Using Chinese prisoners as guinea pigs, the genetic program, under the name; 雅利安總理活力防衛隊, or Aryan Prime Vitalization Defense Corps, performed tens of thousands of inhumane genetic experiments, eventually creating heavily mutated, twelve foot tall super soldiers by 1993. They never saw the light of day until Arrival Day, when the Chinese military released them as a last ditch effort to defend the capital. They and the rest of the genetic experiments were obliterated by the Jupitains.
As for A.C.O.L.Y.T.E, it would go on through the decades leading up to Arrival Day, creating highly advanced technological monstrosities. Through the end of the twentieth century and beginning of the twenty-first century, A.C.O.L.Y.T.E created Ion Neutrolite Compressors, dozens of advanced laser, anti-missile defense cannons, and, an invisible juggernaut patrolling the entire ocean, codenamed; The Eleventh Fleet.
The Fleet contained over twenty, heavily armed destroyers, thirty ballistic missile submarines, two aircraft carriers, and one, incredibly advanced, dreadnaught. The dreadnaught, or; USS Immortal, was shaped like an aircraft carrier, but triple the size, and on its hull was an invisibility field projector, that kept the entire fleet completely invisible to sonar, satellite, thermal detection, and the naked eye. Even the waves created by the ships, and the noises made by the waves and engines… were all invisible, undetectable, and completely silent.
After the fleet’s creation in 2015, the United States was quite literally invincible to any other nation on the planet, until Arrival Day when the Jupitains destroyed the entire fleet with only six warships and three devastatingly powerful and massive terrestrial assault craft.
The four nations that knew alien life existed, even though they prepared to the best of their ability, still fell no matter how much precaution and effort had been taken. Then, the Kelisians were able to rescue humanity from the ashes and create a new order — the United Worlds.
CHAPTER 14
“I’ve never seen a Skyframe before… they haven’t been around since the days of the Fallen Empire, and even then, they were on our side,” The Queen said. That was the closest to panicked Claire had ever heard her before, “The Ion cannons have held off the warships for too long. The AI is planning something.”
Claire had recently woken up, her energy had been drained from the fight with the Skyframe, and she had to get medical attention when the Queen’s ranks regrouped with the other battalions. She awoke to find out that the Jupitains had stopped pressing their attack, and had retreated through the Lore’s gate, but they surrounded the entire outside of the Lore with warships. They only lost about sixty.
“The shields that defend the Ion cannons are under the Temple, how could they possibly reach that without getting blown out of the sky?” Claire asked.
“The Demons have invaded much more complex defense systems then ours, the only reason we’ve held out so long is because our power is greater than theirs,” An officer said.
“We use Gold matter. Gold matter counters Dark matter,” The Queen explained, “No other society in the Galaxy has it because it’s so rare, and extremely difficult to harvest. Our city protects the three planets that have unharvestable deposits of it, but I fear that the AI who controls them will find a way around our defenses, eventually. The Demons have had… impressive feats throughout their rein.”
“So? We have two Meta-Cores, six Ion cannons, and an army of highly trained soldiers,” Said a merchant near the tent.
“No one gave you permission to speak!” Shouted one of the officers, “This is a royal, military discussion.”
“We’re in tents! Your city is burning! You said that you could keep us safe, yet my trading ship is buried under a mountain of rubble, and the entire outskirts are covered in the Dark’s warship wreckage!”
“Silence!” Ordered a Lore Commander, who was holding a sleek, metal staff. He was Repatitorum, “You have insulted her majesty long enough, any more out of you and I promise you when this is over…”
“No… he’s right, I promised them safety. The Lore promised them, and now all you have to do is look around to see how much those promises are worth.”
“Your Highness, no one could’ve been prepared for this kind of offensive, they destroyed our entire fleet with technology the Cyrisians never even had. They broke through our only Photon cannon… It had been operational for over a hundred years!”
