United We Stand

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United We Stand Page 35

by Christian Messe


  “Whatever your planning to do here, I can assure you, it will fail. The Lore has fallen, and it doesn’t feel too good does it? Watching your own city burn, helpless to put out the flame.” Karalus said, rage boiling inside of him at the thought of his plan failing.

  “You’re going to die for what you did to my kingdom, Karalus,” The Queen grimaced.

  “Karalus chuckled, “Well, at least we have something in common I guess,” he said simply, while brushing the dust off his war jacket with his hands, “You’re fighting for the wrong cause. You can’t see it now, but I’m freeing everyone, from the suffering the Demons have brought them. Can’t you understand that?” Karalus asked, his voice wavering.

  The Queen snickered, “You’re not doing this for anyone else Neptunian, you’re a self-righteous, egocentric, psychopath. And soon… a dead man.”

  “Now now,” Karalus said, panicking a little, “Is that what Elena would’ve wanted? For you to make a helpless race like mine, extinct?”

  The Queen’s expression went from smug to infuriated, “How the hell do you know that name?”

  “Does the… Galaxy’s edge ring any bells?” Karalus taunted.

  The Queen transformed her Meta-Core into a sword, and went into a battle ready stance, “Tell me… how you know her name,” She growled, enraged.

  “It wasn’t the AI who attacked that day your highness. It was me, and killing the heir to the throne… the throne of the Lore. It was nothing but exhilarating. I wonder what would’ve happened if she had become Queen instead of you, maybe she would’ve been able to defend the, ‘magnificent’ city of the Lore, without losing the lives of millions…”

  The Queen roared, and charged at Karalus, but he cockily waved his arm in the air, and pressed a button on a wrist-module touchpad connected to his right arm. He turned invisible the second he pressed it. The Queen slashed at where he had been, but she wasn’t quick enough. He had disappeared.

  “She begged me you know, begged me to make the pain go away…” Karalus taunted, from the shadows.

  The Queen lunged at where she had heard the noise, but didn’t hit anything. She was furious.

  “If only you had agreed to surrender, maybe then, she could’ve still been here. Been the ruler, of a completely free, and prosperous galaxy, away from this Kelisian… stain.”

  The Queen lunged at the direction the voice had come from again, but, hit nothing. She was panting, and looking around frantically, her hair out of place, and frazzled.

  Then, she was punched in the face by an invisible force, and her Meta-Core sword was knocked out of her hand. She stepped back, holding the side of her face that had been hit. She growled, and started to look around, but then, she was kicked in the back of the knee, and fell slightly. Before she could get back up, she was punched in the face again, and this time, fell completely to the floor, spinning a little.

  Karalus started to laugh hysterically, “No wonder that compass didn’t choose you first, the Lore’s a bigger joke than I thought! I’m one man, one man who has kept the entire galaxy on its KNEES, for almost forty years! All the innovations, all the advancements, nothing, has stopped me, and nothing will ever stop me, from claiming the virtuous end my people deserve!

  The Queen grunted, and wobbled as she tried to get up, but Karalus kicked her back down to the ground. He bent over, and grabbed the back of the Queen’s head, then slammed her face into the ground. He whispered into her ear, “You lost a sister. I lost my little Ranoah, along with fourteen billion different futures.” He let go, and stood up straight, and shut-off his invisibility field. “Fourteen billion people, with aspirations, and dreams. Raw, limitless potential. You have no idea what that kind of pain feels like. To lose, everything. You should be grateful, because I’m going to make sure that everyone goes out with a bang, as quickly as possible. It’s not fair for me, because I’m granting everyone else a quick, painless end. I… I wasn’t so lucky.”

  The Queen stammered, then roared. She kicked Karalus over, and jumped to her feet. She grabbed her Meta-Core sword, turned it into a spear, and thrusted it towards Karalus. She was able to stab him right through the stomach just barely.

