Titan Fleet: The Invictus

by Jason J Black

  Pace’s fighter, with shields and thrusters at full, is blown backwards at such a speed he loses consciousness. The shields fail in a second and the heat from the blast melts the bottom of the fighter to a molten metal mass of red lava. The ship spins like a windmill, smashing along the ground, being pushed along by the blasts energy wave, until the fighter comes to a grinding halt on its side against an outcrop of rocks, setting the shrubs there alight. The thousands of blues around the mansion have been destroyed for a mile radius, but more are on their way, especially now that two of their leaders were slain in the blast.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  “Nova, I got it.” yells Rusty through the comms. “I’ve set it free out the rear hatch; it’s floating near the alien Titan. Let’s get out of here.” Happy that he has found the beacon, Rusty holds on to the step ladder to the hatch, waiting for Nova to move off at speed. Nova has just witnessed seeing the mansion explode and the tracker on Paces armour going off line. She has even tracked the fighter, but that is also a wreck.

  Rusty yells down the comms to Nova. “Let’s kick it now or we are toast!” Nova burns the engines at full, but the blast from the PD1 just behind the ship, propels them forward but also knocks their cloaking device off line. The explosion, and the ship now being visible, attracts the attention of the alien Titan ship once again and it begins to rain down fire on the Invictus, which is speeding away as fast as they can. More of the PD1 missiles hit the Titan ship and weakened from the battle before, it begins to break up the more that it is hit, but as the last missile hits the hull and explodes, cracking the Titan like an egg, a smaller vessel shoots out of the back, heading in the opposite direction at great speed.

  “Damn it, they are getting away, I’m gonna finish them!” cries Nova, tears pouring down her face and she is about to turn the ship around when she is stopped by Sam

  “What’s wrong? Stop. We have won, we are free, and we have saved so many people today.” Breaking down totally, Nova can barely answer as she brings the ship to a sudden halt.

  “Pace is gone. His suit tracker stopped. Noooo! Why is it always us? This ship is cursed. I hate it.” Nova brings her fist down hard on Pace’s chair.

  Sam runs over to Nova and embraces her with a warm hug of love. “Everyone dies, but he made a difference with the time he had, you should be proud to have known him, think of all the good times. You’re our captain now, finish his work. We are all here for you, don’t worry.”

  Nova lifts her head from Sam’s chest. “You’re right, I know, it’s just … We have lost so much, it hurts so bad.” Nova wipes her eyes and sucks in a gasp of air to steady herself once again. “We need to get to the meeting point to catch up with Cassy and tell her the news. It’s just not fair; she has only just found him.” The engines glow once more as they head towards the meeting point.

  Chapter Eighty

  Warning buzzers sound. They are faint at first, growing louder and louder as Pace begins to come around, his head spinning like a Waltzer ride at a fairground. He reaches up to release the canopy lever and the canopy fires off away from the fighter, doing a few flips as it goes, making lines in the sand. Pace falls out onto the ground. A piece of molten metal is now stuck to his metal arm and goes unnoticed as it welds itself to his shoulder plate.

  He lies on his back, grateful that he is alive. He wonders how he survived the blast at all. The air rushes in and out of his lungs and he looks up at the clouds floating past, forgetting the world for a few moments and forgetting all his worries. He even sees the shape of a face that reminds him of an old school pal.

  In this time, led flat out on his back, Pace feels rested again. There are two different colours of blood all over him. He had been impaled, cut, bruised and broken, and there he was alive, but with no possible escape.

  Pace closes his eyes for a few moments while the sun’s rays wash over his body, warming his soul and making him smile again.

  Images of Megan appear and her smile glowing at him. She was walking towards him in a poppy field, her red hair blowing in a gentle breeze, her hips swaying when she walked. It was peaceful there … until the peace is broken by a blue destroying the poppies, running towards her, and the look of fear on her face, as Pace wakes with a jolt, spitting out blue blood in the process.

