Everything Will Change
Chapter 6

The night was still and quiet as the soldiers patrolled the launch pad. They had direct orders from Zark to keep a lookout for Karen. When Zark went to deal with her in the morning, she had vanished. It was his own mistake for leaving her unguarded, and now he knew she would want revenge. The soldiers were frightened of both Zark and Karen, for both were fierce foes.

As the hours passed on by, the soldiers soon were sleep-deprived and slowly began drifting off to sleep. They were unaware that a shadowy figure had emerged and made its way to a spaceship that was docked at the very end of the docking bay. This would give the figure plenty of time to take flight before the guards could react. The figure picked the lock and soon input random coordinates to escape.

The roar of the engine woke the guards, and they ran to commandeer the escaping spacecraft. They began shooting at the craft to delay its departure, but to no avail. One guard was fast enough to reach the spacecraft and jumped on board. He saw that the figure inside was none other than Karen. He pulled out his rifle to shoot, but the craft’s autopilot redirected the craft to the right angle. The soldier held on to the craft, still trying to shoot, but a shadowed creature appeared on the craft, snarling its glistening white fangs. The soldier redirected his rifle, but it was too late. The creature pounced the soldier off the craft just before it took off. The soldier saw the creature disappear in a wisp of smoke as the aircraft disappeared in the cosmos.

“Zark will not like this.” the soldier muttered to himself.

*** *** ***

Karen stared blankly at passing cosmos, her heart racing from the adrenaline. She had stolen nothing in her entire life. When the soldier had jumped onto the craft, she thought for sure she was going to get caught. If it wasn’t for Wolf, she probably would have. She wasn’t sure if he was safe, but deep inside she knew she would see him again.

As time passed on by, she heard Zoey’s purr in the seat next to her. She looked to her right and saw the black cat staring lovingly at her. She patted her own leg to tell Zoey it was okay to come to her. Zoey gently jumped onto Karen’s lap and purred loudly. Even as a child, the purr would lure Karen to sleep, and as a teenager it still had the same effect. Karen tried to keep her eyes open to watch if they were being followed.

“You must close your eyes.” Zoey said sweetly.

“I can’t. What if someone is on our trial?” Karen protested.

“If something is to happen, then I shall wake you.” Zoey answered.

Karen continued to protest as she stared out the window, looking for danger, but soon the desire to sleep was too strong to resist. Karen’s eyes soon fell shut and Zoey simply sat next to her, watching over her human. Zoey knew Karen meant well, but exhaustion was not something to take lightly. Zoey also kept watch at the window to uphold her promise to wake Karen if something went wrong.

The hours passed by slowly and were uneventful. Zoey glanced at Karen to replace her still asleep. In that moment, the ship shuttered and alarms blared. Karen bursted up and looked at the computer dashboard for the damage report and sighed in frustration.

“Zoey, the ship got hit by an asteroid. The ship’s engine lost power.” Karen muttered.

“Everything will be fine, Karen, I promise.”

Zoey disappeared in a plume of black smoke. Karen sighed as she saw the faint outline of a planet approach.

“Please have nice aliens on this planet!” she pleaded.