In the army, Zadam had learned to use his legs real fast. And for what? Running away from enemies wasn’t a common thing when you are the enemy. Yes - They were trained to run fast not to flee, but to go after a fleeing target. This sprint wasn’t any different from how he did it in training. Except it was real.
The cloaked target wasn’t fast at all. But it was slender, almost small in size that it could squeeze into tiny spaces. A young teen was always a preferred hostage. Easy to bring into the system. Easy to game. Zadam would know himself. He was one of them too.
And like this fleeing target, he had his share of running.
Like a vivid movie, the memories of his capture played all over his line of sight. His hands jamming all over his cruiser control. The sight of his bestfriend’s ship going down. Mother planetoid bursting in to pieces, taking the rest of his family in there. His sister, his blue-balled friend, his love. In a second, they were gone. And then finally--the Hosts’ mothership, sucking him in like mythical rogue black hole.
And indeed it was. Because even when his rebel heart beat for justice and freedom, there wasn’t a way out. Except this life. This system. This run.
“You don’t give up, do you?” He spoke from inside the protective helmet, giving him calculations, distances, and the coordinates of his target’s whereabouts. He was beginning to struggle to breath. It was just too damn persistent. He was catching up, but he feared of losing sight. The chase has gone long enough for it to get tired and resolve into hiding. And from his distance of fifty or so yards, just way damn impossible to jump at it on a tackle.
The gun strapped to his back was suddenly a good idea that if he didn’t have the sanity he still had as a rebel brat of the lost planetoid back then, his arm would already aiming. His fist trembled in a clenched ball, lips uttering a small cuss. But he had to catch it. He had to.
“WHY DO YOU KEEP RUNNING!?” He yelled from his spot, a question he might’ve asked himself as well, propelling his own body towards one last burst of speed, until he had momentum and distance to jump it. He launched himself forward, an arm going around the target’s body until they are both falling to the ground, rolling as they hit the soil hard. Dust flying around, he lay there in a halt, the cloaked target in his tight tackle.