“Magriguard would’ve. He- he would’ve known what to do.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but you keep talking about some kind of AI… I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but the Jupitains, or, Demons, are controlled by a blue man, named Karalus. I’m pretty sure he’s from Neptune.”
“What?” The Commander stroked his scaly chin, “A Neptunian, controlling the Demon Horde? Meta-Gene, I’m sorry but that seems impossible.”
The Queen looked down, thinking, “The Demons, have technology that the Cyrisians never did, and it’s possible that they figured it out because of this… Neptunian, that controls them. The AI syndicate always thought outside of the box, and would’ve never pulled such a reckless strategy like the one that destroyed the Royal Fleet.”
Before anyone could say anything else, a skinny alien, with fur, ran frantically into the tent, “The Demons! The Demons are coming!”
Everyone rushed out of the tent, to see a line of Jupitain warships in a V formation. The one leading the formation was slightly larger, and had thicker armor and shields, with a giant Tesla cannon on the top of the hull, but it looked different.
The Ion cannons fired relentlessly. Click, click, click… booom! One shot after the other, the Ion cannons concentrated fire on the warships. One ship at a time the formation shrunk, one warship shot down after the other. The one in the center, with the giant Tesla cannon, didn’t give in though. It kept its path, until it was in firing range of the Temple… of the shield generator.
“What’s it trying to do?” A soldier asked, “No type of energy is getting through that shield, especially not from a Tesla cannon.”
When some of the dust from the blasts of the Ion cannons cleared, the Queen noticed what the difference was.
She gasped, “It’s using Dark matter!”
The energy at the tip of the barrel started to spiral around it, but instead of blue electricity like in other Tesla cannons, this one combined the extremely deadly energy with Dark matter, which made it incredibly more powerful.
“T-that can’t break through the shield can it?” Claire asked, genuinely concerned.
The Queen didn’t respond; she just watched, in horror.
Zooooouuum... phooooooooom! The energy imploded slightly before it launched from the barrel in a stream of Dark matter and electricity. It smashed into the shield. A chain reaction occurred. Immediately after the beam hit the shield, it collapsed, and destroyed the shield generators beyond repair from the force of impact, leaving the Ion cannons, and the Temple with over a hundred thousand citizens hiding in it, defenseless.
The massive gravity shield projectors were still protected by the Temple’s main shield generator, buried beneath it. The Jupitains were going to try and destroy the entire Temple, which would leave those projectors vulnerable, and the whole Lore susceptible to being sucked into space.
The Jupitains didn’t hesitate. Hundreds of fighters streaked through the sky, ready to rain down fire on the Temple.
“I knew this day would come,” The Queen’s expression stiffened, into hard, cold, rage, “But not today, not during my reign.” She threw her staff into the sky, and it immediately started to transform into, a ship.
It slightly resembled a Jupitain fighter, but it had four wings. One at the top of the cockpit, one at the bottom, one to the left, and another to the right. The wings were long and thin, and at the tip of each wing was a laser cannon. The cockpit looked like a pyramid tilted to its side. There was a door to the cockpit on the back, and two engines at the bottom of the ship. The entire craft was covered in golden patterned paint.
“Claire, help the soldiers, defend the Lore till your last breath, and I promise you, if we claim victory today, we will do everything in our power to save your world,” She jumped to her ship without waiting for an answer, and flew into the fight, blasting Jupitain fighters out of the sky with her quad laser cannons.
Claire looked at the crowd of soldiers, all of them were beaten up, some gravely injured, but they still looked up to her, waiting honorably for her command.
“Well, you’re the Meta-Gene,” Said the Commander, “Our mission is only possible with you.”
Claire gazed at her Meta-Core hand, feeling nothing but strength and confidence with it there. She looked up at the crowd, even some of the citizens that didn’t make it to the Temple were listening, like they were about to fight alongside her.
