Prologue

Thirteen years ago...

It was his first day of school. His father was excited to get him started on his training, and it made Mark also excited. His babysitter was fun and all, but he was ready to go to school and make new friends. Ella the elephant on the big TV had lots of friends. He wanted them, too.

"Are you ready for your first day?" His father asked him.

He was helping him get dressed. The children were not assigned military-grade armor until they were thirteen. He didn't mind it. He liked wearing the comfy clothes he had. They felt like pajamas.

"Yeah," he said, biting his finger.

After getting completely dressed, his father had the computer deliver their breakfast. It was heated within a minute and served to them at the dining room table. The walls were bright like it was broad daylight. The illusion was mesmerizing to Mark. He had never seen the sun or Earth, but it was something he always saw in books and shows. He wanted to find the sun one day and just stare at it. He was told not to do that, but he didn't understand why. It was just a ball of light. Staring at the hallway lights didn't bother him. Neither would the sun.

"Listen," his father said.

They had finished their breakfast and were ready to go out the door. His father knelt down to his level so they could speak eye to eye.

"Whatever you see today is going to be scary," he said. "Just remember that it's good. Fear is okay. Fear keeps us alive. Fear is why we are still here. It's what you do about it that will either save you or... kill you."

"I want to go to school!" Mark pouted.

"You're going to school. I just want you to be ready. You're going to see some scary things."

"Can we go now?"

He chuckled. "Of course we can. Nothing fazes you, does it?"

"Nope!"

They went out the door. Mark didn't know the way to school himself. It was too many winding corridors and too many people to move around. Lots of them would wave at him and nod at his father. The only thing he really remembered about the school was the giant oak tree in the courtyard. It was too big to climb, but he wanted to build a tree house in it one day. He would call himself king of the forest. It might be only one tree, but that didn't matter. He felt a nuzzle, and the large, black fur rubbed against his face. Mark rubbed Bear's head gently. The black wolf was always gentle with him, so he didn't want to hurt him. He only had a few years left. He was getting old.

"Can Bear come with me to school?"

"Sorry, champ. Bear has to go with me today. Maybe another day."

"Aww..."

The base around the tree was littered with acorns that had fallen overnight. People came by to collect them every day to grow more in other parts of the colony. He couldn't wait to have more trees to rule over.

"This is where I leave," Mark's dad said. "I have to go to work."

Mark didn't like that. He thought his dad was going to stay with him all day.

"No! Don't go!" He begged.

"It's okay, champ. You got this."

"No, I don't! I want to stay with you!"

Jason shook his head. He should have known it wasn't going to be that easy.

"Look. I have cameras all over the school," he said. "I'll be watching you all day. You can just pretend I'm with you the whole time. Can you play pretend today?"

Mark seemed to ponder the question for a moment.

"Okay..." he said finally.

"That's my boy."

"Jason!" Another man called.

He looked over at his head security officer. He was approaching them with a little boy behind him. His dark skin and short black hair made him stand out from the brightly-lit gray walls and floors. Mark was curious about him. He didn't understand why their skin was another color.

"Are you sick?" He blurted out.

"What?" The officer said.

"Your skin looks funny."

"Mark!" Jason chastised.

"No, it's okay," he said laughing. He looked down at Mark. "I'm not sick. I was born like this."

"Why?"

"Some people just are. A long time ago back on Earth, my ancestors used to live where there was lots of sun. Our skin turned dark so it wouldn't burn us."

"The sun?"

"Yes. It's like... armor in our skin."

"I want to have dark skin!" He said excitedly. "I want to go to the sun!"

Dominick laughed.

"One day, you just might."

"I forgot you were bringing your son, Dom," Jason said. "When did he turn four?"

"Just last week. He made it very clear he wanted to go to school."

Mark looked at the little black boy. He peeked out from behind his dad shyly.

"Hi!" Mark said.

He went back into hiding.