  He was barely alive it seemed. Blood had stained the cockpit and was now pooling on the floor. He could now hear screeches of blues coming from behind his head, so slowly he turns over onto his belly and looks forward, to see blues running in his direction, too many to count. Pace somehow finds the strength to rise to his feet. If he is going to die, he will do it fighting.

  Pace staggers back towards the fighter to prop himself up tall, standing strong, blood dripping down his body and arms. The approaching blues do not know what to make of him. Now Pace has no suit, or gauntlet, or sword, just his metal arm and alien strength. Leaning back onto the wing of the fighter, he puts his hand onto a broken bar that was loose and easy to get free. This would be a great metal weapon with its sharp edges. Pace lifts it up and stands up straight and smashes the first small blue with it, gouging out part of its face with one swing. The creature flies to the left onto the floor.

  The second blue launches in the air and Pace impales it through the chest and then punches it off the bar, to free up its use once again. Two more blues launch air-born attacks at Pace, and are broken before they hit the ground in a bloody mess. Creature after creature falls, making a circular pile of bodies around the front of the fighter.

  Pace cannot be touched. He is fighting for his life and his mind is clear. He has killed over twenty blues now, and then a large blue comes running in at full speed and with nowhere to go, Pace is hit backwards into the wing. Regaining his feet, he pulls on a power cable and wraps it around the creature’s neck and in one movement runs up the creature’s chest and jumps over its back, snapping its neck with a battle cry that puts off the next wave of blues.

  “Come on, fight me!” Shouts Pace, and as he shouts a red mist appears around him. It begins to spin faster, circling him and then it begins to pass through him, like it did on the leader alien before. Every blue in the area stops their advance and steps backwards in fear. They had seen this many times before and usually it was bad news. Pace was frightened, but at the same time intrigued as to what may happen. Was he going to explode? It did not matter; he was not getting off the planet.

  Suddenly, bolts of red lightning jumped from his body into the surrounding blues and they fell to the floor and began to shrivel up, turning into grey balls as the life was sucked out of them. Pace was beginning to feel better. His wounds seemed to be healing with every blue that fell.

  He began to walk forward and the blue aliens parted around him, fearing him. Even the giant blues moved quickly out of his way. Maybe they would leave him alone now. They did not want to follow him. Pace walked back towards the broken Titan, in the hope he could use something to signal someone, and if there was nothing there, then on to White Crest. The blues did not follow him and the red mist began to disappear from around him.

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Eve’s eyes open and she finds herself in a room, hanging from the ceiling over red coloured murky pungent water that makes her feel sick. The pipe has gone from her mouth now, but metal wires have entered her body all over. They were painful when she tried to move. She was cold and barely dressed, and she could hear the moans and groans of other humans on the ship. The room is dimly lit and she cannot see the walls. There is a small computer in front of her, which has a beam of light illuminating it. Stood behind it is a tall blue creature, around seven feet tall, who looks up every now and then at her.

  “What are you doing to me?” asks a scared Eve. No answer is given, but the wires feel like they are drilling into her deeper. Two more wires drift down from the darkness above her, and one begins to drill into Eve’s ear, slowly splashing blood down the side of her face. Eve screams out loud in absolute agony as her hearing fails in th
at ear. The pain is incredible as she clenches her fists to try to weather this storm, thinking it will all be over soon.

  A second blue enters the room and points at Eve. Its silver metal fingers glimmer in the false light. Eve can smell rotting flesh out of her left nostril. Stuck up her right nostril is an oxygen pipe so that she could breathe. The green gas in the air floated around like old pub smoke, and as the two blues spoke in a screeching kind of sound, she knew more trouble was ahead for her, especially when a larger pipe was being dragged along the floor towards her by the two blues and a light beamed down from above.