“Alright, I obviously have less experience in this than all of you…” A Jupitain fighter that was shot down crashed dangerously close to the campsite, trailing a stream of smoke behind it. Everyone ducked. Claire continued, and stood on top of a heap of wreckage, now standing above the crowd, “But I’m ready to fight alongside you all… our shields are down, and we only have two Ion cannons left…” A squadron of Jupitain fighters swooped in and blew one of the Ion cannons to rubble, also destroying a few pillars from the Throne room in the process, making the entire building collapse.
“Make that one, but the main shield generator that protects the Lore from getting sucked into space is still active, and it’s buried beneath the Temple, our mission… is to protect that with everything we’ve got!”
It wasn’t the best speech Claire could give to a bunch of aliens she had just met, but it seemed to of worked enough. They all shouted enthusiastically, ready for battle. The Jupitains tried to deploy troops and hover tanks by the Temple, but the Lore fighters were too powerful, so they had to start from the middle part of the city, just slightly ahead of the destroyed trench line.
“This has to be the entire Jupitain army…” A soldier said, petrified.
“Just… aim for the visor,” Claire replied, not sounding too confident herself.
“Bombers!” Another soldier shouted.
Three Jupitain bombers, escorted by a few Jupitain fighters were speeding straight for the Temple hangar, where thousands of citizens were hiding.
After a few of the fighters went down, the bombers increased their speed. They were going to kamikaze into the hangar. The Queen didn’t let them. She put her fighter into the dead center of the hangar entrance and started firing her fighter’s quad lasers at an incredibly fast rate of fire.
The bomber in the center of the formation exploded, causing the others to do the same. It was blinding. The remaining fighters that were escorting the bombers fled to regroup, but the Queen chased them relentlessly, blowing them all into smoldering metal debris.
“Damn,” A soldier remarked.
These translator spheres do a really good job, thought Claire. She saw the horde of Jupitains through the smoke, “Alright, get ready everybody.”
People found cover behind ruins and wreckage. They took aim and got ready for the impending battle. However, Claire didn’t find cover. She stood at the center of the gate. Her Meta-Core was the only thing she needed; she wasn’t an asteroid clearer anymore. She was a Meta-Gene.
The road leading to the Temple ended at a wide marble staircase, with torch lighted pedestals on the sides, some destroyed. The Jupitains ran through the clearing like animals, charging towards the nearest living thing, roaring. Bloodthirsty. Some held laser rifles, and others just charged with nothing but their claws.
“Fire!” A soldier yelled, two seconds before a Jupitain grabbed his face, slammed it to the ground, and kept pushing until their skull was crushed.
Claire winced and quickly turned her hand into her regular laser cannon. She fired, and hit the Jupitain’s stomach first, which did nothing. She shot again, and blew the visor in two, turning the Jupitain into a puddle.
“Throwing grenade!” A soldier announced from behind a ruined wall. They lobbed it over, into three Jupitains, destroying them. The explosion hurled debris everywhere, hurting the eyesight of some of the soldiers in the front, and giving the Jupitains an advantage. With their visors, they could see through most gaseous substances. They pushed through. Soldiers shouted in pain as the Jupitains viciously gained more ground.
Claire imagined an adjustment to her weapon, and it clicked, forming everything piece by piece, gaining more material from the infinite supply the Meta-Core gave it. She added a second barrel below the first one, and they both turned into miniature Tesla cannons. They started to spin rapidly, energy being emitted from the two barrels until she fired at the center of the Jupitain charge.
A massive pulse of energy disintegrated any Jupitains five feet within the radius of the blast. Any further from that blew them away slightly. The explosion dismembered their ranks until a heavily armored hover tank came in through the smoke.
It aimed, making an automated turning sound whenever it moved.
Claire shrieked. The tank fired. Her Meta-Core seemed to of defended her by reflex because at the speed of sound it projected a strong metal shield, propelled by a small engine, to block the fire, and then immediately wiz into the marble from the blast.