"He's feeling a little shy," Dom said.

"Well, hey. Since they're going to the same class, maybe they can walk there together," Jason offered.

"That sounds like a great idea," Dom said.

"What's your name?" Mark asked. He remembered Ella telling him to always ask someone's name when meeting them for the first time.

The boy looked back out, fingers curled in the fabric of his father's uniform.

"James," he said quietly.

"James? That's a cool name! My name is Mark!"

"Hi, Mark," he said softly.

The communicator on Jason's wrist went off.

"Great. Now I really have to go to work."

He knelt down again to talk to Mark.

"I've got to go, okay? You and James stick together. Help each other out. I think you will be great friends. Be nice, okay?"

"Okay," Mark said happily.

Dominic said the same thing to his son and said goodbye. A teacher was waiting for them outside. Mark looked around at all of the students that were present. They were chattering back and forth. The teacher raised her arms to silence the crowd.

"Please quiet down, children," she said. "Welcome to your orientation. You will be shown a short video and then divided into classes. Come along."

Mark looked at James. They didn't know what else to do except follow. There was a couple of other teachers waiting inside. One of them had a white mustache and beard. He caught Mark's eye, and it made him a little scared. He didn't know any of these people, but it was like they knew him. For a second, Mark thought he saw a gun on the man's hip. James grabbed Mark's hand. He held on tightly.

"Right in here, children," the older lady said.

Mark looked at the wrinkles in her face and the gray hair tied into a bun. She could have been his grandmother. Ushered inside, they all took a seat in a desk in the large room. The desks went up like stairs, kind of like a concert or an arena, but they were all attached in a line. The seats were solid rock with cushions. Mark and James took a seat about halfway up in the middle. While the other children were being seated, Mark looked over on his left. A girl with long, brown hair in a ponytail was looking around the room.

"Hi!" He said.

She stopped and blinked at him.

"H... hey," she said.

"My name is Mark," he said.

"I know," she said. "Everyone at my house knows your name."

He didn't know how to respond to that. He continued introducing himself.

"What's your name?"

"Sara."

"Sara. That's a cool name!"

"I thought you said my name was cool?" James said like he was going to cry.

"It is. You both are cool!"

"You don't even know me," Sara said.

"But you know me," Mark said, "and that's cool."

She smirked.

"Settle down, now!" The teacher said loudly.

The room almost immediately went quiet.

"Thank you. Today, we're going to show you something important. You can never forget what you're about to see and hear today. I will warn you now that it can be a little... frightening, but you must watch all of it. You need to understand the danger we are in. Please stay seated, stay quiet, and watch all the way to the end."

Mark did as he was told. He was expecting some kind of reward at the end of the show. Maybe it would be candy or chocolate chip cookies. She pointed a remote at the ceiling, and the lights dimmed down like a theater. A picture appeared on the wall like magic. The picture started moving. Sounds and music came from somewhere in the room, but Mark couldn't find the source. He stopped looking when he saw his father appear on the screen.

"Good morning, young ones," he said. "If you are watching this, then it means we are in danger. I don't know if your parents or grandparents or siblings have told you the story of how we got to be where we are, so I'm going to tell you the story myself."

The scene shifted to a view of Earth from outside the window of a house with yellow walls. The sun was shining, and birds chirped in the branches of the tree outside. Mark marveled at how golden the sun looked.

"A long time ago, Earth was a peaceful place. Well, for the most part, it was. Children would play outside in the fresh air. The sun would warm the ground, and rain would water the plants with life."

The rain fell from the sky, making flowers and vegetables grow.

"But then the storms got worse."

The scene darkened. Lightning flashed, catching the field of food on fire. A tornado came through and whipped up a barn and a cow. A tractor went by the window. James had grabbed Mark's hand again. The sound was loud and shook Mark to his core.

"It was like mother nature was telling us just how angry she was. We were destroying our home. She was trying to warn us to stop, but we didn't listen. When the storms stopped, it was the earthquakes that shook our foundation."

