The next chapter or two should be fuzzy feel good chapters with Luca and Mr. Buckles. I think Tan is due for his own chapter again also. I have few ideas for things he needs to work through. When I read a book, I often skip chapters and only read the ones with characters I like. Is there any particular character you would like to see have their own chapter?

Luca wiggled out of Tan’s grasp. “Let go, I have to get Mr. Buckles out of there.” “Luca!” Tan shouted futilely against the wail of the air raid siren and repeating announcement to abandon ship. He tried to grab for the boy, but Luca was too fast. Tan pressed against the flow of panicking people as they pushed and shoved each other in an effort to get to the emergency stairs. His eyes fell on the figure of a small Ruk child curled up in the middle of the corridor. Tan planted his feet around the child to prevent him from being trampled by the crowd. A man tried to shove Tan out of the way and received a well-aimed punch on the jaw for his effort. The man staggered back and the crowd decided Tan wasn’t worth the effort and parted around him. Tan scooped the boy off the ground and into his arms, then made a dash against the crowd in an attempt to catch-up with Luca. Chief was already at the apartment, blocking Luca from the door. “Luca, you can’t open this door, the room is filled with a neurotoxin.” Chief had seen Tan rescue the Ruk boy and was once again impressed by the man’s courage and moral fiber. Tan was quickly gaining a reputation as the kind of guy you could always count on; and for a Lesser Human that knew almost nothing of advanced technology, Tan was fearless in the face of science so advanced, another human would have cried, ‘dark magic!’. Chief held his arms out. “I’m heading down to the ground level next, I’ll drop him off at one of the Lost and Found stations.” Luca was still trying to get around Chief. “We have to open it, Mr. Buckles will die, he’s a real person now,” insisted Luca. Chief tossed the little Ruk boy onto his shoulders, and had to pry the boy’s hands away from his eyes as the terrified child clung to him for dear life. Chief shook his head. “He won’t die, he was made to go into these kind of environments. Neurotoxin affects nerve tissue, but Mr. Buckles nerve tissue is synthetic, and his outer fur and skin is impervious to a chemical attack, however, at this point he is contaminated and you could get hurt.” “How do we get him out of there?” asked Luca. “When the decon team arrives they’ll get him out,” replied Chief as someone in the crowd tried to run him over. Chief never budged and shoved the man away. Tan was pretty sure that if mountains could get up and walk around, they’d look like Chief Dagas. Chief pointed at Luca in the military tradition of a full-hand karate-chop kind of gesture. “Right now, I do believe you’re assigned to Cargo Bay 27 on the ground level to lead stray kids the SAR teams find out onto the beach. Mr. Buckles will join you once we get him out. And Tan, I believe you’re assigned with the Reserves up on the top deck?” Tan nodded. “Yes, I’m on an old anti-aircraft gun they dragged out of storage for me.” “Then you better get up there,” said Chief. “The Aedens always have a backup plan. It’s possible they launched a missile strike through their own gates months ago in anticipation of today’s invasion.” “Do you think there might be another Aeden Fleet nearby?” “I’m more concerned about further terrorist attacks.” Chief’s phone buzzed and he glanced at the screen. “I knew it, two more Death Seeds just went active on Deck 72, and we have a fire on Deck Zero, I have to go. Are you two going to be okay?” “What about Jack?” asked Tan. Chief glanced at his phone. “The Sunth telepathy team has Jack, they’re escorting him out of the ship.” Tan looked down at Luca as Chief hurried away. “I don’t like you being alone.” Luca tapped the side of his head. “I’m never alone, Mr. Buckles is always with me. I’ll wait for him down in Cargo Bay 27.” Tan smiled at the boy, but he would never get used to the idea there was a computer intelligence always whispering to Luca, it sounded like a thing from Science Fiction nightmares. “Alright, go ahead, but stay on the ground level.” Luca didn’t hesitate and shot off like a streak of lightning. Tan watched the boy run towards the special elevator reserved for First Responders. The identification badge Luca had received on graduation day of the SAR Summer Camp would allow him to use the elevator, but… he was only seven, eight next month, Tan sighed, Luca looked so normal, but he wasn’t, and that was where Tan had to remind himself a hundred times a day; they were both technically human, but separated by several million years of evolution. Tan waited until Luca had disappeared inside the elevator before