Claire grunted, slamming her Meta-Core hand into the ground. Before the tank could fire again, Claire had created a heavy Gatling gun, lifted by a metal support beam that was connected to the marble. She made a handle for it, grabbed onto it, and held the trigger. Its barrel spun around quickly, then hurled red lasers at a rapid rate of fire, like a minigun. She yelled while firing, aiming at the cloud of smoke that the tank had come from. The tank blew up from the overwhelming firepower, and several Jupitains were blown to the ground, shredded like paper.
After a few seconds of firing, Claire stopped. The wave had ended. Then she heard it, the haunting engine roar of the Jupitain fighters. Three swooped in at the right of the gate’s defense, but before they could rain down fire, they were shredded by the Queen’s overwhelming power. She zoomed through the smoke of the fighter’s explosion, leaving a trail of smoke behind her ship. The remaining soldiers roared with prideful enthusiasm.
The second wave of Jupitains charged in, but they were different. They were something Claire had never seen before.
“Dominators!” Someone shrieked before the claws sliced their throat.
“What the hell… what are those things!?” Claire yelled.
These Jupitains had four arms, and the visor was a small, red glowing circle in the center of their head. Not only was the target to hit smaller, but the four arms made them even more deadly.
They roared and screeched like savages, killing Lore soldiers left and right. Claire’s Gatling gun was emitting smoke from the barrel, and wouldn’t fire.
“Rrgghh,” Claire grunted. Her eyes were starting to get heavy. She aimed her hand towards one of the Jupitain Dominators and turned it into a laser cannon. After she fired once, the barrel flipped back into the sphere, charged for two seconds, then went back to the firing position, and shot again. She killed two before she looked at the crowd, dazed.
A soldier was on fire, screaming. Jupitains were everywhere, climbing the stairs, tearing through soldiers, civilians. Everyone.
“Not today,” Claire grunted, “Not-today…” Phoom, phoom, phoom! Three shots, three dead Jupitains. A regular Jupitain jumped at her, but she smashed its face with her laser cannon, and cracked its visor, then destroyed it completely when it fell to the ground. She blew her hair out of her face and kept walking down the stairs, blasting every Jupitain in the way. Another tank came through the clearing and fired at Claire before she saw it.
The Meta-Core didn’t react this time; the split second responses required her to have energy, and hers… was all used up. She was blown back by the explosion, and the Temple gate exploded, leaving a giant hole in the cente
r. Blood trickled down Claire’s forehead. She coughed up blood and put her normal hand on her stomach. It was warm. Too warm. Blood streamed out of a large hole in her stomach. She laid there, at the stairs.
She wasn’t ready for this. Wasn’t prepared to die. She let out a tear, grunting desperately.
“No…” She whispered.
The Queen shouted a battle cry from the cockpit of her ship. She blew the tank up; all quad lasers focused on the same target. The turret of the tank exploded, and the hover tank fell to the ground with a clunk.
The four wings on the Queen’s fighter inverted, and the ship landed by the destroyed tank, crushing a few Jupitains in the process. The Queen jumped from the cockpit, and used her Meta-Core staff as a sword, slashing through the Jupitains until she could clear a path to Claire.
She rushed to her and kneeled by her side, “You’re not going anywhere.”
Claire raised her eyebrows, nothing but intense fear in her expression, then closed her eyes. The Queen snatched a tiny vial of Gold matter out of her war jacket pocket, with a needle connected to the tip of it, and stabbed her arm with it. Then, she grabbed Claire’s forehead and closed her eyes. Gold matter illuminated them with a blinding glow through her eyelids, making it seem like they weren’t even closed.
The shining Golden fluid flowed through her veins, through her hand, and into Claire. Claire’s eyes started to glow bright golden yellow. She coughed, then gasped for air. Energy flowed through her veins. The Queen kept her hand on Claire’s forehead.
Connect with me! The Queen thought to Claire, through an ancient Lore, mind-connecting technique, created by the Repatitorums.
Wha-are… are you in my head? Claire thought back through the mind-link.
Do exactly what I tell you to, this will only work if we are connected, as long as the Gold matter flows through you and me, we can make a limitless creation… The Queen answered.
United We Stand Page 23