The video shook, and a crack appeared in the ground. A screaming farmer ran and fell in. It was almost comical, but it sort of scared Mark.

"I don't like this show," Sara said next to him.

"The earthquakes gave way to massive tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. The largest and the dormant ones were the most deadly."

Volcanoes rose up from the ground, spewing lava and catching everything on fire, even the house. It all went dark, and there was a loud splash.

"Lastly, when the atmosphere was heated up to extremely high temperatures mixed with gasses that had escaped from the cracks in the Earth, it melted what was left of the ice caps, causing massive, worldwide flooding.

The light returned, showing that the outside of the window was underwater. A fish went by. Cracks formed, and the window shattered. Thanks to the holographic simulation, it looked like the glass went flying after Mark and the others around him. There was a scream from a few of the children, including James.

"We couldn't stay any longer."

The scene changed to what looked like a giant spaceship. Mark recognized it. His father had shown him pictures of what it used to look like.

"Through a process of carefully-screened individuals, thousands of people were sent on ships called Arks. A long-awaited colony resided on Mars to accept the newcomers and repopulate on the red planet. Thanks to LEDGE, there was hope for humanity to survive past the impending ice age that was predicted to occur within the next year. We thought we could escape our fate."

The ship fired up its rockets and blasted through the atmosphere into space. A large symbol on the side with a tiger's silhouette was present in a black coat of paint and glistened in the sunlight while it spun.

"We... we were wrong."

The ship exploded. Mark's eardrums felt like they had burst. There was more screaming. He could only stare at the moving picture of destruction.

"The Drax were waiting for us."

Another ship exploded. The camera shook. Mark wanted to shut his eyes like James was doing, but he kept watching like his father said to. Another ship exploded. A large, black ship covered in strange markings came from behind the moon and made a beeline for the camera.

"Canis, our beloved colony, was the only ship that survived."

The black ship disappeared with the rest of space. Mark's father returned to the screen.

"We had to assume that our mission was compromised. We couldn't settle on Mars like we had planned. Instead, we chose to go to the farthest place we could to stay hidden. Pluto, the smallest planet in our solar system, would have to suffice. It did. We are thriving. We have food, medicine, loyal companions, and even a wide range of technological advances that we keep mastering every day. However, there is still a present threat that keeps us from going back to Earth."

A shriek echoed in the room. Jason was replaced with the moving image of a humanoid figure in armor with sword blades on their arms and legs. The mouth was like a spider's. It opened to reveal mandibles. It shrieked again. A large, black web covered the center of the body's stomach. It stretched down the body's arms and legs and even into its mouth. It rippled and pumped like it was a heartbeat. Mark thought he was going to vomit. Sara gagged.

"About three hundred years ago, a Drax scouting ship was found drifting in space. The ship, like its occupant, was dead on arrival, but we were able to salvage some useful information from the ship's logs. After five hundred years, they were still looking for us. They consider us a threat and are on a mission to eradicate every human being in existence. We can't let that happen."

A woman in a Silver Suit appeared. She unsheathed a katana and did some moves that made Mark watch in awe.

"You are going to be educated and trained in martial arts and other styles of combat. You will be given a weapon and, eventually, a wolf companion of your own. One day, we will return to reclaim our home world, but we have to be ready. The Drax can show up at any time. Right now, there is only one rule that you must follow, and it is the only way you can survive. If you ever see a Drax and it sees you..."

A Drax appeared again. It was firing lasers from a rifle. There were screams. It was from one of the other Arks. A woman at the computer was hit in the back. She put a bloody hand on the screen before falling to the floor. A Drax approached the screen and shrieked, black tendrils flaring. Mark thought he could feel it in his soul. He hadn't felt it before, but he knew immediately what it was. It was fear. He was afraid.

"If a Drax ever sees you... run."