  He shrieked, tore the spearhead out of his chest with both hands, and kicked the Queen away. Then, he clenched his right fist, and the module he had used for his invisibility field, formed a small ball of blue energy around his fist. It spun around his fingers and wrist wildly, blindingly bright. Then, he punched the Queen in the stomach. The energy inside of his fist, made from the module, sent the Queen flying through the bridge’s windshield, into the vacuum of space.

  The bridge fixed itself with an emergency shield again, leaving Karalus there, standing in the center of the bridge, holding the hole in his stomach, and panting. He looked at his hand, which was burned by the electric-like blue energy, and covered in blood. He shook it slightly, then said to a nearby Jupitain, “Start the Amplifier.” After he said that, he limped out of the bridge, his right hand steaming.

  Suddenly, the mothership’s engine booster started to spin around rapidly, the trillions of gears and mechanisms all snapping and clanking together. A surge of electric energy erupted from the engine booster, and the blue particles whizzed and snapped in every direction. The booster was starting to spin around at the speed of sound.

  Admiral Smith watched the ship from the bridge, squinting. Then he saw the giant sparks of electricity being emitted from the engine booster, and his eyes widened, “Shields! Shields at maximum power towards the…”

  Pwooouuum! The mothership burst into I-Hypotonic warp in a fraction of a millisecond, but Karalus made a tweak. The burst of energy was charged by the Tesla Amplifier, causing a ball of energy to expand at the speed of light in every direction, destroying both fleets like an incredibly fast tsunami. Large ships like the U.W.S. Titan took massive damage, but almost every other United Worlds ship was utterly obliterated, along with over six hundred other Jupitain warships.

  The Queen had formed a Meta-Core shell around her body, but she wasn’t blown away from the blast. Karalus’s mothership had passed both his own, and the United World’s fleets, which meant that the back of his ship, where the engine booster was, had only effected what was behind it, and not what was in front.

  More heavily armored Jupitain ships were blown away from the battlefield, but still functioned. Every fighter, except for the Queen’s, and all the GT-67s, and a pocketful of United Worlds and Jupitain ones, were destroyed by the blast immediately.

  Karalus didn’t care about his own fleet. He just wanted to make sure no one could chase him.

  CHAPTER 20

  Lewis’s hijacked Jupitain warship had taken significant damage. Barely any of its functions were working anymore, and a fire had started in the engine booster, causing a cloud of thick smoke to emit from it. Almost all the weapon systems were offline, and the laser turrets that had covered the hull were now wreckage. Their Ion cannon had been blown through the middle of the barrel, and all that remained of it was the foundation.

  Everyone in the bridge was silent, panting, until Samung broke the silence, “That could’ve gone a lot worse.”

  “Or a lot better,” Reverend mumbled bitterly.

  Samung jabbed him with his elbow slightly.

  Lewis didn’t say anything. He grunted angrily, then hit the useless control pad with his fist. Part of him wanted to just sit down in a ball, and cry, “They’re doomed…” He finally started, “Nine years of preparation couldn’t even stop them, it’s… it’s pointless. We’re done, finished.”

  “Woah woah now,” Samung started, “We can’t just give…”

  “No, no!!” Lewis interrupted, “I had hoped, that the genocide I lived through would never happen again… I grew up watching humanity rebuild from literally ashes, and now it’s all over,” Lewis chuckled to himself, “To think I thought a nobody like me could stop some genius with a trillion Jupitains… it’s a joke. He won, we lost.”

  Abigail slapped
him in the back of the head, “Get your shit together!” She yelled, “Five minutes ago you were the most inspirational person I had ever met, and now you’re willing to give up cause of a little setback?!”

  “It’s a pretty… massive setback, actually,” Reverend said.

  “Shut up,” Abigail snapped at him, “Lewis, for an asteroid clearer or whatever, your one hell of a pilot, like seriously, you just swerved through Karalus’s entire fleet, and we’re all still alive… as long as we’re still breathing, we’re fighting. Fighting not just for Earth, or for the United whatever, but for the entire Galaxy! I don’t think I can stress that enough.”