turning away. The cargo elevator at the other end of the corridor was reserved for troops during emergencies. Tan headed toward the gathering group of Reserve soldiers. Luca rode the elevator down to Deck 1. There were several medical personnel with equipment on the elevator with him, but they didn’t ask for his I.D. Luca got off the elevator first, then turned around and held his hand out to hold the elevator door. The medical personnel exited and didn’t give Luca a second glance. He waited until he was certain they weren’t going to turn around and check to make sure he was leaving the ship, then got back on the elevator and used his Search and Rescue passkey to take him back to Deck 27. He peaked around the corner to make sure Tan was already on the troop elevator at the end of the hall. The coast was clear. “Okay, I’m back,” Luca projected the thought to Mr. Buckles. “I’ve got our gear stacked next to the door,” replied Mr. Buckles. “We just need the Decon Team now.” “I’m on it,” said Luca, taping on the screen of his SAR issued alert phone and requesting a priority decon. It took almost twenty minutes for the Decon Team to arrive. “This one here,” said Luca, pointing at the door of his apartment. The Sergeant in charge of the team frowned. “You’re Luca, aren’t you? When we open this door, are we going to find that Search and Rescue Wolf staring at us?” Luca grinned and nodded. “Yes.” “We’re not deconning equipment yet, we’re only neutralizing active Death Seeds.” Luca was ready for this. “A hundred and thirty years ago there was an evacuation of the RS-17, twenty-five kids were trampled to death in the panic. We’re taught now in school that if there’s an evacuation and the adults start panicking, jump into a safe room to keep from getting smushed. It’s going to take forever to unseal all those safe rooms and find the kids, but I don’t have to do that, Mr. Buckles can smell if someone is inside. I can search faster than anyone else.” “Hey Sarge, I remember being taught that in school,” said one of the Decon Team members. The Sergeant nodded. “Yeah, I remember that now, there was a song we used to sing.” “I remember that song,” said another Decon member. When you’re small Curl in a ball Run away Live another day Be aware Hide somewhere “Yeah, that song gave me nightmares,” said the Sergeant. “Alright, let’s do a full decon and get that rescue wolf out of there.” The Sergeant looked at Luca. “How many seeds went active?” “Two, they’re in a box on the floor.” The Sergeant turned to his team. “Alright, hook it up.” The decon team set a silver tank on the floor next to the door and connected a hose to the apartment’s emergency oxygen intake valve. The Sergeant turned a handle on top of the tank and Luca heard the hiss of air moving through the hose.” “How long does it take?” asked Luca. “Not long, just stay back.” Luca watched as the Decon Team went to work and the apartment was flooded with a zirconium aerosol to neutralize the poison gas. After the apartment was flooded, they had to wait another twenty-minutes before the Decon Team could open the door. The Decon Team entered the apartment spraying from canisters that looked like fire extinguishers. Mr. Buckles was sprayed first until he was covered in a white powder. It took a few more minutes before the Sergeant came to the door and gave Luca the ‘all clear’. Mr. Buckles shook as much of the white powder off as he could while Luca brushed the gear clean, then swapped his standard issue emergency breathing mask out for the heavy-duty SAR mask. Luca then fastened a pack harness onto the wolf’s back and loaded all their Search and Rescue equipment into the harness. Mr. Buckles was designed to carry a lot of weight as a robot, but if he had to go in somewhere tight, Luca could hit the quick release latch and drop the harness on the ground. “Which way are you going?” asked the Sergeant. “We’ll head towards the bow and loop all the way around the ship on Deck 27,” replied Mr. Buckles. The Sergeant raised a brow. “It talks? Now I’ve seen everything. Okay, we’re heading toward the stern. We’ll check all the safe rooms as we go, but you’ve got a long trip, it’s 148 miles all the way around the ship.” Luca jumped onto Mr. Buckles back. “We can do it in 12 hours, Mr. Buckles never gets tired, he’s half-robot, and really, so am I, except I’m bio-mechanical and he’s metallic-synthetic. We’re brothers.” “Good luck to both of you,” said the Sergeant. “And by the way, I checked, you don’t have permission to still be on the ship.” Luca grinned and shrugged. “Sometimes you have to break the rules, my other brother taught me that.” Mr. Buckles looked back at the Sergeant. “Thanks for getting me out of there, I owe you one.” The powerful robotic-wolf leapt into a run, with Luca clinging to his back.