deactivate the magnetic locks.
He smiled again. After the cruiser had jumped into a Krasnikov tube he would launch the escape pod and wait to be collected. He would probably have to work off his debt to his benefactor but in light of his specific skill set, he would enjoy his work.
He was NielDrommon, convicted serial arsonist, explosives expert, pyromaniac and the reason behind the detonation of a thermonuclear warhead in the crust of the highly flammable world of Pyron 5, causing an explosion so large that it destroyed the planet, launched the moon into the inhabited world of Pyron 4, incinerated three research stations, two space stations and a starliner entering the system.
This was the reason for his retrial, the warhead had been traced back to him at last and with a death toll numbering around two billion, the court of Empyrion would not be lenient.
He boarded the shuttle with a smile on his face, hardly feeling the acceleration of the craft as it shot up the launch loop and into space, heading for the Aurora.