  As Eve looks up, a hatch opens above her and a single robotic arm lowers into the room and grips Eve by the head. She could not struggle now, even if she wanted. Tears begin to run down Eve’s face and her body begins to shake in fear. The metal drills start to unwind slowly from Eve’s skin and retract away out of sight, and Eve begins to bleed, adding to the ooze beneath her. She reaches up and grabs hold of the robotic arm, taking some of the pressure off her neck. The two aliens were working just a couple of feet below her, attaching the pipe to another pipe in the ooze. Bending over, a very long tongue from one of the blues dips into the pungent bloody slime and small suckers began to savour the taste as it took a few moments enjoying its meal.

  The creature then stood up straight and reached up to Eve’s dangling leg and pulled her downwards to get a better look at her, the robotic arm still gripping at her head. The creature looked Eve straight in the eyes with its own orange eyes. They did not blink and its smell made Eve gag. The creature’s tongue once again slid out from its mouth, showing its red stained teeth. Its tongue met with Eve’s face and slid over it finding blood to taste.

  Eve brought down her two arms from above her head and grabbed the creatures tongue and gouged at one of his orange eyes. It let out a high pitched scream, but its tongue just wrapped around Eve’s hand, pulling it into its mouth, where its jaw clamped down on Eve’s hand with what seemed to be ten tons of pressure and billions of teeth. As she pulled back in pain, her hand was left inside the creature’s mouth and it chewed happily. As Eve looked at the now bloody stump, and grabs the end of it with her other hand to try to stop the bleeding, she begins to feel dizzy and sick. The pain was disappearing as she entered shock. She could hear a high pitched screaming in the distance, but when she looked down, she realised the screaming was hers. The creatures eye, that had been hanging out on his face, was now back in its head and it was healing itself at great speed.

  Then, shocking Eve, the creature spoke, “The deal was, you gave us people to eat and we gave you a chance to live. We have destroyed many worlds and many beings, but you were the only species that wanted to work for us. We had an endless supply of food and then you betrayed us by trying to escape your planet, and now you are all doomed, your race will be no more.”

  Eve begins to laugh, spitting out blood in the process. “You may think you will destroy us, but we have an edge over you and that is the spirit to survive. Now get on with it and kill me. I don’t have time to acquaint myself with scum.” Eve tries to kick the blue with her foot but misses.

  The blue replies, as he licks the final bit of blood from its mouth. “We will find the ones who have escaped, they will be a tasty meal, but as for you, we will make your final days as slow and painful as we can, as your punishment.” The creature presses a few buttons on the computer and Eve, now giddy, begins to move upward towards the light and the opening above.

  She enters a tube, where she is dragged along at such a speed her stomach gets knotted up and she begins to be sick, her vomit lining the inside of the tube behind her. All the while, the robotic arm is clutching her head tightly with its serrated fingers. She is freezing cold, which was a good thing as she could not feel pain now, which was a blessing.

  The robot arm comes to a halt and another door opens below her, and she is dropped into a dark room with a green tinge. Her oxygen tube is ripped from her nose and lungs, which causes discomfort as she falls and hits a hard cold floor with a thud and she sprains an ankle, but she could breathe in this room at least. She feared to move as she sat defeated on the floor, tearing some of her blouse to begin to wrap the stump to try to stop the bleeding. It was so dark she could not see any further than two feet away from her, but what she could see was bones littering the floor and not just human bones.

  Then Eve’s ears catch a grumbling, growling sound from a few feet away and grabbing for a large bone on the floor, she feels her heart begin to race as she then hears something begin to walk around in the room, sniffing and clawing at old bones, obviously looking for food. Eve grips the bone in her hand and decides to stay as still and quiet as she can, but she needs to find a way out of this room. She is breathing deeply and trying to slow herself down, when the footsteps grow closer and closer. She can feel the warmth in the air change around her when the thing is stood right next to her, sniffing at the air and ground looking for food. Eve holds her breath and the thing loses interest and wonders off, scratching as it goes. Eve can only imagine how big it was and how a bone would be useless against it. Then a tiny dot of a light flashes twice and then twice more in the darkness, and Eve, cradling her arm against her chest, turns onto her hand and knees and slowly begins to make her way towards the light, through all the bones, trying not to make a sound.