  Lewis looked at her, still feeling helpless. “How?”

  She frowned. She didn’t really know either, but that didn’t stop her inspiration. Before she could come up with an answer, the faint sound of the clicking of an Ion cannon echoed from a distance. Imp ran to the bridge’s windshield and looked out. The ship had turned during its glide away from Karalus’s fleet, and it was angled enough to have the crew on the bridge see five Jupitain warships, coming right for them. Imp’s eyes opened wide from shock. Before the first warship fired, he shouted, “Ion cannon!!”

  Everyone in the bridge looked at Imp, frantically. They didn’t have time to react. An Ion burst collided with the hull of the warship, and without any shields, the entire ship shook. The armor was thick, but an Ion burst could break right through the hull if it didn’t have shields. A series of hallways were blown up, leaving a giant hole in the ship.

  Lewis sprinted for the central control pad. He turned on everything that worked. A few stabilizers turned on and propelled the ship. It veered to the left, dodging another Ion burst just barely. Abigail started to run towards the bridge exit door.

  “Where are you going?!” Lewis shouted.

  She didn’t look back, “The hangar.”

  She sprinted through hallways, the lights constantly flickering, and emergency alarms blaring. She made it to the hangar entrance, but an explosion from outside of the ship pushed her into a wall. She grabbed it and hoisted herself upright. She looked in the hangar. Everyone was panicking, some of the aliens were in Jupitain fighters, yelling.

  “Everybody follow me!” She yelled, “We’re under attack, get in your fighters now!”

  Nobody argued, and if they did the sound was drowned out from the explosions outside. Abigail jumped into the first functioning fighter she saw and started tapping the control pad. The fighter’s engine roared to life, and in seconds, she was upright and hovering in the air. She tapped into the communication channel and started talking, “Once everyone’s inside a fighter, we need someone to go to the hangar’s bridge, and open the exit gate.

  “I got it,” Someone said. An alien got out of his fighter and ran to the hangar bridge’s elevator. It was broken, “It’s jammed!” He said through a communication link.

  Abigail bit her lip, “One sec,” She turned around, and hovered slightly above the ground. She flew, barely above the alien. “Grab on!” She yelled.

  “You're serious?!” He asked loudly.

  “Yes, grab on!” She shouted, getting frantic that this was taking so long.

  He jumped up and grabbed the tip of the fighter’s bottom wing. He held on tight, easing his fingers into one of the wing’s creases. The fighter lifted itself higher until it was high enough for the alien to get into the hangar’s bridge. He swayed back and forwards, then leaped through the bridge’s glass windshield, shattering it. He fell to the ground inside it, rolling over control boards.

  “Are you ok?!” Abigail asked frantically.

  The alien got up, and looked around, but didn’t say anything.

  “What’s wrong?” She asked, “Are you hurt?”

  “If I open the hangar doors… there won’t be anything protecting me from the vacuum.”

  A grim realization washed over Abigail, “You… you don’t have to do this…” She started.

  He shook his head, “No, I do… have to activate this shield that forms around the bridge in case of an engine heat overload in the hangar.”

  Abigail gaped, “Are you frickin’ kidding me?!” The alien smiled broadly; his teeth were shiny white. He pressed a button on a control board, and a thin shield developed around the control center. “Good to go!” He shouted.

  Abigail shook her head smiling. An explosion from outside turned her attention back to the battle, “Is everyone ready?!” She asked through the communication channel. A few dozen voices answered back affirmatively.

  “Open the gate,” she said.

  The alien in the hangar’s bridge nodded. He opened the hangar gate, and the two massive double doors started to open, revealing the five Jupitain warships firing at them.

  “Attack!!” Abigail shouted.

  Thirty-six Jupitain fighters flew out of the hangar and sped towards the five warships. The communication channel was flooded with strategic ideas, and commands, and also people expressing their doubts. The fighters formed a small spiral like formation, speeding towards the warships in a line. The Ion cannons picked off two of them in seconds.

