Danger In The Sky!

• Corey Batten, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2011

Link steered his tiny ship through the clouds, trying his hardest to escape the danger of the Sky Centaur, a sky pirate ship with a large golden centaur leaning from the bow. Its shadow fell on Link’s cockpit and two magnetic anchors grabbed hold of both the wings. Link turned the steering from side to side, but the anchors had stiffened, and now three pirates slid down. Two of them were big, with torn blue jackets and big silver ear and nose rings. The third was the captain, Scar. He had a long black ponytail that was waving around in the wind and a smile the colour of squash. There was a long white scar down his left cheek from which he was named. He stood there, holding the stiffened chain, while his two assistants lifted up the cockpit’s glass covering. One of the henchmen flung him out of his seat, breaking the seatbelt. Link lay there, sprawled over the front of his ship. There was a clunk as the second henchmen stomped on his face.
Link awoke in some sort of jail cell. A red laser field stopped Link from dashing out into the wooden hallway. Even if that didn’t stop him, the chain on his leg would. It wasn’t a usual metal chain, it was a fiery-red chain, the type if you touched it, it would melt your skin to it.
But there was something strange. His ankle didn’t feel pain. Maybe it had melted to it while he was unconscious. At closer inspection, he could see that there was some sort of blue fabric around his ankle. Maybe it was incase they realised that he had no treasure on his ship and they let him go. No, that wasn’t it. They would realise there was no treasure on his ship, and they decided to recruit him.
A deep voice called out to him from the hallway. Link could see the shape of a big pirate through the red field.
“What?” link moaned, holding his sore head.
“Don’t bother moving. The chains around your ankle will melt the blue shield and melt your skin to it.”
“I already figured that out, fatso.”
“Oi! Don’t you use that attitude with me, tough guy! Anyway, the captain wants to see you.”
“So what do I do, walk over there?”
“I was getting to that part. You will be teleported there.” Teleport? Link had never teleported in his life!
The man fiddled with a control box next to Link’s cell, and the room around him went yellow for a second and he appeared in a cell made only of metal bars. Scar sat behind his desk, sipping on a brown liquid Link had never seen before in his life.
“Ah, Link. I’ve been expecting you.” He took another sip from his glass and aimed a wooden pistol towards Link. No, they weren’t going to recruit him. They were going to kill him! But why?