  It takes some time, but she is just two feet away when she hears a quiet voice say, “It’s ok, follow me, shush.” The small light flashes every few minutes, so Eve can follow it, and eventually it stops and a large bang behind Eve shakes her bones with fright.

  “It’s ok, lights coming on now, cover your eyes, ok.” One by one, tiny lights appear in the room lighting the corners, which in turn lights the whole room with a dim red glow, but enough to see what is in the room. Sat in one of the corners is a small boy, who is dressed all in black. Another human survivor, thought Eve.

  “Thanks. Who are you, little one?” Eve is now sat on the floor, resting, looking around the room, which seemed safe for the time being. The boy is very shy and is only half facing Eve. He coughs as Eve tries to move closer to him to comfort him.

  “Stay away from me, don’t come no closer, please.” shouts the boy.

  “Ok, ok, it’s ok. What’s your name?” Eve stops shuffling and sits, still holding her hand tight. Now that she was getting warm again, the pain was intensifying once more.

  “I think it is Stephen, I can’t remember, what’s yours?” Eve tries to get a closer look at the boy, but to her tired eyes he is just a boy dressed in black in the corner.

  “Eve is my name. I am Prime Lady on Foloss. Haven’t you heard of me?”

  The boy looks up quickly at Eve. “Yes, you are the one that put my family here when my parents stole some food so we could eat, and in that other room is my father and mother. They did not make it. If you are lucky, you may survive a while down here, but if I had known who you were I would have let you rot. You used us, and now I’m going to use you.” Eve looks at the boy, who is now stood up. Where his left arm used to be, there were now two tendrils, and the black clothing was just the boy’s charred skin, burned and scared and dirty.

  The boy walked over to Eve. “See what you did to us. I’m lucky to have survived the challenge this far. They experimented on me, cut me, bled me dry a few times and set monsters onto me, to see how I would do. So the next room, you can go in first and take a chance.” Eve feels disgusted with herself, but what was done had to be done, she thought to herself, once again denying the evil doings as anything but to better mankind.

  Lying, she touches the boy on his human shoulder. “I am so sorry, my dear boy, but it was not my choice. The General was holding my children to ransom, and I had to do these things to get them back. I hate myself for it, I really do.” Pouring out crocodile tears, which Eve had used so many times before, she persuades the boy it was not her fault, and the boy asks Eve a question while looking into her teary eyes.

  “Did you get to see your chil
dren again?”

  Eve replies with a shake in her upset voice. “No, they may be here for all I know. I had a little boy and little girl. Perhaps we may find them, you said something about the next room.” The boy walks over to the other door on the far side of the room and taps on it with his finger.

  “One room after the next. Some rooms, there are supplies and some rooms there are monsters, it’s the chance you take. You could starve staying in one room or eaten in the next, who knows. It may be freedom behind this next door. It’s ok; I have been playing this game for a long time now.” The boy’s tendrils wrap around the rusty handle on the door, readying to open it for Eve.

  “Are you ready, Eve?” Eve can hardly stand. She has lost a lot of blood, but the food and supplies had been used in this room and it was better to keep moving, and now there were two of them.

  “Can I get one of those lights, Stephen, in case I get lost in the dark again?” Stephen passes Eve a small light source and she clips it onto her skirt loop in front of her so she could use it, instead of holding it, she needed her hand free to hold the bone weapon. Eve takes a deep breath and Stephen opens the door to the next room and she walks in to it first, while Stephen stands in the doorway, afraid to enter.

  The room looked like a science lab, very clean and there were a few oxygen tanks in the corner of the room, and a counter with a body on it under a white sheet. The sheet was blood stained and as Eve walked over to it to investigate, the door closed behind her, trapping her in the room. Stephen peered through the small window in the door with interest.