  There were four regular Jupitain warships, and another one that stood out. It was heavily armored and had more weapons. It was bigger too.

  “Go for the one to the far left, all together! We’ll take out the little ones first!”

  “Hear you loud and clear, moving in!” Someone said.

  “Oh, we’re so dead…”

  “Let’s do thi…” Boom! The fighter the person that was speaking was in blew up after a laser cannon fired on it.

  “Evasive action!” Another alien said, “We can’t just focus on one target, I need half of you to follow me, we’ll take on one side of the warship, while her half destroys the other!”

  “Who’re you?” The voice of the rusty robot-like alien asked, “Why should we do that?”

  “Just trust me. I know what will work!”

  “Alright,” Abigail said, “Split up and follow him, we’ll attack both sides of the warship. I hope your right about this.”

  “I know I am,” he said.

  The fighters split up into two lines and descended above both sides of the Jupitain warship. The turrets fired relentlessly, destroying a few fighters while they were trying to get into position, but not causing much damage to the formation. The two lines of fighters started to fire barrages of laser fire at the hull.

  The shield wasn’t strong enough to resist an attack on both sides, and it broke before the first attack even ended. When the fighters reached the stern of the warship, they turned back around and fired on it again. They blew through the hull and destroyed the main engine booster. The ship was dead in space, bested by its own technology.

  They tried the same tactic for the second warship, and it worked. Jupitains were sucked into space as the hull walls were breached, but artillery from the other three warships was picking off the fighters faster than they could attack. They were down to twenty-five.

  “We can’t keep using the same strategy; we’re losing too many people!” Abigail said as she dodged turret fire.

  “I know, I know, just let me think…” The alien that had taken charge said. He didn’t say anything for about five seconds until he suddenly got an idea, “I got it!” He said excitedly, “These fighters have the capability to go into I-Hypotonic warp, but they can’t collide with anything at that speed because the molecules simply ignore it…”

  “Where’re you going with this?” Someone asked.

  “We can activate the fighter’s Hypotonic engine, but not go at light speed… if enough of us push on the hull, the speed should move that giant warship, and smash it right into the other two.”

  “Like a battering ram…” Abigail finished.

  “Sure, whatever that is,” The alien said, “From the size of that thing, we’ll need about twenty fighters.”

  “How do you know the force against the hull won’t just crush us?” Someone asked.

  “It
won’t, the forward shields will block the integrity.”

  “This guy just knows everything,” someone said.

  The alien didn’t say anything.

  Two more fighters were shot down, but the closest to the heavily armored Jupitain warship went through with the plan. Twenty of them slammed into the hull of the ship, causing the pilots to shake from the force of the collision. Abigail was one of them.

  “Alright, see the blue symbol on the bottom left of the control pad? Press that, but don’t hold it! That’ll take you to Hypotonic, and you’ll go right through without scratching it,” The alien took a deep breath, “Three… two… one!!”

  Everyone pressed the button, and from the outside it looked like a ripple effect, everyone starting at a different time. The engine roared and spun around at the speed of light. Blue fire began to come out of the engines, and the entire cockpit lit up with blue light. The fighters were too low for the turrets to hit them, so they pushed the warship with ease. Without gravity, the warship glided perfectly, the twenty fighters making its path inescapable. The warship tried to activate its main engine, but it was too late.

  It slammed into the first Jupitain warship to its right, sending fragments everywhere, crippling its hull like a piece of glass. Its heavy armor was breaking through its own ships. Then it slammed into the last warship, causing explosions through the entire structure. The hangars were all destroyed before any Jupitain fighters could get out to defend. They pushed the warship until it had rendered the other two completely useless.

  “This one’s still working! It’s a heavy-class, extremely durable… we won’t be able to destroy it with the weapons we have right now, but, but we could destabilize it, cause it's systems to deactivate!” The alien said, “Everyone break off, and shoot where I tell you!”

  “Alright, you heard the man,” Another alien started, “Let’s do this!”

 

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